i miss the water features, sounds silly but it was quite enchanting as a child, now it's just a sterile white generic shopping centre. :(

It's mental to think people in the video who were in their early 30s then are now in their early 60s!!!! Perfect example of never take time for granted because it's over before you even realise what happened!

When the Metrocentre was unique! These days it's just another generic shopping centre. That video nicely captures the centre as it was.

As a kid (born 1986) this place was magic! Could spend a whole day there it was brilliant. Many MANY happy hours spent in Metroland or traipsing round after my mum in M&S. now as a 34 year old I’m in and out of there as quickly as possible it’s so clinical 😭

I really miss it looking like this, I liked the themed villages too, they should have kept it where it had fountains and plants but just modernised it and made the plants real.

I wish it was still like that..

Wow, just wow. I’d totally forgotten how it used to look with the balloons, trees and water feature (remember the chlorine smell from it😄)

God, how i wish i could step into this video and embrace my past again.

Why they took all the trees and water features out I have no idea! It was amazing back in the day, just how I remember it as a kid

I watch this from time to time for a nostalgic buzz. Others will never know how much this place shaped our childhoods ❤

The metro still doesn’t run to the metro centre 😂

Metro centre is a load of bollocks now like. This looks like a proper enjoyable unique shopping centre and it was until they took out metro land

I remember when I was a bairn, and me mam used to take is there during the day. I used to love the little bridge over the river and big plastic rocks and water fall, where I'd hoy a penny in and make a wish. Good old childhood ey. Now with its white walls and empty halls, you'd be hard pressed making any happy memories there.

I miss the older Metro. Red Balloon café above ASDA. Bowlin Alley next to Lazer Quazer. Escalator goin up to Metroland. UCI cinema. Even Toys'R'Us over the way...

1987 was my first year of freedom and independence from my family. I was 17 years of age and having fun. I lived in Cambridgeshire back then and used to travel regular for the next 13 years to Scotland by train passing by over the River Tyne and what a spectacular view!! I stopped in Newcastle once back then. I remember the Newcastle beer I drank while I was visiting. These were happy times and still are for me now at 51. Never right your self off and never take things for granted. Never waste your life away like many I knew did because your life could be over and you can regrett it. At least I can look back with good memories.

Back then, you could never have foreseen the future of computers and internet, and neither could you have foreseen the effect that they had and that as a consequence, in just a few short years, iconic and legendary shops like BHS, C&A, Dixons, Comet, Woolworths, Debenhams, ToysRus, and countless others, would be out of business, never to be seen again. Those shops were rammed full, and today you'd be lucky to get 10% of those numbers. Like I said, who could have foreseen the future then? I miss those days.

Was such a lovely place to work in, or to spend a few hours of leisuretime back in the day, and it had a certain classiness about it. And it was always kept spotlessly clean. Fast forward 25 years, and it's a lot different now, clinical, sparse, cold, and uninviting. Thanks Intu!

I remember it being like this. I miss the water fountains. And I miss.metroland. Bring metroland back. Call it metroland 2! All the people in there 30s and me will be going back. Not all the kids. This our childhood... Not there's! 😂

16 in 1987… Metrocentre was the place to be!🎉😂

Born in Winlaton in 1985, spent much of my youth here. Lovely memories particularly walking round with my Grandma, shopping, helping her with bags then she’d treat me to dinner at Littlewoods cafe. 25 years since she passed away and this has brought it all back.

I never got to witness the metro centre in the eighties, I was a 90s child.. and even then the metro centre was a million times better than it is now, this actually made me feel sick to my stomach, just thinking this is the world my parents were living when they were my age, and to think most of the lovely people will be gone now, it's heartbreaking.

Memories are the only thing we take with us when we're gone, cherish them.. there all that will be left 🥺

Remember going as a kid with me mam Christmas shopping to spend the money she had saved all year fantastic memories back then I seem to go all the time now and can't stand the place

I miss this so much! The memories 😭

‘If you become lost or separated from friends or family, meet under the clock in town square one’

These were the best days! I loved the greenery and the independent stalls dotted all over the mall. Now it's been stripped of all its individuality.

What an absolute nostalgic treat! I loved the MetroCentre as a kid, and it wasn't christmas for me if we hadn't visited. Santa's grotto was in middle, sunken in the floor with glittery polyester snow blankets. They should bring back the trees and water features

it's honestly quite sad looking at it now

Who would have thought that filming this back then would turn out to be a bit of social history , In the early years it was an amazing place , rich with trees and foliage , a really great feel to the place it even had uniformed security guards patrolling the centre like a local police force watching out for antisocial behaviour and such ..they were from a company called "Burns security " as I recall ...not now though to expensive to have guys in unifiorms walking around not earning the owners anything ...many of the trees have gone the nice feel has gone now it's just a giant indoor space which just want people to spend and be consumers ..shame as in it's day it was a genuine "experience" to go there . thanks for the upload

I wish I could've been around to see it like this. It looked so warm and inviting. I do still enjoy going to the Metrocentre now, but seeing videos like this makes me wish it still looked this way.

Love how m&s has been there from the start and in the same place ahaha

I use to go to the metro centre nearly every Saturday with my little friends, couple of pounds in my pocket which got me full on Macdonald's, a big bag of pic n mix from butterflies sweet shop & some novelty toy or gadget ... Metro centre was brilliant in those days, going down hill now thanks to the economy & progression of technology. In another 20 years I can only predict it's closure in a very bleak world. Such a shame ... 😐

After my gran died I read her diaries and she wrote about the Metrocentre opening and wondering if it would catch on, she also wrote about the huge Christmas tree she saw there. Simpler times.

This made me cry. Love it. Thank you.

i miss this good times as a kid

Brought back so many memories its not the same now

I’m 52 and OMG the song in the first few seconds I literally haven’t heard since the 80s. Really surprising how much info there is stored deep in the back of one’s mind. Ps these shopping centres could well be mostly gone in another decade or so thanks to Amazon and the internet.

Crazy to think 95 was only 8 years after this and the UK had changed completely.

I hadn't been for years, until 1st December 2023, what a thorough DISAPPOINTMENT!!!! Remember taking my youngest niece quite a few times. I was 23 the year it opened.

This brings back nostalgic memories of going there as a kid, however I can’t actually anything tangible that isn’t there now. 20 years from now kids will have the same nostalgic memories about today.

This is when the metro center was a place you wire your best clothes to go and buy new stuff. Our family would make a day of it. Go first thing in morning and have our breakfast dinner and tea go to cinema do our shopping then go home. Happy memories.

I was born 1988 and remember the metro looking like this. Great memories of days out with my granda. Thanks for uploading this

thank you for this fabulous wander down memory lane. we moved to Sunderland in 1987 and spent so many many happy days at the metro centre it was quite something special then, and metro land was phenomenal and awe-inspiring for kids! the 80s were such a fantastic time to be alive and for a short time you e transported me back. I was 12 in 1987, im 48 now!!

Great videos!! Liked the Interview in the cafe..Fantasy land became Metro land, it never had dry ski slopes and 30 years on the Metro line doesn't run to the Metro centre.

Fully stocked boutiques, clothes shopping was a pleasure. Until Internet shopping ruined it 😔

Brings back, so many memories of being a kid this place. Not the same as it once was

What a great video! Bring so many childhood memories back. There was always something to get up to as a kid whilst being dragged round shops by your parents here back in the day!

Tremendous. Look at all the foliage!

Much better back then than it is now. It was madness getting rid of Metroland and all the other features. Now it's just your average shopping centre.

I was there last year and i could not belive how much its gone down hill

Also, my mam died that year, I seemed to have a mental block, and these things help jog my memory, as I was just walking around in a stunned state at the time, thank you, you don't know how much this helps me. Thanks.

This is brilliant! I love the way the mannequins have been captured showing what was ‘in’ at that time. About a year ago I was at the Metrocentre with my son and I started filming him and some of the Christmas decorations on a camcorder the size of my palm....minutes later I had security approach me telling me to stop. Sad.

What a special period of time that has been captured here. Thank you for making this available; so many magical memories!

My uncle worked for the cosntruction company that built the steel outta skeleton of the metrocenter, at the the time it was being built the main road hadnt been constructed yet and the company had to use the Dunston road to get to and from the A1. when the metrocenter opened my uncle told my mam to to use the Dunston road as it was now a backroad in and out bypassing the traffic conjestion on the main road to the A1, i still use this turn off to get there. Miss the water features and the hussle and bussle of the metrocenter, i still remember the christmas event they had and i think there was a superrmarket too, it was busy in 1987 unlike now with half closed shops.

Love this. Captures a moment in time x

Did the guy serving at the restaurant say that Fantasyland was opening soon and that next year the metro train line will run directly to the metro centre? Maybe Fantasyland was the original name for Metroland. Also those cucumber and salmon sandwiches were like £1.28 each!! These days they'd be like £8 each served with crisps or chips.

I remember the smell of those water features and always wanting to chuck a penny in

I have fond memories of the metro center because i was 20 when it was constructed but it was always a bit souless. Now the old Grainger market was a totally different kettle of fish. I remember going there with my mam in the 70s, the place was alive with character. I can still taste those delicious sweets and the famous Russian cake,i think it had about 40% proof, or it tasted that way 😂 I've never tasted cake like it again. The heart and soul was ripped out of the Grainger market. Although to be honest, even if it had remained the same, i don't know if todays society would shop there. Those times have gone for good sadly.

Gold....no other word for it 👍

We've seen the metrocentre built and we'll see it knocked down the amount of empty shops and the land that was never used, now in 2024 its become a expensive white elephant.

Loved going to Metro center in the 80s. Used to meet friends there and wed go to the cinema, MacDonalds, metroland, the computer game shops. Remember watching mivies such as RoboCop, Beverly hills cop, predator, fletch lives. Playing outrun, endro racer, wec le mans, teenage Turtles, steeet fighter in the arcade. Also playing the shooting gallery. You could spend ages there having fun. Was s great place.

This is so magical. I used to come here as a kid with my mam and dad and fondly remember it like this. I haven't been since the mid 90s but i imagine its a sad sight nothing like it was. I loved throwing a penny into the fountains making and wish and spent hours in metroland. Amazing footage, thank you for sharing!

The Metro still doesn’t run there to this day.

Loved the Metro centre ,had my first baby in 1987 ,and lived in Durham..Moved back to Winlaton in 1988 so spent many hours there shopping , going for coffee ..the kids loved the fantasy land as they got a bit older.. I look at the lady in the white jacket having a coffee and I think it's my mam...she died in 1984 so not many years after this

Looked better then it had a theme, more novelty shops and entertainment. now it's all patched up and you dont wanna spend time in there

I wish those days were back the traditional Metro Centre and I was born that year.

Do you know whats sad, is we have the ability to function malls this way still, we could design the malls this way with greenery, saturation. Everything nowadays is just so sterile and dull, I visit the metro regularly (1994 Kid) so I didnt witness this era of the metro, more so the tail end of it around the early 2000's when they were starting to remove most of the trees, water features and the demise of Metroland in 2008. I remember the theme of it still, green light fixtures and a warmer beige colour than the bright white we have now. It just looked so inviting.

So much has changed even that waterfall lift

Back in 1987 the metro centre was first 🥇 class I haven't been in 5 years friends who have visited have said half of the shops are shut ☹️🙁😲😳🤯

£ 1 - 20 lunch? Happy Days.

Thank you so much for sharing these videos, what an incredible catalogue of local history you have captured for us! I tip my hat to you sir.

i was born in 1995 i remember the metro as a kid it was amazing you had metro land loads of shops. To see what it was and what it is now is really sad. they’ve completely ruined it.

It was better then than 2021!!!

2:12 Smooth Criminal was a new release.

The people are so vintage! It really makes me realize how long ago 1987 is!!! I'm 37 in 2021..... if I'd been 37 in 1987 I'd be 71 by now!!! Extremely scary!

It seems all so long ago now. I was 17 then, 52 now!

metro land was my childhood playground lived only 1 mile from the metro

I was about 29 then now i am 65 where has time gone

Plants inside the MetroCentre. Couldn't have that now you'd have kids ruining it!

this is vital history..thank you

I still looked similar in late 90s/early 00s, the fake plants and water features, plus metroland... I remember it as a teenager, and I wasn't even born when this was made (born 88)

Honestly i've just looked at this now and its so upsetting to see that things like the metro going directly there was scrapped and more, would be so much more useful! I honestly dont know how it never got one to be fair.

When the world was actually a nice place!!

A wee bit of dire straits, takes me bk to being a young 17yo lad in glasgow. And life was wonderful .

Wow fab video I'm a 1993 baby so it's really interesting to see these places before I was born

THE GOOD OLD DAYS BEFORE DIVERSITY MOVED IN!

I lived in Dunston the first day it opened seems like a long time ago

And now all of it gone... gone forever. We can't have nice things.

I wish it still looked like this, not the sterile place it is now. Back then you'd go for a day out, now it's straight in, straight out

Look at how well the clothing shops are stocked and the environment seems to have a real buzz about it. Every shop is now the same.

back when it had character

I wonder what they are doing now? that young Lass is lovely, I wonder what she is doing now, I was in my twenties in 1987, all this was new then, I hope all in the video are doing okay now.

From a time when people enjoyed being filmed and people were less paranoid!!

lovely, and thanks for the upload

Great video of Metrocentre. It's good that you have these videos taken a while back. 👍

why wasnt i alive then, ugh 2003 babies crying rn

I was 16. Can I travel back to that year please ? It felt such a nicer world to me then. 🤔

31 years later and the metro still doesn’t run to the metrocentre hahahahah

Amazing vid mad to think it was filmed all them years ago, I might've been wandering round the place meself that day.

This made me take a deep breath and sigh..Not in a bad way, but not in a good way either.