WHITLEY Bay’s evolving, edging – some might say accelerating – upmarket. Shortly, spectacularly, to be reborn, the Spanish City may be the icing on the enchiladas.

Partly funded by £3.47m from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the £10m transformation will be open before the summer’s out, part of a £36m “coastal masterplan” to turn the tourism tide between Cullercoats and St Mary’s lighthouse.

Formerly pretty much a funfair, the 21st Century Spanish City promises fine dining, a champagne and oyster bar, genteel tea rooms and even a waffle bar (though these columns, of course, know nothing of such discursiveness.)

“Old and new will come together seamlessly,” the operators insist.

The rebirth’s driven by North Tyneside Council, but the Spanish City will be run by Boldon-based Kymel Trading, who already own Trenchers fish and chip restaurant in Whitby and the no-less celebrated Crab Manor Hotel at Asenby, near Thirsk.

Both Trenchers and a pub/restaurant modelled on the Crab will open beneath the landmark dome. “A truly unique visitor destination for the North-East of England,” says one of the websites, and may well have a point.

AMONG countless structures so described, the Grade II listed Spanish City dome may be one of the few properly to qualify as iconic. On-line anticipation of what’s effervescently envisaged is also much given to terms like “incredible” and “fantastic” but, most of all, to “stunning.” Even the desserts in the fine dining place are said to be “stunning”, though the proof of that particular pudding may yet have to be in the eating.

THE Spanish City’s foundations were laid in 1908 by Charles Elderton, then owner of Hebburn Theatre Royal, who crossed the Tyne to bring his Toreadors concert party to the seaside. Spanish-themed awnings were erected to shield the audience from the elements.

It rained in Whitley Bay?

A fairground soon followed, admission twopence. In 1910 the dome, said to be England’s biggest after St Paul’s Cathedral and with a gallery every bit as terrifying, was built in 82 days, its copper lantern provided by the firm which put the roof on Buckingham Palace. Locals called it the Taj Mahal.

It opened on May 7, flags at half-mast because Edward VII had died the previous day.

High above the entrance were carved two half-lifesize and scantily clad dancing girls, one playing a tambourine and the other cymbals. If not quite sex in the City – sex cymbals, as it were – a history describes them as “bacchanalian”.

Outraged ensued, however, when Elderton sought a licence for dancing of a bit more down-to-earth nature. A seafront information board observes that the appropriately named Superintendent Tough objected on moral grounds.

The Shields Daily News recorded that the magistrates agreed. “We will not tolerate any dancing by the public,” said the chairman, sternly, though “artistes” would be allowed on stage.

Three years later, 1913, the operators faced further problems when locals objected to a fairground ride called the Social Whirl. No matter what they say about what goes around comes around, it had to be dismantled.

Though seaside folk seemed a bit joyless, the Hall of Mirth survived. The Empress Ballroom was added in 1920.

Immortalised in the Dire Straits song about the tunnel of love, a mere No 54 in the charts, but played every morning at opening time, the Spanish City proved not to be El Dorado.

In the 1980s the Giant Corkscrew twisted and turned, but ultimately got nowhere fast; a skate park proved an equally ephemeral adventure. The building closed in 2000, deteriorated thereafter.

ALMOST coincidentally, Whitley Bay was also mentioned in my blog last week. We’d been remembering shuggy boats, once familiar on the beach, “shug” simply meaning to swing. A Scottish reader claimed the same etymology for “shoogly” – “a great word” – though over the border it means shaky or uncertain. Our reader offered a wonderful euphemism: “Your coat’s on a shoogly peg.” Translated, he said, it meant “You may not be in this position much longer.”

THE information board on Whitley Bay Metro station still reckons that one of the town’s great attractions is the K4 telephone box outside, erected in the 1920s and one of just 50 with stamp machine and posting box incorporated.

There by 10am, sausage sandwich seeking, we bypass the cafe on the station because it uses the absurd “seven-and-a-half” when it means £7.50 and the one down the road because there’s a board saying dogs are welcome. They shouldn’t be, it’s an eating place.

Nearby there’s a tattoo parlour. A couple of doors down, there’s a tattoo removal parlour and, next to that, somewhere offering tarot reading and “past life regression”. Never go back.

Though the Spanish City remains a construction site, the dome appears pleasingly over the information hoardings, like Chad forever pondering that of which there is none.

Huge picture windows have been installed to enhance views of the coast, ceilings removed the better to gaze at the dome.

The Empress Gardens blooms apace, there’s a big new Premier Inn next door, the promenade looks eager and expansive on a May morning, though it’s a bit chilly for the ice cream recommended by the chap in the council press office.

The bank holiday weekend before had been sweltering. “The town was absolutely packed out,” said the council chap, though declining – “it’s a very old building, you never know what might happen” – to be precise about when the City gates might again be flung open.

Of one thing he’s certain, though. “Just take a look around. Whitley Bay is back.”

AS with so much else, the trip to Whitley Bay is a birds-and-stones excursion. Primarily it’s to attend Allan Barkas’s funeral. As they had back on May 7, 1910, the flag outside the Comrades Club flies at half mast.

A Hardwick Hall baby, like all the best, Allan was a Bishop Auckland boy who became a Royal Artillery sergeant, served three tours in Northern Ireland, kept a convenience store in St Helen’s Auckland and lived near Stanley before happily settling beside the sea.

Military and football family fill the crematorium. Army colleagues recall that when allowed R&R from Northern Ireland in the 1970s they’d fly home and biff one another in the boxing ring, the pugilism sponsored by The Northern Echo.

Allan was 68. His wife Ann recalls how his great loves included custard and country and western. It’s to Bat Out of Hell, however – Meatloaf, apparently – that the ceremony comes to an end.