Killingworth was used as a filming location for the 1973 BBC sitcom Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?,[3] with one of the houses on Agincourt on the Highfields estate featuring as the home of Bob and Thelma Ferris.

Documentary evidence for Killingworth starts in 1242 when it is recorded as part of the land held by Roger de Merlay III.

Intended for 20,000 people, it was a former mining community, formed on 760 acres (310 ha) of derelict colliery land near Killingworth Village.

This new town centre consisted of pre-cast concrete houses, with millions of small crustacean shells unusually embedded into their external walls, 5 to 10-storey flats, offices, industrial units and service buildings, which often consisted of artistic non-functional characteristics, shops and residential multi-storey car parks, interconnected by ramps and walkways.

Around 1964, during the reclamation of the derelict pit sites, a 15-acre (6.1 ha) lake south of the town centre was created; spoil heaps were leveled, seeded and planted with semi-mature trees.

[11] Ralph Dodds as Chief Viewer managed or trained several people of note during his lifetime including his nephew Isaac Dodds, locomotive engineer George Stephenson, rack railway inventor John Blenkinsop, and Nicholas Wood who was to succeed him as Chief Viewer at Killingworth.

[12] At the same time Stephenson was developing his own version of the miner's safety lamp, which he demonstrated underground in Killingworth pit a month before Sir Humphry Davy presented his design to the Royal Society in London in 1815.

One north of East Bailey built by Fisher, called Longmeadows with streets named after the Farne Islands (Knivestone, Goldstone, Crumstone etc.

This estate, called Highfields, was constructed by Greensit & Barrett with its streets named after notable battles Flodden, Agincourt, Stamford, Culloden and Sedgemoor.

The most eye-catching and radical aspect of the township was the 3-tier housing estate called Killingworth Towers – apartment blocks built in the early 1970s.

[3] Tenanted by the local authority, they were made of dark grey concrete blocks and were named Bamburgh, Kielder and Ford Tower etc., after castles.

The estate was originally designed to mimic a medieval castle with an outer wall and inner keep connected to lifts and rubbish chutes by ramps and a two-tier walkway (see gallery).

The design did not live up to expectations and the estate started to look and feel like a prison rather than a castle with the introduction of measures to stop anti-social behaviour from youths congregating within the tower instead of in the parks.

Cast iron grilles were erected to stop transit by over-exuberant youths racing bikes and skateboards along the smooth walkway "racetrack".

Dogs fouled the walkways, rubbish chutes were blocked, vandals damaged communal bins, stairwells, lifts and multi-storey residential car parks joined the list of problems.

[3] The last remaining structure, the walkway to the shops, was eventually demolished as it served no purpose after the Towers' demise, but it stood alone for 10 years until funds were found to bring it down.

The boxer Henry Cooper declared the shopping centre open while standing on the steps of the Puffing Billy pub.

The centre included a large department store, Woolco that sold groceries and car parts and even incorporated a tyre service bay.

The White Swan Centre was built to house local services previously provided in demolished buildings that had been attached to the high-level shopping precinct.

The new Lakeside swimming pool and sports centre was built alongside the lake next to George Stephenson High School.