I’ve done some fairly interesting things this month, and had planned to write posts for each of them
— but, for whatever reason, none of them provided that particular spark to me. Maybe they just
didn’t seem that interesting to explain to you, the reader, or maybe i didn’t know what to say about
them except the obvious.
Nonetheless, it would be a shame for these events to pass into the annals of my journal without
telling you about them. So! Here’s a brief summary of my unblogged July thus far.
I toddled off to Shildon to visit Locomotion, the local
branch of the national railway museum. It’s the birthday of the railways, and thus boasts a
disproportionate selection of anorak arcana — alas, you can’t go in the trains, but you get
a pretty good look at the inside of Queen Alexandra’s royal train car, the erstwhile Birmingham
maglev, and, most proudly, Stephenson’s Rocket.
Locomotion also provides a lot to geek out about for any heraldry nerds.
Beamish1
has been newly crowned
Museum of the Year, so there was no better time to check it out. I hadn’t properly explored their new fifties town
yet — the chippie and the old houses are wonderful, but the record store, crammed up the stairs,
across an anachronistically modern mezzanine, and down a grey corridor, leaves much to be desired.
Nitpicks about balcony design aside, it’s as great as ever, and, somehow, well worth the £33(!!!!!)
asking price.
Finally, just yesterday, i went off to an Elbow concert hosted in a ruined mediæval priory by the
sea. Belting out “One Day Like This” in the fading dusk light with five thousand other people
standing on the same hallowed ground where monks tried to figure out where baby eels came from is a
top-ten human experience.
Washington1, a town in urban County Durham long since incorporated into Sunderland, is not a place where one
expects much nature. The palatinate’s chirping woods and rolling Pennine moors are not so far away,
and the path i took to get to today’s attraction led not through winding country roads but broad,
grey industrial arteries, designed to ferry thousands to and from Nissan’s immense factory.
But at the end of the road, down by the river Wear, there lies a wee patch of idyll: the
Washington Wetland Centre.
On a hilltop in the distance: the previously covered
Penshaw Monument.
I’d come on a good day for it, clearly, as the first thing i saw coming out of reception was the
staff corralling all the ducks together for their annual vaccination, by means of a ramshackle
assemblage of mesh fences. (Crowd control for birds!) The littlest one kept trying to escape his jab
like an ornithological Bobby Kennedy.
Most fabulous of all creatures of the air on offer are the eiders, the diva-est ducks in the world,
emitting a chorus of sassy coos as they revel in their status as undisputed kings of the pond.
(You’ll have to take my word for it, as i neglected to take a video, erring towards the side of it
being better to live in the moment than through a phone camera. I was yet to realise what good
blog-fodder the visit would make.)
As apologies for the lack of Eider Content, please accept this invasive rodent instead.
On the other side of the preserve a viewing area juts out to overlook the Wear — still salty and
tidal this close to the sea — and an artificial
saline lagoon, built to provide a home for those creatures who prefer a more brackish milieu. The signs tell me
that, rare as they historically have been, more and more European otters have made their home along
the wear, and the lucky visitor might hope to see one… if only the centre were open at dawn or at
dusk, when they come out.
The sign’s not joking — Asian small-claweds’ bite force is enough to break your bones.
Not to worry, for the centre are also very proud of their main mammal enclosure: a family of
utterly2
adorable Asian small-clawed otters. They’re a lot less squeaky than the ones at Northumberland Zoo,
and wondering why, two theories popped into my head.
First, that it’s the Northumbrians’ fault. Their northern sibs were greater in number, a family of
four to Durham’s two, and they were, by all accounts, masters of putting on a show. They appeared in
an orderly fashion when their circadian rhythms told them it was feeding time, pipped and squeaked
incessantly at the keeper until they got their fish, performed some cuteness, and then went back
inside when their bellies were full. They knew exactly what they were doing, methinks.
Second, that the Washingtonian otters were grieving. I said there were two, the younger Buster and
the elder Musa, and you might be hard-pressed to call that a family. But until this month, there
were three.
Mimi, the clan’s matriarch and a
scamp who bonked so much they had to give her a lutrine IUD, passed of
old age at fourteen (a good innings by her species’ standards, no doubt). When she went, they had to
put her corpse back in the enclosure so the others would understand.
They were still otters. Still playful. But something about them seemed… morose. Maybe, in between
the fish and the scampering and the puzzle feeders, they were still thinking about her.
On the way out, i passed a tiny observatory, cleverly named “Cygnus” for the constellation of the
swan, used by night for the
Sunderland Astronomical Society. I don’t know if it’s
of much use this far into the zone of light pollution, but they certainly seem to enjoy it, so
perhaps my relatively sky-privileged Northumbrian self shouldn’t play the lecturer. Perhaps that
fateful night that Mimi died, a star in the sky began to twinkle a little brighter.
Ushaw Hall’s website plays coy about itself. You can learn that
guide dogs are welcome, they’ll be exhibiting interactive “Humanimal” sculptures next month, and
that they're very proud of the pun “Ushaw in”, but curiously little about what the place actually is
(or was). I went anyway.
To spoil the fun, it’s an old Roman Catholic seminary that was turned into a museum when people
stopped being religious enough to care. The entrance makes that well clear; walking up from the car
park, the curious visitor is flanked by an ostentatious neo-Gothic chapel on their left and
modernist student housing on their right. (The latter remains unmuseumified, too boring to make much
out of.)
Right from reception there’s an interesting historical tidbit with a bust of Abraham Lincoln
himself, who a helpful volunteer told me once attended Ushaw before he decided a more secular
political career was right for him. (It was that or boxing, i suppose.) Upstairs is the Presidents’
Hall, whither the stairway looked off-limits enough not to chance it — so never mind that, and let’s
instead turn right.1
This takes us down a series of winding hallways with wibbly tiled floor — as of now, an exhibition
has lined them with wedding dresses old and new, including replicas of those worn by the royal
family, creepy mannequin heads and all.2
More importantly and more permanently, these are the chapels of Ushaw Hall.
They are beautiful, and have seen better days. The paint peels from a dimly-lit mural in a nook i
presume is for choirists. In others, light dances in vibrant oranges and blues through expository
stained glass. The brightest of them all, seen here to the right, invites its visitors to pray for
Ukraine in a solemn reminder of the times.
These smaller shrines have an intimacy to them that reflects the house’s hush-hush history. First
exiled from England, the Catholics settled in the small town of Douai, in the north of France — only
to be forced out again by the secular fervour of the French Revolution. Even then, they struggled to
find welcome in a staunchly Protestant Georgian England, until a sympathetic aristocrat sold them
land in Durham’s secluded hills. The hall itself was built with the façade of an unseeming terrace,
only showing its religious nature to those within.
Onwards, then, into the star of the show — the main chapel. Pews upon pews span the long gap between
the entrance and the colossal tabernacle, behind which the walls are adorned with what first looks
like simple ornament but reveals itself to be tightly-packed black-lettered Latin. You can tell it’s
Catholic by the eagle in the middle, the Vatican having never quite given up its attachment to its
Roman roots.
…Upstairs is the Presidents’ Hall, whither the stairway looked off-limits enough not to chance it —
so never mind that, and let’s instead turn left. Winding at right angles around the central court we
first arrive at the library, or what little you can access of it. Management and the university are
promising big things… eventually… once they restore everything… and catalogue it… and… oh, sod this,
let’s go to the café.
[One hot chocolate later…]
This is a wholly unrelated bookstore found elsewhere on church grounds. Behind the camera is a
fireplace. Yes, i am kicking myself for not photographing that instead.
As we were. Further along we find find the mess hall, where aspiring clergy once ate in silence,
with only the wet sopping of a hundred English breakfasts reverberating back and forth across the
walls. These days it’s used for noisier conferences and school trips, fitted with identikit metal
and plastic tables and seats which don’t do much to complement the nineteenth-century décor.
Some time later, past the temporary exhibition of inkjet printouts of old maps3, our trip comes full circle. As i walk home through the well-kempt garden and around the reedy old
pond, i might not have been convinced by the seminary’s faith, but i have been convinced of their
taste in interior decoration.
Hello. I’ve been to the Bowes Museum. I thought i might
tell you about it.
Housed in a gloriously incongruous French mansion in the small town of
Barnard Castle1, it was built to house the art collections of the noble Bowes-Lyons — a family lucky enough to
count the Queen Mother herself among their members.
Its collection lies largely parallel to the “main” visual arts: ceramics, fashion, textiles,
furniture, and other such things which must account for function as much as form. Most of it plunges
headfirst into the latter, a bit frilly even for my often anti-modernist tastes, but i did like this
caduceus-adorned wooden cabinet:
The star of the show here is the Silver Swan, a gorgeous eighteenth-century automaton which preens
and sways on a bed of glass water. Unfortunately, it’s broken, and the closest you’ll get to see it
is its dismembered corpse awaiting restoration, so [raspberry noise]. You can,
however, see their exhibition on its legacy, which houses a wonderful collection of modern
animatronics made by crafters and tinkerers from all over the world, like this 10/10 pianist:
There are a few items which don’t fit into the above. They’ve managed to snag some real Goyas,
Canalettos, and El Grecos. (Los Grecos?) They even have Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine, somehow
— i assume it’s on loan from London?
It has now been over three months since i visited the city of Manchester. What once was a vivid
memory has been obscured by the fog of ever-ticking time. But there is unfinished business to be
dealt with — so let me sing to you, dear reader, of Affleck’s Palace.
Cottonopolis’ pop- and counter-culture mecca found its place in a bourgeois defunct department
store; its hollowed husk has been stuffed beyond recognition with dozens of stores over four floors,
from fashion to cassettes to Hatsune Miku–themed fizzy pop.
It’s an absolutely disorienting place to get your head around. The meme up in Newcastle is that the
Grainger Market
is an Escherian nightmare where nothing is ever where it was last time, but Affleck’s is a whole
other level (three of them, in fact). Stairs lead to more stairs which lead to corridors which
somehow lead back to the same stairs. It took me five goes to find the cassette tape store, and when
i did, it was closed for a fag break. It’s the sort of place where a non-specifically foreign woman
who you never see again sells you a cursed trinket that brings ruin to your family.
I can only tolerate hippie shit in small doses, and, thankfully, this little bath-bomb dispensary
was the perfect small dose. Incense sticks? Tie-dye decorations? Sure, why not.
This shop claims to be Europe’s largest LGBT specialty store, which i’m
sure is true, if only because half of Europe has the same attitude towards gay and trans people as a
moderate Westboro Baptist.
Bad and naughty intellectual properties go to Funko Pop Jail, where they belong.
And if counter-culture isn’t your thing, there’s enough stalls hawking Disney merchandise to keep
you occupied. (I clapped when i saw the thing i know!!!)
I hardly even remember getting in or out of the building, which leaves me at a loss for how to end
this post. Maybe it’s more of a feeling than a real place — you just wake up one day, teleported
inside, and have to complete a vision quest to buy a cone of rose-flavoured ice cream to find out
how to leave.
I included this photo to show that the gallery still makes plenty of room for the “old masters”
— but, to be honest with you, it sums up everything i dislike about some renaissance and baroque
art. Just a huddled mass of mythological figures, with no life, no colour, no attention paid to
the greater picture. Sad!
Manchester is not particularly renowned as a home for the aristocracy or patrons of the high arts,
so i was pleased to discover upon a visit that the
Manchester Art Gallery is one of the finest of its
kind.
The Mag (as nobody calls it)’s success lies not in the size of its collection — it’s no larger than
my local, the Laing — but in its presentation. Like many museums, its curators have lately been
making efforts to diversify their collections and make them more relatable to the average yoof of
today. It’s a process that can often come off as haphazard and rushed1, but
the team at the Mag have pulled it off with care and respect.
Berni Searle, In Wake Of, 2014.
Newer works are dotted in each gallery in such a way that they complement, rather than denigrate,
the greats of old. A visa rejection letter from a group of Pakistani artists hangs alongside
Victorian paintings of eastern caravans; where a gallery about protest and revolution could have
added some shrewd, vapid letterpress and called it a day, the museum’s curators have instead chosen
to incorporate a thoughtful self-portrait by a South African painter, made in the wake of the
Marikana massacre.2
The captions accompanying each artwork face a similarly complicated task. Be too conservative and
you’ll disappear up your own arse into a world of romanticist masturbation; be too reactionary and
you’ll come off as cloyingly didactic, engaging in pseudohistoric iconoclasm for iconoclasm’s sake.
The Mag hit a stroke of genius here: after a brief description in the typical style, the captions
adorning prominent works also include conversations and thoughts from a variety of perspectives, be
it historians, curators, or the artists themselves. It’s a brilliant way to further inform the
visitor without beating them over the head with one opinion, alienating them with arcane academese,
or leaving out unsavoury histories.
Someone, please, tell me what this painting is called. I have to know.
Other highlights on the lower floors include a portrait of the early black tragedian Ira Aldridge
(the very first work in the museum’s collection, which rather surprised me coming from the people of
1858), a Ghanaian tapestry that i was surprised to learn was actually made of glass, and a lovely
painting of an industrial scene lit by hazy fog whose name — to current me’s infuriation — i
neglected to include in the photo, taken from an angle so inconvenient that reverse image search
returns nothing of relevance. Past me is a bastard and i’m killing him when i get the chance.
Upstairs sit the gallery’s temporary exhibitions. The most prominently advertised was on the topic
of the history of men’s fashion, something i regrettably could not get myself to muster up any
interest in. I’m sure it’s quite interesting if that’s your sort of thing. The other (smaller)
exhibition sits in a surprisingly grand hall which, from what i can tell, normally houses the
museum’s pottery galleries, and it’s about tea. No wait come back i sw—
I jest, but there really is some fascinating stuff in there. The room’s cabinets are packed with
advertisements, old jugs, and all sorts of other things detailing how hot drinks have shaped Britain
and the world over the years — from sparking conversation to funding colonisation. But there was one
thing that stuck out to me the most. A newly-created work of art, perhaps meant to inspire some
thought or another in the viewer, but that our whole group agreed could only be described as one
thing:
Buttplug dreamcatcher.
PS: I had to ask what the abbreviation “dbl” (“double”) on the signs for
upcoming trams meant. My poor exurban soul simply could not comprehend the idea of a transit system
that consistently ran so punctually — i had been thinking it stood for something like
“delayed by late”.
PPS: This was meant to be the last post in the series, but my rambling
about the gallery got so out of hand that i thought i’d spin off its intended complement into its
own part. Tune in next week3 for one last dispatch from Affleck’s Palace.
The tail end of the room which houses the Central Library’s extensive music collection.
Manchester’s influences on British culture and life spread far and wide — music, politics, industry,
TV — but it’s fair to say it’s not exactly renowned for its literary
output. And yet, nevertheless, i found myself wandering the halls of two great libraries in
Cottonopolis.
The first and grander of the two is the Manchester Central Library, whose imposing
hall first squat itself upon St Peter’s Square in 1934. Upon walking in, there are a number of
things the discerning visitor might notice. Hir eyes might wander upwards to the expertly crafted
stained-glass window of Shakespeare and his protagonists, or all the way up to the ceiling,
generously coated with the arms of authorities priestly, princely, and popular. Or, if our
hypothetical visitor is a Geordie, shi might instead notice some things that the rest of the
country’s eyes would gloss over: clean, well-designed signage; sleek open space; swooshy modern
æsthetics… All paid for out of the council’s pockets.
There are no decaying bridges, no council computers running Windows XP,
no decade-old untouched brownfields. When ministers talk a big game about “levelling up the North”,
this is the North they’re talking about. Cumbria? Newcastle? Middlesbrough? Isn’t that in Scotland?
It’s best not to dwell on these things (for cynicism doesn’t do the mind good), but one can’t help
but feel like they’re rubbing it in.
The Central Library is a treasure trove. It houses an impressive collection of musical
paraphernalia, from sheet music to encyclo-glee-diæ to biographies of Saint Noel Gallagher. Its
central atrium is home to the “archives plus”, where Mancunians can drill into their city’s history
without needing to be fluent in acadamese. The reference library on the upper floors is so tightly
packed that it uses mechanical bookshelves which reveal themselves with the push of a button. By all
accounts, it serves the people of Manchester well. Perhaps that’s the problem: for a tourist like
me, it’s hard not to get jealous.
The Portico Library is an older, humbler affair, constructed at the height of the
industrial revolution and taking up but the first floor of its classically-inspired building. Anyone
can enter, but i’m afraid the full collection is a members-only joint; my group were just here to
check out a book a family friend had paid to be restored. (A page fell out while we were handling
it. Whoops!)
While the back catalogues might be off limits to us plebes, there’s still plenty to pique the
passing itinerant’s interest. The central hall is still decorated in its original homely Victorian
fashion, having a delightfully idiosyncratic way of catalogueing its books: “biography”, “travels
and voyages”, and “polite fiction” (a vestige of the time when the middle classes were still joining
“polite” society).
An exhibition of architectural art circles the middle seating area. While much of it was the usual
arty bollocks, i found myself captured by the adorable cardboard houses of Thu Le Ha, an artist and
volunteer at the library. Ms Ha has a vanishingly small online footprint, but i hope she keeps at it
— this is the sort of thing the world needs more of! Cute little whimsy.
And that’s all i wrote. Next up, some less wordy centres of Mancunian culture.
P.S. On the way back from the Sigur Rós gig, we bore witness to a throng
of teenyboppers and weary parents making their way back from a different gig held at the famous
Arena. What could possibly inspire such turnout from such a young crowd: Taylor Swift? Olivia
Rodrigo? Some K-pop act i’d never heard of? Nope — they were there to
see the Backstreet Boys.
Hello. I’ve been to Manchester. I thought i might tell you about it. Wait no come back i promise
this isn't just showing you my holiday ph
The last time i went to that wonderful southern city, i was hardly ten years old, and hadn’t much of
a chance to explore — a mistake i was itching to rectify this go around. Over the next few days i’ll
be sharing some of the things i saw, heard, and third verb goes here.
First things first, our trip’s raison d’être: Sigur Rós were on a world tour, and though
they might not have been schlepping up to Newcastle, i sure as hell wasn’t going to miss the chance
to see them.
Sigur Rós are a post-rock band, and their gig made clear that it’s with a strong emphasis on the
“post-”. It was an all-seated audience, with vanishingly little banter from the band (one has to
imagine they’re not 100% confident in their English), excepting a brief pantomime bit at the end of
„Andvari”. No complaints from me, though: a laid-back, almost classical atmosphere quite befits
their ætheral soundscapes. I mean, could you imagine people going wild in the pit to „Vaka”?
As „Popplagið” came to a close and everyone shuffled out the venue’s doors, i noticed a curious item
at the merch table: an officially licensed Sigur Rós tea and incense kit. What a world we live in.
(I didn’t buy it — there was only one left, and i probably wouldn’t be the one to make the most use
out of it.)
MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO LIVE LIKE THIS
As an official, Lisa Nandy–certified resident of a Town™, i was left slightly dumbstruck and
intimidated by the dense forest of tall buildings that is Manchester’s city centre. Sure, it’s not
like i’m a stranger to the idea of a city, but of the two big cities i have most haunted
over the years , Newcastle only has a stumpy luxury apartment and a few council houses strewn about
the suburbs, while Amsterdam’s skyscraper district is sectioned off behind the other side of a ring
road, far from the centre of town.
But Manchester? Nay — Manchester is England’s second city, and they’ll show it any way they like!
Dozens upon dozens of architectural phalli jut up from the ground in all directions, a veritable
orgy of capital. I pray thee, have we as a species learnt nothing from the tales of Icarus and the
Tower of Babel? Nothing‽ This is hubris writ large, i tell you!
Or, you know, something like that. Their green spaces don’t even have cows.
They both serve the same purpose, really, but i just want to rub in that where we up north has a
fully-fledged metro, Manchester merely has to do with trams. Sure, ours might be
delayed every five minutes, and theirs might be uber-reliable and extend throughout the urban area,
but who’s really winning?
(I don’t actually know or care which Gallagher is which. Apologies.)
Manchester has no shortage of iconic residents — Morrissey, Danny Boyle, Burgess, Wanksy — but
Mancunians have taken it upon themselves to idolise two people above all else. Everywhere you look,
there are statues, plaques, and posters in their memory.
The first is Emmeline Pankhurst. An early leader of the suffragette movement, she and her allies
often used violent tactics to get their way, from breaking windows all the way up to arson. You can
see why the left-wing, industrial city, birthplace of the labour movement, would be proud to honour
her.
On a hilltop in County Durham sits the
Penshawi monument, a nineteenth-century folly built to commemorate the late Earl of Durham. It’s always been on my
bucket list, but it’s a bit of a pain to get to via public transport, and i’d never found the time —
last week, though, i found myself with some time off and decided to make the trip. I’ll let the
pictures do the talking from here…
A view of the monument from the nearby country park. As you can see, there was a motorbike race
on at the time, which somewhat dampened the otherwise-peaceful atmosphere. Tut tut.
The monument was based on Athens'
temple to Hephæstos, though in a rather scaled-down format (see the lack of any kind of roof).
We weren’t allowed inside the naos, as they were busy setting it up for that night’s
Lumiere festival.ii
(They did let some of the people walking their bulldogs up — perhaps because they were too
scared?)
The country park also has this neat little henge, with viewfinders pointing towards some
well-known County Durham sites — that little black square you can make out is Durham Cathedral.
Information for visitors
Address:
Chester Rd, Penshaw, Houghton le SpringDH4 7NJ
.
Accessibility: Getting up to the monument requires a steep hike up a hill; if
you have impaired mobility, you may want to think twice before going.
Getting there: The hill is served by the A183 road
and the 2, 2A, and 78 buses. The nearest train station is
Chester-le-Street, five miles away.
The industry town of Blyth is bordered on four sides by sights iconic of the Northumbrian
experience. To the north lies the eponymous River Blyth, carving out a respectable third to the Tyne
and Tweed in how it has shaped the course of the county’s history. To the east, the awesome North
Sea ebbs and flows, enticing herds of families out to the beach. Southwards, farms and fields
stretch on until they meet the city streets. And, to the west, the dismal grey
A189 motorway cuts its way through impoverished streets and empty
grassland.
So guess which path the railway sent me down? That’s right, it was hugging the fucking tarmac for
me. There’s a reason the God of travellers is a trickster.
Newsham is perhaps the prototypical post-industrial suburb. The streets are lined
with drab row-houses and shuttered shops whose walls sit darkened by cigarette smoke. But even here,
there are signs of history, and signs of life. Walking along a small council estate, even in this
decidedly hard-to-do area, people's personalities shine through. One car, judging by the bumper
stickers, belongs to a proud gay naturist. Another house has a carved relief of an Indian chief
(although i doubt the inhabitants have a drop of Native American blood in them). And at the end of
the road lies the holy grail: the old station master's house, whose nearby decaying platforms just
about peek over the fence.
After this, our path splits in two: the main line continues up to Bebside, but a spur branches off
and swings to the town centre. The first one is mostly a boring romp through farmland and reclaimed
forests, so, for now, we'll be following the second line.
There are a lot of things about Blyth that i’m sure the town council would
love for me to tell you about. It has an historic beach (though it’s all the way on the
south end of town, and there’s no reason for you to make the trek when Newbiggin and Whitley Bay are
closer and just as nice). There's a weekly market on Thursdays (though on the Thursday i went in,
they’d all packed up already), by the plaza next to the
shopping centre (whose selection of options is laughable when
compared to Manor Walks in the next town over). And
they’re dead proud of their local football team, the Spartans, who famously performed somewhat above
average in the 1978 FA Cup (never mind that Ashington spawned
two WorldCup winners).
By now you may have noticed that everything in Blyth seems to be a slightly crappier version of
something from elsewhere in Northumberland. This goes too for the ignoble fate of its former
station. While some have been turned into houses, shops, pubs, or just returned to the land whence
they arose, Blyth’s once-proud central station is now… a Morrisons car park.
You cannot make this up.
This was the only useable photo i got.
The branch line itself is now a straight-on footpath, cutting its way through town with a hospital
and shopping centre on one side and impoverished estates on the other — until about halfway through,
that is, when it suddenly becomes much more suburban in character; charming parks take the place of
pools and appendectomies, while a long allotment fills the other side. (It was also — and i cannot
stress this enough — absolutely pissing it down by the time i got to this end, and as such,
i failed to get any usable footage. Just trust that it eventually meets back up with the main line.)
Back on the main line, the motorway leads to a depressing interchange at Bebside.
Just across from the former site of the station sits the grimiest petrol station corner shop i think
i’ve ever been to (no photos, alas, again); the site of the station itself has long been bulldozed
and turned into a horse riding centre.
I’d love to stay and show you more, but the next phase in our adventure is a big one — because we’ll
be taking a brief diversion to County Durham. It’ll all make sense when we get there. Ciao!
Down a narrow alleyway to the back end of St Nicholas’ Cathedral, in Newcastle, one can find a
rather curious decoration garnishing a door on the opposing façade. The “vampire rabbit” has stood
watch over the cathedral for at least half a century; while records are scarce (a quick search of
Google Books doesn’t bring up anything until the twenty-first century), it could well date back to
the building’s construction in 1901.
Spooky.
Here’s a noticeably brighter bun, as it looked in 1987.
Here’s the thing, though. Nobody knows how it got there. Indeed, even the name “vampire rabbit” is a
misnomer; its jet-black fur and red claws were added on some time in the 1990s,i
as were its distinctly batty ears. Some say it was put there to scare away wannabe graverobbers, but
i have my doubts that twentieth-century crooks would be so dumb.
Yet others posit that it represents a
mad March hare, arising at the time
of Easter, or that it refers to Thomas Bewick, a nearby engraver who had a fondness of all things
lagomorphic. Most fascinatingly,
a theory advanced by one Mr Adam Curtis
suggests a Masonic pun in reference to one George Hare Phillipson, a local doctor (hence
vampires) and active Freemason, as was the lead architect, one William H. Wood. It being a secret
society in-joke would also explain why it’s located around the back, rather than the front, which
faces onto one of the busiest streets in town.
Perhaps we might never know for sure. In any case, it’s a fascinating little secret — what do you
think is most likely?
Last time on The Garden: A strip mall turns out to be a place of immense historical curiosity, i am interrupted by a
rude troupe of boy racers, and find myself caught up in the lyrics of a pro-union folk song.
Leaving Seghill, going past a house with a conspicuous
Northumbrian flag, the
landscape once again slips swiftly back into ruralia — a common occurrence on this leg of the
journey. No sooner had i left behind the station house than i found myself on a dirt path which i
wasn’t quiiiite sure i was meant to be on.
This was the small hamlet of Mare Close, essentially a farmhouse surrounded by a few cottages. I
have a sneaking suspicion that everyone living there has been friends since primary school, though
i'll never know for sure. Opposite the cottages, by the next leg of my route, lay a
small village church and
graveyard which i dared not enter. Onwards.
Seaton Delavalα sits at the heart of the valley. Turning
one way, there lies a charming local coöperative store, a
genuine lordly manor (owned by
the town’s namesake De la Val family, who came over after 1066), the
previously-blogged village of Holywell, and, eventually,
the seaside settlement of Seaton Sluice.β Unfortunately, we’ll be turning
the other way, by where once stood a colliery.
The former site of Delaval’s station can hardly be considered a sight for sore eyes. Cars and
lorries pass by, horns blaring, trying to weave their way between those turning into the nearby
petrol station.γ The location of the station itself is an uninspiring gravel
pit on one site with an overgrown nettle-filled path on the other; next door is a chain pub whose
car park will be getting embiggened to accommodate the extra traffic once the railway reopens.
It doesn’t get much better. A few interesting-looking eateries (a grimy-looking café called “Only
Fools and Sauces”, a venue by the name of the
Secret Gardenδ with a wonderful
hand-painted sign) added some initial spice, but soon i was back to the same industrial wasteland:
Auto recycling! Furniture wholesalers! Caravan storage! Chemical producers! The works!
...I said something about a colliery, didn’t i?
16 January, 1862. It’s half past ten — or, at least, it might be. You’ve been labouring
away in the coal pit since two in the morning, and you’ve not seen the sun since. The shift is
almost over, and it’s time to swap over with the next group.
One by one, your comrades file in line to get out. A huddle of people enter the rusting lift. The
familiar ketter-ketter-ketter shudders through the cave — but then, for a fraction of a
second, all falls silent.
Your heart races. A drop of water falls from the ceiling. Nobody makes a sound.
And then, all of a sudden, it is as though Thor’s hammer has crashed
into the ground. The earth around you shakes in terror, lets out what can only be described as an
otherworldly scream, as ten tonnes of blood-red steel smash into the floor.
This was the
Hartley Pit disaster, and its shockwaves can still be heard across town.
Just across from the telltale jackhammers and yellow tape of a housing estate so new Google Maps
hasn’t caught up yetε sits a lovely memorial garden, explaining the story of
the tragedy, with a poem to contemplate as you ramble along the path.
In terms of stations, the town has had two — Hartley and Hartley Pit — both right next to each
other, and neither seeming to have any chance of reopening.
I was a bit anxious about continuing on, because there were several serious-looking men in hard-hats
and high-vis jackets, but they didn’t seem to mind. They really, really should have tried to stop me
from going to where i was going next.
Coming up on The Garden: your author tries not to disturb some horses, desperately tries to avoid going to fucking
Blyth, and accidentally sneaks in a brief trip to Durham. I promise, it makes sense in
context.
Last time on The Garden: the axe falls on the Blyth and Tyne line, and i foolhardily decide to walk its length…
Our journey begins at Northumberland Park, in North Tyneside. Though it’s the
first station we’ll be visiting, it was the last to be constructed, having only opened in 2005 — and
it’s quite easy to tell, even after sixteen years of wear and tear; the place is outfitted with
modern amenities, lifts, ticket machines flush with the wall, and, more lately, pandemic-themed
graffiti opposite the platform. This unassuming metro station will, according to the county
council’s plans, serve as the interchange between the old and new lines, heavy rail and metro
meeting one last time before splitting apart and going their separate ways.
Setting off from there, the first thing that caught my eye were twin giants: a frosted glass-covered
car park and a red-brick Sainsbury’s, unexpected icons of the modern British condition. It didn’t
get much better from there; down the road lies an American-style strip mall lined with bookmakers
trying to get people to piss away all their money.
This sorry-looking trolley was, i presume, abandoned from the local Sainsbury’s.
This southernmost tip of Northumberland is criss-crossed by innumerable public footpaths, cycle
paths, bridleways, and other routes for non-metal-box-related transport; ducking onto one of the
reclaimed
“waggonways” once used
to transport coal, i found myself on the site of the second station on the list.
The leafy suburb of Backworth has a habit of burying its history.
A hoard of offerings from Roman times
was found underground in the 1810s, the last vestiges of the colliery that once was are long gone,
and the tale of this sorry ex-station is rather similar. Opened in 1864 to replace a nearby station
closing the same day, Backworth station served its community for over 100 years, surviving the
Beeching cuts. But when the Tyne and Wear Metro was announced to come to town, the old station
finally closed… for good. It wasn’t until the opening of Northumberland Park that there would be
a replacement.
As i wandered through the village's verdant streets, i couldn’t help but think of its resemblance to
the straight, cycle-friendly streets of my old hometown. A little greenery can go a long way.
The graffiti reads “Monty Brown is a grass”. I would never say such unkind things about Mr
Brown.
Network Rail were hard at work at the site of the aforementioned original Backworth station, whose
plot of land now sits vacant, marking the city’s last hurrah; the further i walked along the dirt
back roads, the further the sounds of bustling cars receded, until, ducking under a shady underpass,
i found myself utterly alone amongst pastoral fields (and the overwhelming scent of manure).
That peace and quiet was swiftly interrupted by a troupe of boy racers on motorcycles and
quad-bikes, but you can’t win them all, you know?
After the county borders were hacked up in 1974, this line became the divider between rural
Northumberland and ostensibly-urban Tyne and Wear.
The (post-1974) border town of Seghill occupies only the tiniest fragment of the
collective English consciousness, popping up briefly in an anti-scab miners’ folk song called
“Blackleg Miner”:
It’s in the evening after dark, when the blackleg miner creeps to work With his
moleskin pants and dirty shirt there gans the blackleg miner!
[...]
So, divvint gan near the Seghill mine Across the way they stretch a line, to catch the
throat and break the spine of the dirty blackleg miner
[...]
So join the union while you may Divvint wait till your dying day, for that may not be
far away, you dirty blackleg miner!
For our purposes, it’s chiefly notable for the fact that it’s the first disused station on the list
whose buildings are still intact and in use, this time as a corner shop, from which i of course
bought a copy of the local rag — prominently including a
Q&A about the restoration of service on the line, which i
thought a fitting reminder of why i set out on this silly old journey in the first place.
After getting some well deserved rest, i headed on off towards the next town over, awaiting what
fresh stories i would find...
Next time on “Walking the Blyth and Tyne”: your author is reminded of her own mortality, finds
himself in the company of a noble family, and shudders at the thought of having to go to Blyth,
of all places on Gods’ green Earth
It’s March of 1963. The island of Great Britain is in the throes of its coldest winter in two
decades, senior frontbench MP Harold Wilson was recently handed the
reins of the Labour party, the Beatles have just released their debut album, and, somewhere in the
bowels of Whitehall, Dr Richard Beeching is writing a report that will change the country’s
connecting tissue forever.
Dr Beeching, you see, is the chairman of British Railways, the state-owned company in charge of rail
transport, and they’re in a spot of financial trouble. British Railways are in charge of running
fifteen thousand miles of track shuttling between about four and a half thousand stations, and the
only way they can do that is via generous subsidies from Her Majesty’s Government — something which
the governing Conservatives, as a rule, are never too happy about.
So, pen in hand, he takes a metaphorical axe to the network, marking about half of the island’s
stations for closure. It’s not pleasant, but it has to be done — and, after all, people can just
take the car to their nearest station if their town’s is shut.i I’m sure it
won’t be too bad.
That's how, a year later, the last passenger trains ran along 5,000 miles of railway across England,
Scotland, and Wales, including those connecting the mining heartland of industrial Northumberland.
The Tyne and Wear Metro, opened in 1980, allowed some of these lines to reopen in Newcastle’s
suburbs and (relatively) affluent coastal communities. But just a few miles north, the former Blyth
and Tyne Railway has lain dormant ever since the axe fell… until now.
In recent years, the stars have aligned, and both the county council and Westminster have agreed to
reopen the line, finally bringing these proud towns back together. The Blyth and Tyne Railway, now
rechristened by the more attractive name of the
Northumberland Line, is set to reopen by 2024. To celebrate this historic moment, i thought i’d see what has become of
the stations and towns that were. I’ve identified fourteen stations, past, present, and future,
along the line, and i’ll be walking between each of them in turn, seeing what stories they tell. The
list includes:
Northumberland Park, the metro station ready and waiting to become the new
line’s interchange
Backworth (the second)
Backworth (the first), already long closed by the time the axe fell
Seghill
Seaton Delaval, planned for reopening
Hartley Pit / Hartley, two old stations just metres apart
Newsham, planned for reopening
Blyth, on an old branch line
Blyth Bebside, planned for reopening
Bedlington, planned for reopening
North Seaton, now subsumed within Ashington’s town area
Ashington, planned for reopening
Woodhorn, listed on early plans for reopening but mysteriously disappeared since
Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, no longer in existence but with the route there safeguarded just in case
The Victoria Tunnel runs beneath the streets of Newcastle, from the Tyne up to the Town Moor. It
traverses not only space, but time, through nearly every corner of England’s history: built to
transport coal in the Industrial Revolution, on the site of an old Roman spring, it was used during
the second world war to house those fleeing German bombs. It was even considered for use in the cold
war, before the government realised that some musty old coal tunnels would probably not provide the
greatest protection against a nuclear blast.
And now you can go down it. In 2007, Newcastle City Council decided to refurbish the tunnel and open
a small stretch of it — the rest is either unsafe for sending humans down or currently in use as a
sewer — up for public tours. Entry is via a side street along the Ouseburn, where the guides will
cheerfully show you a map and some old photographs of the entrance. Once you get inside the tunnel
itself, hard hats and torches are compulsory, and covid restrictions are still in full force. This
was both a benefit and a malefit: yes, the tour was shorter than it would otherwise be, and masks
get quite uncomfortable when you’re wearing them for an hour in a dank, dark tunnel, but on the
other hand, our small group of family and friends got the place practically all to ourselves,
without having to be shepherded alongside other members of the public.
The water from the ancient Roman spring is directed through a side channel, to avoid it getting
all over the tunnel floor. Sometimes it even works!
The tunnel is just barely wide enough to fit three people side-by-side, and if, like me, you’re of a
certain height, bumping your head on the roof is practically guaranteed. By every blast door,
there’s a plaque about what’s above you, and how it factors into the tunnel and the city’s history,
stories with which the guides will gladly regale visitors (including some rather grim tragedies).
Coming back out the entrance, i felt more informed about this wonderful county’s industrial history
— just in time to pop over to a gentrified vegan “superfood pub”. The wonders of modern life.
Price: £9–11 per adult depending on the length of the tour; £4 per child
Address:
Victoria Tunnel Entrance, Ouse St., Valley, Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 2PF
— just next to the CrossFit gym.
Accessibility: The tunnel was built in the 19th century and without
accessibility in mind, so is not wheelchair-accessible. The Ouseburn Trust do, due to the
pandemic, offer a virtual tour.
Getting there: The Q3 bus from the centre of town
stops nearby; otherwise, getting there poses a bit of a hike, due to its location.
