Apart from the suffix on my previous Durham post you knew this was coming anyway. I can’t seem to go anywhere without seeing Art Deco/Modernist buildings.

Somehow though and despite my experience in Chester last year, I thought pickings in Durham would be small.

Yet entering the main square in Durham the first building we came across was Boots.

There was construction work going on in the square which is why the photo is cropped tightly. Down a narrow street leading off the square there was this:-

I forget who the tenant of the building is now but the Burton’s shop in Durham at the moment is actually the other side of the street from this.

This is the view from the window of the car park we used.

I took this photo because of the roofline of the building just across the river which reminded me of the former Raith Cinema.

Just for contrast here’s one of the River Wear from below the Cathedral (and without any Deco.) There’s a weir stretching from the building on the left diagonally across the river and one of Durham’s bridges in the distance.

On the way out of town I pulled into a cul-de-sac to check the map. The street was full of thirties houses!

The third semi down still has its original Critall windows.

After Newcastle we scooted down to Durham (passing Antony Gormley‘s Angel of the North on the way.) The main attraction there is, of course, the Cathedral. I’d seen it before from the train, dominating Durham’s skyline.

This is a side view I took from the south.

This one is from the north: a stitch of two photos as I couldn’t get back far enough to get the whole thing in.

Just to the right of the cathedral entrance in a grassy area there was a large stone cross.

We crossed the grass to investigate and it was another memorial to the South African War, if not quite as ornate as the one in Newcastle (see two posts ago.) The photo is floating right.

The cathedral itself is impressive while more intimate than York or Canterbury. It apparently costs over £60,000 a week to maintain it.

The stone columns suporting the structure are carved with different patterns. The chevrons were the most attractive. The shrine to St Cuthbert is a bit over the top though. Its canopy has iconography you would more expect to see in an Orthodox context rather than C of E. (But it would have been constructed in the RC era I suppose.)

On one wall there were lists of previous abbots, deans and bishops. I noticed one Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal, in the latter. He seems to have been the only Bishop of Durham who was also a Cardinal. The early names were all single. When did the practice of adopting surnames come into being?

The part of the cathedral I found most moving was the side chapel devoted to the Durham Light Infantry (DLI.) There were lists of battle honours dating back to beyond the Napoleonic wars. Books of remembrance of both World Wars were open at the relevant week’s dates showing the names of those DLI who died on the corresponding days in the war years, and where they fell. I saw no blank days for either war. So it goes. Several small crosses with poppies were laid in a niche. There was one for a former DLI soldier with the dates 1910-2010 and annotated “Veteran of Kohima.” Kohima was a particularly vicious battle on India’s border in World War 2. He did well to survive it, and to reach such an age.

There was also a memorial to miners who had died in pit disasters and such, not the sort of thing usually found in cathedrals I think. And a modern piece of stained glass showing the cathedral’s and Durham area’s history.

There’s a lot to see.

Newcastle’s Northumberland Street does still have a couple of deco frontages. This is a Peacock’s now. Was it once a Woolies? Again the photo is a stitch.

I had thought this one might have been a Burton’s:-

I think now, due to the clock, it was once a Marks and Spencer but it may have been something else. In any case I searched flickr and the picture below is what came up for Burton’s. It looked like one of the art deco buildings I had seen in the book of old Newcastle (see first link in this post):-:-

I saw no sign of this building on present day Northumberland Street. The Marks and Spencer’s shop is now located in the Eldon Square shopping centre. We went in and browsed but there was nothing worth buying.

The photograph below (from flickr via a postcard) was exactly the same as the other art deco building I had seen in the book of old Newcastle:-

I did notice a newer Bhs further along Northumberland Street. The building in the postcard was apparently demolished to make Monument Mall. I doubt that’s as aesthetically pleasing as the former Bhs was.

Right at the end of Northumberland Street we came upon the very tall monument I have pictured floating right.*

It was erected in memory of the dead of the “South African War” as the inscription has it. This is more often known as the Boer War but more accurately was the Second Boer War.

There are quite a few such memorials around. One is on the parapet of Edinburgh’s North Bridge. I have a piece of crested china which is a reproduction of the memorial in Hull to the dead of the same war and I have seen another similarly patterned piece with a different town’s crest. The next day (in Durham) we encountered another tall memorial to the South African War.

On the way back to the car we passed Newcastle’s civic centre. It’s a much more modern building with a tower surmounted by a circular top with horses’ heads and a finial showing the three castle symbol that also appears on silver objects assayed in Newcastle when the city still had an assay office.

The castle motif also appeared on the railings surrounding the civic centre.

*Edited to add:- for some idea of the memorial’s scale see this link. Its surroundings have changed somewhat since the postcard photos in the link were taken.

After leaving the riverside we climbed the hill from the Tyne towards the shops and (eventually) found them.

We went into one of those North of England town extensive inside markets where we browsed a second hand bookshop and I flicked through a book on old Newcastle and discovered Northumberland Street had had some Art Deco buildings on it but my knowledge of Newcastle’s street geography was minimal.

We moseyed around for a while and came upon this unexpectedly on rounding a corner where Debenham’s is (ie not on Northumberland Street.) I couldn’t get the whole thing in one shot so this is a stitch which is why there’s a black strip at the top and it looks bendy.

It’s the Cooperative building; deco in that monumental almost Stalinist way.

Here’s a detail.

There’s a close up on one of the towers on flickr which shows up the trianguloid windows. Plus another of the side of one of the clocks where you can see COOPERATIVE written round the face.

Just off Eldon Square there is this building:-

I found this different angle on flickr:-

Just on a bit we got to Northumberland Street. The Fenwick’s frontage there predates Art Deco. Again this is a stitch as I couldn’t get back far enough to frame it all in one shot.

Halfway across the Millenium Bridge I took the shot below of the other four bridges which span the Tyne between Newcastle and Gateshead.

The four bridges are respectively;-

The Tyne Bridge – the iconic one arched like Sydney Harbour Bridge,

the Swing Bridge low down on the river,

Stephenson’s High Level Bridge which carries both road and rail traffic,

the Queen Elizabeth II Metro Bridge whose structure you can just make out behind the High Level Bridge.

The picture floating to the right is a zoom of the left hand tower of The Tyne Bridge.

Also on the Gateshead waterfront is the Sage Gateshead, a performance and conference venue, one of those bulbous constructions seemingly in vogue at the moment.

This photo is from the Baltic Gallery.

This is from the Newcastle side of the river.

It looks a bit like a slug from this angle.

Last week the good lady and I took ourselves off to North East England for a couple of days.

We’d meant to make the trip a couple of weeks ago but a certain news event there gave us pause.

We actually passed through Ponteland – which has a brick Art Deco town hall but there wasn’t an easy place to stop to photograph it – and saw signs for Rothbury. I can’t say I’d ever heard of either until early last month.

First stop was Newcastle (upon Tyne.)

Well, it was actually Gateshead where we parked adjacent to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. This is the view from the west side of the building.

And this is from the Millenium Bridge.

The interior of the gallery is impressive – they’ve done a good job of converting the original flour mill but the contents left me cold.

One of the exhibits was art work by John Cage, more famous for musical compositions (or more accurately for 4 minutes 33 seconds of silence.) His pictures consisted of muddy daubs, streaks and circles. The good lady opined that he must be a genius; he can take the piss in two disciplines, music and art.

The Tomas Saraceno spider web left me cold (as did the fish tanks with spiders in them.) Cornelia Parker’s circle of squashed brass/silver instruments was quite effective – especially when viewed from the floor above.

I’ve enjoyed visits to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art on Belford Road, Edinburgh and its companion the Dean Gallery over the road so I’m not a complete philistine but this was distinctly underwhelming.

Then it was over the Millenium Bridge to Newcastle. The first picture is from the walkway just by the Gallery.

The second is from the Newcastle side further up the river.

I quite like modern bridges like this. The Clyde Arc (or Squinty Bridge) in Glasgow is another in similar vein.

When in the old town last week I took a few pictures of deco influenced buildings. This one, in South Street, was once John Menzies and is now a Smith’s.

This close-up shows more detail of the Saltire below the roof line and the coat of arms.

Rollo, Davidson, McFarlane’s lawyers is in Bell Street.

The street known as The Links runs right by the Old Course’s 18th fairway and green. You may have spotted this house in the TV coverage of the Open. It’s a strange mixture of deco and Scottish vernacular.

This is from The Links itself. The roof steps are very deco.

Last week the good lady and I took another stroll along the Water of Leith.

No herons this time, and we didn’t tarry by Dean Village, the Dene Bridge nor St Bernards Well but since the last time we were there, there have been a few additions to the water in the shape of Antony Gormley sculptures. This is the one nearest Stockbridge.

Gormley is most famous for the Angel Of The North but has also placed figures on Crosby Beach near Liverpool and on roofs in New York and London.

The Water of Leith seems an appropriate location for these new emplacements as it flows past the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, albeit out of sight in a valley.

We had a look around Stockbridge, the good lady loading up on books from the charity shops and a great second-hand book shop that we hadn’t gone into before.

I liked the look of this one as the facade is Decoish:-

I suspect the projecting frontage may have started life as a bank.

There is some nice detailing on the door surround too.

On its left as you look at it in the photo stands the former Woolworths shop (which wasn’t ever Art Deco) and is now a Scotmid.

On the way back I photographed the bridge which carries Belford Road over the river.

I’ve no idea whether this is one of Thomas Telford’s (as the Dene Bridge is) but it looks of an age to me.

This is the detail up on the right in close up:-

I believe it depicts the Arms of Edinburgh.

A few weeks ago myself and the good lady took a stroll along the waterside at Dalgety Bay on the Forth.

Unusually there was activity on the river. Ships do appear and disappear from the estuary but they seem to do it overnight.

This was a pleasing shot of two tugs.

There was a yacht out on the river. You can almost see it to the left against the Forth Bridge.

The houses at St David’s Harbour remind me a bit of Portmeirion, though they aren’t as Italianate. (As a point of reference the foreground lamp-post in both pictures is the same.)

They are what Portmeirion might have looked like if it had been designed by a committee.

The buildings here were a delight to come across. So quaint and Olde Worlde; obviously recently refurbished yet with a sympathetic touch.

I took a photo of this interesting cluster and juxtaposition of roofs and windows. I love the way the gutter goes across the window towards the top left of the picture

Well Court is by the Water Of Leith, over the water from Dean Village. Here’s my photo of the clocktower.

The buildings are clustered round a square entered through an archway. One corner had this mediæval style stairwell open to the elements. Nice ironwork on the balconies.

One of Edinburgh’s relatively hidden pleasures.