The good lady and I took a short trip over to the west coast early in August. We travelled via the A 84 through Callander and past Loch Lubnaig up to the A 85.

Suddenly, on reaching Crianlarich, we had entered Gaeldom. The green background A-road signs displayed the English names of destinations in the usual white but in yellow there was in addition the Gaelic.* Glaschu and An t-Òban, for example for Glasgow and Oban. Fort William was easy to decipher being An Gearasdan – the garrison – how literal; as was stèisean for station.

Now, it’s years since I’ve been that far over but I don’t remember any Gaelic* road signs in Argyll and Bute back then. Up north, round Inverness and the like, yes; but not over in the west. Or had I just forgotten?

Anyway we passed through Connel. When I were a lad I’m sure it was called Connel Ferry. (Or was that just the railway station?) There’s no ferry now, of course. But there is a striking modern bridge. The photo is a stitch to get it all in.

Loch Etive, a sea loch, was running into the Firth of Lorne like a river tumbling down a slope.

The water was roiling and churning under the bridge quite fiercely.Though the water wasn’t very deep I wouldn’t have liked to be a ferrymaster dealing with that lot.

*This should, of course, be Gàidhlig.

On the way back up from Alnwick we stopped at Berwick to get something to eat. We’d have settled for a chippy but there wasn’t one on the main street or the ones leading off it.

On the way in to the town I had spotted this Art Deco garage but I took the photo from the opposite side of the River Tweed. On the way out I had to recross the river first and discovered it was built in 1937.

The old bridge over the Tweed has nice arches. There were lots of swans on the river.

I took this of the newer road bridge, and the railway bridge behind it, from the old one.

The town itself was down at heel and shabby looking even allowing for the fact that it was latish (after closing time.) This must surely once have been a Woolworths.

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This was another building that looks a bit deco.

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.

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.

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.

This is a nice view of both Forth bridges. It was taken from the grounds of Dunfermline Abbey.

From this vantage point the more modern road bridge is in the foreground.

The Forth Bridge is in the background, still festooned with the plastic cladding they have been using in the latest painting effort.

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.

This is Thomas Telford’s Dene Bridge over the Water Of Leith viewed from the West. I’ve crossed this bridge many times but hadn’t seen it from below before (except on television.) You don’t get any idea when you’re on it just how high it is nor of its detailing.

The photo is a stitch of three (I think I didn’t quite get my angles right so the match isn’t perfect. It also shows only two of the three spans. Too many trees in the way.)

Here are the individual photos.

This is the view from the other (East) side.

This thing is massive.

One strange thing we learned about Chester is that it’s in Wales – in the televisual sense at least. Button 4 on the remote in the B&B had S4C and Channel 4 was on button 8. I think the border is actually right on Chester’s outskirts but it still seemed strange.

We left Chester and headed east to view some modern architecture. I took the A56 because I was fed up with motorways and knew the road passed close to our destination.

As a result of this we travelled through Altrincham, Sale and Stretford, encountering quite a few Art Deco cinemas, shops and houses on the way but I have no pictures as I was driving.

At Salford we were directed down Matt Busby Way past the Theatre of Debts Dreams and on to Daniel Libeskind’s building for the Imperial War Museum North. This photo was taken from across the Manchester Ship Canal.

The first thing I noticed on getting out of the car in the car park I instantly recognised as a Soviet designed tank. (The good lady wondered how I knew but they’re just so distinctive.) It’s in desert camouflage since it’s a T-55 as used by the Iraqi army and was captured by British forces during the second Gulf War.

There’s a T-34 inside the museum. (When I see Second World War footage of those I always think they look like Daleks. It’s probably the way the gun sticks out.) Also among the exhibits are a Harrier Jump Jet – which had to be craned in before the roof was put on – a gun turret from a Wellington bomber – tiny inside – and a German floating mine laid at Scarborough in World War 1.

The building’s shape and form were explained by the tour guide (from whom we got a hug: but don’t get your hopes up – she went to school with our younger son’s girlfriend, and we’d met before.)

The unusual shape is based on a fragmented world with three shards representing Earth, Air and Water – the three arenas for war. Apparently there was to be a fourth symbolising Fire – highly appropriate to war, as well as matching the four ancient Greek Elements – however, the project’s funding didn’t permit that. The audio visual displays projected onto the inside walls are very effective.

We spent four hours inside and wondered where the time had gone. It’s well worth a visit.

A spot of lunch (late) and then over the Ship Canal to the Lowry, designed by Michael Wilford and started in 1997. We were told the building is supposed to resemble a steamship. My photo is a stitch of two taken from the War Museum side.

More details are on the Lowry website.

There were lots of Lowry paintings, of course – some not of matchstalk men: mostly the early ones before his style settled. In “Going To The Match” he captures perfectly that stooped-over walk men used to have when walking to a football match. Others of the pictures show this stooping too, though, so maybe it’s a Northern England thing.

There are some of Lowry’s landscapes here too but none was as good as his riverscape that we saw in the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow.

We then spent some time in the Lowry Retail Outlet just across the plaza.

The area has been cleaned up since it was industrial. There were scullers taking advantage of the calm water. The new BBC premises in Manchester are under construction a stone’s throw away off a branch of the Canal. (See the cranes in the photo above.) I hope from the outside that will be more interesting than the vast shoe box they recently built in Glasgow – which is stunning inside instead; but that’s a bit pointless really.

The footbridge across the Ship Canal between the two museums is interesting as it’s on a lift; or rather two lifts – a kind of modern equivalent of the Transporter Bridge at Middlesbrough. There’s a photo on the Lowry site of it raised to allow a ship through.