David Medlycott

Seeing Bob’s blogspot on the new Infinity Bridge at Stockton, we saw it being built last year when caravanning at the White Water Park, just made me think of our bridges in Newcastle. We have ten, to date, plus a tunnel, soon to be two tunnels.

As it happened, Helen and I went for a walk around Newcastle on Sunday morning and down to the rejuvenated Quayside Market. This is quite an historical market going back decades, if not centuries, but it had fallen on lean times lately. In fact, two years ago I wandered down there, while working, for the first time in years and was horrified at the sight of about ten stalls in the entire length of the Quay. But, as you can see below it has picked up and changed in nature, and is a more modern ‘crafty’ kind of market, with food stalls that actually looked appealing. The Quayside is closed off for most of Sunday for safety, but the original market, as I remember it, used to fill the road as well as the pavement with two aisles and was twice the size you see here.

The photo’ was taken from the High Level Bridge, built in 1846 by Robert Stephenson and John Dobson, with a railway over the road. After two years of renovation the roadway is only one-way, now, and restricted to public transport only. As you can see it’s quite cramped even for pedestrians. I used to hate driving over it in a car, let alone a van or truck.

Looking down river is the well-known, if not visually worn-out, view of the Tyne Bridge, opened in 1928, and often quoted as being a prototype for the Sydney Harbour Bridge. They are identical visually, but only coincidentally, I am told, as that was the way to build a bridge of that type then and that was also the fashion for bridges of that type, too. Below and between is the Swing Bridge built by Lord Armstrong in 1876 to enable big vessels to navigate up and down from his factories upstream in the heyday of Newcastle’s heavy engineering history. It still operates occasionally, the hydraulic mechanism being controlled from the glasshouse on top.

Hiding coyly behind the Tyne Bridge is our newest pedestrian bridge, and cyclist’s, the Millennium Bridge. Also know as the Blinking Bridge, not derogatively, but because the image as it opens is of two eyelids apparently closing.

Behind us is a list of bridges, which maybe I’ll photograph another day. The Queen Elizabeth 2nd Metro bridge, for our rapid transit system; the King Edward Bridge, railway only; the New Redheugh Bridge (pronounced ‘hewff’ = cliffs or banks in old Northumbrian) for road traffic; then round the bend is the Scotswood Bridge for road traffic; the abandoned Scotswood rail bridge, and then the new Blaydon Bridge carrying the new A1 Western Bypass. And then further up is the oft-forgotten (by me too!) Newburn Bridge. So that’s eleven in all. You’d think that would be enough for anyone. But right downstream between Howden, on the north bank, and Jarrow is the Tyne Tunnel, currently being upgraded with an additional bore. Only they are not boring it, but sinking huge pre-cast concrete tunnel sections into a dredged channel, sealing them up and pumping out the water. There is another tunnel, too, oft-forgotten, again! That’s the Tyne pedestrian tunnel, two bores side by side that linked the ship-building areas of the north and south banks and was once packed with workers crossing between the two, but now, it's merely a tourist curiosity, for those who know that it’s there.

Over May-Day Bank Holiday we took our caravan to a Camping Club rally at Allendale in the North Pennines. The town takes its name from the dale in which it nestles. If you drive south you come to Allenheads at the peak of the dale, the road then drops quite steeply to the river Wear in Weardale. To the west is Alston, another lovely stone built town and to the north , Corbridge, Hexham, Haydon Bridge, with it’s brand new by-pass, and Haltwhistle, I wonder where that name came from. To all you southerners, he says smugly, coming from Hastings, if you have not been here you don’t know what you’re missing. But, of course, it leaves more for us.

Anyway, while we were there, Allendale was running its first Scarecrow Competition, in aid of church funds. There were seventy scarecrows listed when you bought your voting form for one pound. But, Helen and I drove round and, despite missing a few of the listed ones, photographed eighty. We covered a few miles, too, as they were dotted all over the map.

Allendale’s got talent won first prize.

The Wedding Party came second.

And, Bob the Builder came in third.

Our vote went to a young Tina Turner look-a-like, who could obviously
go all night with that power!

Unfortunately, we had to leave before all the details were published, in fact the above results were unofficial, so we don’t know if it was a financial success, but it was certainly popular.