Mining Heritage

Durham Miners' Hall, or the premises of the Durham Miners' Association, was located within this handsome building on Redhills Lane in Durham city.



These four fine marble statues once resided on the former, original, Miners' hall. They are all Durham miners' trade union officials from the early years of the movement.



This powerful sculpture entitled "The Putter" depicts a young miner straining to re-rail a loaded tub. It is the work of Brian Brown and was completed in 1995.

Roker Dawn

Taken last Sunday, I didn't get up quite early enough, but the result is not too bad!

Canon 5D 70-200L

North Shields

This part of North Shields was something of a revelation to me, a street of fine late Georgian/early Victorian buildings and an attractive square.



The Stag Line building is grade 2 listed, originally the Lit and Phil, it became the offices of the Stag shipping line, but now serves as the registry office.





Down on the fish quay, politically incorrect but it made me laugh.



Canon 5D 24-70L

Sunshine on Derwentwater

On Tuesday we walked from Portinscale to Grange, following the lakeside. We caught the bus to Keswick and then walked back to Portinscale. The footbridge just outside of Portinscale was closed due to flood damage, and this caused a rather unwelcome deviation alongside the main road. Never fear, for the first two hours of the walk the sun shone and, as is often the case, the Lake District appeared as heaven on earth.

Nice work if you can get it, workmen building a new landing stage.







The flood plane at the end of the lake has a new walkway made from recycled plastic, I rather liked this snaking lead into the view of Borrowdale.



Canon 5D 24-70L

More from Blyth

The offshore support vessel Skandi Inspector's hull provided a series of rich patterns.





Arklow Manor unloading alumina into Alcan's silos



Those famous beach huts

Blyth in the sun

I had to go to Blyth in connection with work, and was able to take a couple of snaps of the rather impressive metal artwork that has appeared on the old coal staithes. Entitled "Spirit of the Staithes", it's the work of Sunderland born artist Simon Packard.



The modern sculpture does provide an interesting frame to shoot the wind turbines through.



Canon 5D 24-70L and 70-200L

High tide and strong winds cause flooding

On Sunday 28th March a combination of strong onshore winds and an unusually high tide caused flooding along the coastal road in South Shields.



The car park under water.



The sea continuing to crash over the barrier wall.

Canon 5D 24-70L

Ark Royal Leaves the Tyne

The Ark Royal was built at Swan Hunter's shipyard at Wallsend in 1981 and returned to Tyneside for a courtesy visit last weekend.



Berthed at North Shields



Seen leaving the Tyne from South Shields ferry landing. Despite the cold, rain and wind, plenty of people turned out to wave goodbye.

Canon 5D 24-70L