![Meme captioned "Holy shit!! Is that a motherfucking [Newcastle upon Tyne] reference???" surrounded by various things which almost look like things from Newcastle](/garden/media/holyshitreference.jpg)
Posts tagged as âNewcastleâ
A walk down to the Quayside
Notes from St Peterâs Marina
St Peterâs Marina confuses me. Itâs like someone dropped a quaint postwar Dutch town centre in the middle of a grimy industrial waste, The river still stinks, and the architecture is â generally â an unconvincing pastiche. Just who is living here?
Dispatches from a coastal walk
I had some time to kill after buying my mam a present from Tynemouthâs station market and decided to spend it by taking a walk in the golden hours of the day, now that spring is coming around and the weather isnât quite so permanently miserable. I thought i might show you some photos.
Chvrches at City Hall
I went to see everyoneâs favourite synth-pop act Chvrches a few nights back, and i must say they put on a hell of a show. Even at the City Hall â quite a stuffy venue by most standards â the crowd went absolutely mental for âClearest Blueâ at the end! (I barely know what came over me.)
Great staging, too â i counted three costume changes throughout the night, including a delectably bloody âFINAL GIRLâ shirt for the encore. (Their latest album has a horror-movie gimmick crafted entirely to let them swap remixes1 with John Carpenter â not that iâm complaining.)
The opening act were an Ozzie band called HighSchool who, being brutally honest, should go back to PrimarySchool. Theyâre one of those acts that basically only know how to write one song over and over, and itâs alright at first, but by take number five of the same sludge youâre praying for it to end, you know? (See also the inexplicably successful 1975 cover band Pale Waves.)
9/10, would stand in line for several hours again.
Eulogy for a food court
I was on my usual city constitutional the other week when i noticed that my favourite bubble tea place1 had shuttered. Hm, thatâs odd, i thought. Last time that happened was lockdown. Donât know why theyâd do it again. I assumed theyâd be back again swiftly, and went on with my day.
Then the week after i noticed that the entrance to the ĂŒber-hip shipping-container food court of which it was a part was blocked off. Hm, thatâs odd, i thought. Ah, well. Itâs probably just construction. These things happen all the time.
It was only yesterday that i saw the crane lifting one of the shipping containers away and realised something (other than the container) was up. Sure enough, one quick google reveals the flashy new development thatâll be taking its place â originally it was going to be mixed-use, but covid crunch caused them to scale back to the thing that covid really, conclusively proved was absolutely 100% necessary and in demand, definitely: offices.
âPilgrimâs Quarterâ is part of a broader redevelopment of the neglected Pilgrim Street, which may or may not include a pedestrianisation â i donât know; itâs all in jargonese and i canât make heads or tails of what Enhancing The Public Realm is meant to mean. (Or, for that matter, why theyâve misspelt it as âPilgrimâs Quaterâ on the official brochure.)
The permission slips are all in place â so hereâs to you, Stack. You might have had some exorbitant prices (sorry, Korean place, but iâm not paying ÂŁ12 for a few chicken wings and fries), but otherwyze you were a shining beacon of small businesses in the city centre â you were too good for this world. *Pops open a bottle of champagne*
The mystery of Newcastleâs vampire rabbit
Down a narrow alleyway to the back end of St Nicholasâ Cathedral, in Newcastle, one can find a rather curious decoration garnishing a door on the opposing façade. The âvampire rabbitâ has stood watch over the cathedral for at least half a century; while records are scarce (a quick search of Google Books doesnât bring up anything until the twenty-first century), it could well date back to the buildingâs construction in 1901.
Hereâs the thing, though. Nobody knows how it got there. Indeed, even the name âvampire rabbitâ 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 itâs 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, itâs a fascinating little secret â what do you think is most likely?
Other people's posts
The Victoria Tunnel
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 Englandâs 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 stretchâof it â the rest is either unsafe for sending humans down or currently in use as a sewerâââup 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 youâre 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 tunnel is just barely wide enough to fit three people side-by-side, and if, like me, youâre of a certain height, bumping your head on the roof is practically guaranteed. By every blast door, thereâs a plaque about whatâs above you, and how it factors into the tunnel and the cityâs 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 countyâs industrial history â just in time to pop over to a gentrified vegan âsuperfood pubâ. The wonders of modern life.
Information for prospective visitors
- Tours can be booked on the Ouseburn Trustâs website.
- Price: ÂŁ9â11 per adult depending on the length of the tour; ÂŁ4 per child
- Address: Victoria Tunnel Entrance, Ouse St., Valley, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 2PF â 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.
Notities van een wandeling door Newcastle
De verukkelijke vallei van de Tyne heeft geen gebrek aan uitstekende uitzichten, maar het mooist is mijns inziens dat wat gezien wordt door iemand die langs de Side loopt.α In de schaduw van het Monument, langs de klassieke zuilen van het Theatre Royal (Koninklijk Theater) en over Grey Street zodra zij Dean Street wordt, en eindelijk rechtsaf naar de Side op de bodem, dan zal de gelukkige reiziger zien dat de gigantische groene boog van de brug over de Tyne boven hem torent, als een kolos.
Ik weet niet of een foto ooit kan weergeven hoe het is om onder die brug te staan. Maar een van de meest opmerkelijke dingen over dit uitzicht heeft niets te maken met het uitzicht zelf. Stel je voor dat onze reiziger nu langs de kade loopt, totdat hij aan een leeg stuk grond komt, en dan halverwege een stel rottende houten trappen oploopt. Hij zal zich vergapen aan het twééde mooiste uitzicht van de stad: een prachtige panorama op elke brug tussen de twee oevers van de machtige Tyne.
We verdienen deze stad niet.
Ik had geen fles water meegenomen, want ik wou aanvankelijk alleen maar naar het stadscentrum en terug: het roekeloze idee om helemaal naar WallsÂend te gaan kwam spontaan in me op, al ver van huis. De hele weg gaan zonder fles bleek al snel een slecht idee, dus ik klom naar de lokale buurtwinkelâââen, godenzijdank, zij hadden al het flessenwater dat iemand ooit zou willen!
Helemaal gehydrateerd, ik was klaar om verder te lopen⊠maar toen zag ik een wonderbaarlijke ding. Een klein parkje, een opening van groen met een paar banken en inscripties op de grond, verscholen tussen een woonwijk en een bouwplaats. Ik nam enkele fotoâs. Ik zou ze graag laten zien, maar helaas, tussen dese reis en het schrijven van deze post werd mijn gsm gestolen.
Als je toch een bezoek wilt brengen, het is dat parkje naast 5 BelÂmont Street. Google weigert me een echt adres te geven, maar je kunt het niet missen!
Een verslag van mijn denkÂproces wanner ik het bovenÂstaanÂde gebouw zag:
- Dat gebouw ziet er zeer diabolisch uit, maar ik kan niet precies zeggen waaromâŠ
- Ik ga het bedrijf opzoeken.
- Ah, een fossiele-energie-bedrijfâââze zijn tĂłch diabolisch!
Over een fiets- en voetgangersbrug dichtbij kwam it wat graffiti tegen die echt de moderne Engelse psyche samenvatten: een poster van Extinction Rebellion", een doorgestreept âEDLâ,ÎČ en een pik en kloten.
Ik droeg een plaat van HMV (Hot Fuss, door de Killers, als je het zo nodig moet weten) de hele weg mee, en laat me je vertellen, mijn armen deden aan het eind ervan echt pijn! Tenminste kwam zij een tasâŠ
Om af te sluiten, hier zijn vier fotoâs die niet interessant genoeg waren voor een volledige sectie, en een kaart van mijn tocht. Bedankt voor het lezen!
Notes from a walk through Newcastle
The gorgeous gorge that is the Tyne valley has no shortage of winsome views, but the most beautiful, in my opinion, is that which appears to one who goes down the Side.α In the Monumentâs shadow, after passing the classical columns of the Theatre Royal and descending Grey Street as it becomes Dean Street, finally taking a turn onto the Side at the bottom, the lucky traveller will find themself towered over by the behemoth that is the Tyne Bridge:
Iâm not sure any photograph can ever match what itâs like to be there under that bridge. One of the most remarkable things about this view, though, has nothing to do with the view itself, but rather what happens if one walks down the Quayside for a little while, reaches an empty brownfield plot, and clambers up a set of rotting wooden stairs to its right. Because, inexplicably, just a few metres from the most beautiful view in town, one can find the second most beautiful view in town, a glorious lookout on every bridge linking the two banks of the river.
We donât deserve this city.
I had initially neglected to bring a water bottle along with me; i had only intended a quick jaunt to the centre of town and back, and the foolhardy idea of walking all the way to Wallsend came to me spontaneously. This quickly proved a bad idea, and so i made a trek up to the corner shop, who thankfully had all the bottled water anyone could ever want or need.
After leaving fully rehydrated and ready to walk back, i noticed the most wonderful little thing. A parklet, this small opening of green space with some benches and inscriptions, tucked between a housing area and a construction site. I took some picturesâââi would have loved to show them to you, but alas, my phone got stolen in the intervening time between this trip and me writing this post, taking the photographs with it.
Nevertheless, if youâd like to visit (or live vicariously through Google street view), itâs that little park adjacent to 5 Belmont Street. (Google stubbornly refuses to give a proper address, but you canât miss it!)
An account of my thought process upon seeing the above building complex:
- That building looks exceedingly evil, but i canât quite place my finger on whyâŠ
- Iâm going to look the company up.
- Ah, a fossil fuel companyâââthey are evil!
Just a few yards ahead, crossing a foot-and-cycle bridge, i happened upon some strikingly relevant graffiti, alongside some other pieces which really sum up the modern English psyche: an Extinction Rebellion poster, a crossed out âEDLâ,ÎČ and a cock and bollocks.
I carried a record from HMV (the Killersâ Hot Fuss, if you must know) the whole way, and let me tell you, my arms were positively aching by the end of it! At least i had a bagâŠÎł
To sign off, here are some photos whose stories werenât interesting enough to make the cut, as well as a map of the journey. Thank you for reading this disjoint mess.
