I have to admit that I’m fascinated by the manicured homes of this long sweep of road reaching from the base of the Little Orme.
It was fascination, I know And it might have ended right then, at the start Just a passing glance, just a brief romance And I might have gone on my way, empty hearted
There is evidence that the current town location has been occupied since prehistoric times. Prehistoric tools found in the caves of Graig Fawr, in the nearby village of Meliden, have revealed the existence of early human habitation in the area.
“Sunny Prestatyn” became famous for its beach, clean seas and promenade entertainers, and visiting for a bathe was considered very healthy by city-dwelling Victorians.
The town is at the northern end of the Offa’s Dyke Path, although not on Offa’s Dyke itself.
The holiday camp in Prestatyn was built by the London Midland and Scottish Railway Co. in 1939. The main buildings were in classic 1930s style, featuring rounded building ends, steel framed windows and porthole windows. Chalets showed an early form of sectionalised building method.
Requisitioned as a military camp until after the Second World War, it reopened as a holiday camp in the early 1950s. The site was demolished and cleared between February and March 2001.
Prestatyn offers the opportunity to engage in an impromptu game of Crazy Golf – though the facility was closed on the morning of my visit.
The crazy golf was fantastic the kids didn’t want to leave plus the lady was so helpful plus the price were very reasonable – would highly recommended.
The promenade is dominated by a tight knit group of modern leisure facilities.
An expansive car park fronts directly onto the seafront.
There have been serious reinforcements made to the seawalls – ensuring that the passing cyclist will not be washed away, by the crashing waves of the incoming tide.
The reinforcement work demands that we temporarily detour onto the Rhyl Coast Road, where we encounter Pirate Island Adventure Golf.
Uncover hidden treasure on the North Welsh Coast at Pirate Island Adventure Golf at Lyons Robin Hood Holiday Park.
Make friends with the great white shark, octopus, and the resident pirates who guard the Island.
This 18-hole course is a fun and crazy challenge for all the family, with stunning views of Rhyl seafront to boot. Plus, it’s located just a stone’s throw away from Sherwoods Sports Bar where refreshments are served.
Rhyl
Rhyl Sands: David Cox 1854
The Welsh orthography has proved difficult for English writers to transliterate as Rhyl’s opening voiceless alveolar trill is uncommon in the English language.
I nipped into town for a tub from Sidoli’s – £1.83 well spent.
The promenade is home to a series of entertainments including the Rhyl Pavilion Theatre
The theatre, owned and operated by Denbighshire Council, has also been re-clad as part of the project, designed by architects Space & Place.
It forms part of a wider redevelopment of Rhyl’s seafront, which includes the demolition of the Sun Centre and the construction of a £15m water park.
There is a also a becalmed Post Modernist Piazza – named Rhyl Events Arena.
The playful nursery geometry of the SeaQuarium.
The functionalist Vue Cinema.
Tickets were £5.99 for a standard seat, the staff said not to bother upgrading as the premium seats were rubbish, sound was okay and picture quality was okay.
Food price was expensive so it maybe cheap to get in, but £16.99 for a large popcorn and drink ups the price, would go again if in the area.
Much of the coast is fringed with chalets and static caravans.
Kinmel Bay
Home to The Frothy Coffee.
There aren’t enough food, service, value or atmosphere ratings for The Frothy Coffee, yet – be one of the first to write a review!
Kinmel Bay beach is popular with tourists and the local population. In addition to various small shops and takeaway outlets, there is also an Asda superstore that opened in 1981, which includes a large petrol filling station.
The concrete shore is softened by grasses and wild flowers – with views of the mountains beyond.
Here we are in Towyn
The town made national headlines in 1990 when a combination of gale-force winds, a high tide and rough seas caused Towyn’s flood defences to be breached at about 11.00am on 26 February. Four square miles of land was flooded, affecting 2,800 properties and causing areas of the resort to be evacuated. Further flooding occurred later the same week, on 1 March, shortly after the site of the disaster was visited by Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
Scientific experts also believe that the silt left behind from the flooding had left the town with a higher concentration of radioactivity, over ten times the governmental safety limits, most likely originating from the nuclear processing plant at Sellafield which had been dispersed into the Irish Sea over many years since its construction.
Excitements galore, await at the well maintained funfair.
Motor cars to the fore, as the intrepid sea-anglers prepare for a day of sea-angling.
Abergele where Family Fun can be found in the form of Kiddies Karts.
In 2020/21 Abergele hosted the 20th and 21st editions of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! at Gwrych Castle, due to the Covid pandemic restrictions in Australia.
I failed to avail myself with a chilly treat courtesy of Danny’s Whippy, having already had my 99 tub, from Sidoli’s in Rhyl.
Local brewery Purple Moose’s delivery van driver takes a timely break, whilst fellow cyclists stop for a cig and a chat.
Rugged rocks, sadly lacking ragged rascals, as the Little Orme comes into view.
Cast concrete defences, and Raynes Quarry jetty at Llandulas.
The quarry was originally known as Llysfaen Limeworks, being close to Llysfaen railway station. James Trevelyan Raynes of Rock Ferry, Birkenhead, took over the quarry in the 1870s, adding large new limekilns. Lime from the quarry was shipped to various alkali works. Alkali was used for soap, textiles and many other goods.
Quarrying in this area has also produced porcelain-like limestone for high quality architectural uses. St Margaret’s Church – also known as the Marble Church in Bodelwyddan, was built with limestone from Llanddulas.
In November 2011 one of the freighters, MV Swanland, sank in stormy weather on the Irish Sea after collecting 3,000 tons of stone from Raynes jetty bound for the Isle of Wight.
Two crewmen were rescued but five, all Russian, were lost.
Almost the end of the line here in Old Colwyn – where there are the last of a series of shelters.
Formerly lining the prom all the way to Rhos on Sea
Cutting under the A55 Expressway to Colwyn Bay.
During World War II the Colwyn Bay Hotel, Marine Road – now demolished, was the headquarters of the Ministry of Food. This also housed the Cocoa & Chocolate division and was the communications hub for the ministry, they continued to use the hotel until 1953.
North Wales Police – Heddlu Gogledd Cymru is the territorial police force responsible for policing North Wales.
Photo: Gareth Ellidge
As of March 2020, the force has 1,510 police officers, 170 special constables, 182 police community support officers, 71 police support volunteers, and 984 staff.
Having cycled from Prestatyn, I popped into reception to ask permission to photograph the exterior of the HQ.
Following a short wait, I was granted permission.
The building is an imposing steel, concrete and glass system built structure of 1972, with brick outliers on a grassy site.
It has undergone adaptation to modern eco-standards.
The administration building for North Wales Police, located in Colwyn Bay, was typical of the breed: a 1970s leaky and draughty concrete-framed building with high solar gains, especially on the South and West facades. It consumed a lot of energy and delivered very poor comfort conditions.
The budget for the refurbishment was set at around £2.4 million. North Wales Police appointed Capita Symonds as the Project Manager with the design team comprising FSP Architects, Buro Happold, WS Atkins, and Faithful+Gould.
A system of brise-soleil solar shading was provided for the East, South and West facades. Combined with the reduced area of glazing, the brise soleil reduced the solar gains enough to avoid the need for mechanical cooling and for the natural ventilation strategy to be retained.
The soft clays of the cliffs are subject to constant erosion.
In 2008 fresh landslips have occurred around Cayton Bay. The bungalows built on the old holiday camp at Osgodby Point have started to suffer serious erosion. The cliffs around the Cornelian and Cayton areas are just made of soil. So erosion is to be expected. It may taken time. But there is not much which can be done to prevent the seas moving in.
The Pumping Station was partially demolished in 1956.
Several well worn layers of geological time have been hanging around for a while now.
Whilst the long-gone critters are but fossilised versions of their former selves.
The rocks found at Cayton Bay are Jurassic aged from the Callovian stage. At the north end of Cayton Bay, the Cornbrash Formation can be seen, comprised of red-brown, sandy, nodular, bioturbated limestone with oysters and other bivalves.The Cornbrash lies beneath the start of the Cayton Clay Formation. Walking south towards Tenant’s Cliffs, Lower Calcareous Grit is brought to beach level, followed by a calcareous limestone. At the waterworks, low tides reveals a section in the Middle and Upper Jurassic rocks.
On scouring tides, argillaceous limestone and calcareous sandstone can be seen layered along the Upper Leaf of the Hambleton Oolite, which is seen excellently in the low cliff on the southern side of the Brigg. The tough, impure limestone contains well-preserved bivalves and ammonites. The sequence is shown in the diagram but faulting has caused unconformities.
During scouring, Oxford Clay can be seen along the foreshore south of the argillaceous limestone. Walking further south, Red Cliff is reached, where rocks of the Osgodby Formation slope above the Oxford Clay.
Originally the first Trade Union holiday camp in the North of England, owned by NALGO it opened its doors in 1933. It had 124 wooden bungalows, accommodating 252 visitors. A dining hall with waiter service, a rest room along with recreation rooms for playing cards, billiards, a theatre for indoor shows and dancing was also provided. The new centre also provided Tennis courts, Bowling greens along with a children’s play area. The visitors could walk to the beach where there was a sun terrace and beach house which also had a small shop.
Click here to see photos of the NALGO camp from the 1930s.
One of the earliest visitors were the family of poet Philip Larkin and during the Second World War it became a home for evacuated children from Middlesbrough.
The NALGO camp closed in 1974 and was later sold.
The wide sandy bay was an ideal location for WW2 pillboxes and gun emplacements – anticipating a possible North Sea invasion.
They too are built quite literally on shifting sands.
The pillbox – one of many built along the coast to defend against an invasion during World War II – had started to break down, leaving one large piece of stone in a precarious position.
Rob Shaw, of Ganton, noticed the large slab was propped up dangerously against another piece of stone last September.
He said he reported his concerns to Scarborough Borough Council then, but that nothing was done until last month.
The dad-of-two said before the work:
I used to work in construction and I would have been fired if I had left a lump of concrete like that, it could weigh four or five tonnes.
It just needs lying flat on the sand so it can’t fall on anyone.
A spokesperson for Scarborough Borough Council said the council had assessed the pillbox and arrangements had been made for the problem section to be removed.
The Scarborough News
This unstable cliff-top structure was allegedly hastened bay-wards by the Council.
Claims that we pushed the pillbox off the cliff are untrue – our colleagues have many amazing talents but pushing huge concrete structures is not one of them. The structure people can see at the base of the cliff is the other section of the pillbox that has been on the beach for many years.
In his postcard, Phyl writes that the weather is nice, he has a self-catering apartment near a pond, but complains about the expensive cost of Spanish bread at £1 a loaf.
Although it was delivered to the right address on the card, Mr Davies said he has no clue who either Phyl or Mrs Leon could be.
I’ve been baffled by it really.
I suppose Mrs Leon once lived in my flat, but I’ve asked around neighbours who have lived here twenty or thirty years, and none of them have ever heard of her.
The Post Office say they have no idea what could have happened to the postcard for twenty nine years, may be it got stuck in a sorting machine, may be given that it’s got both British and Spanish stamps on it, someone found it and posted it on.
Really I’d just like to find out who either Phyl or Mrs Leon are, so I could finally give it to them after all this time.
Curiously the story does not reproduce the picture of the picture postcard.
Dear Eddie, this is a very pleasant place and the weather is just right. The food is very expensive though over £1 for a loaf of bread! We have a self catering little apartment by the side of a pond complete with ducks.
There is something very poignant about the handwritten reportage of holidays past and also a sadness attached to the blank other side -sentiments forever unsent.
I’ve looked at life from both sides now From win and lose and still somehow It’s life’s illusions I recall I really don’t know life at all
We are all going somewhere or nowhere or other – we report back.
Having a nice relaxing holiday. Not had good weather. Got caught in rain on Friday have lost my voice. Uncle Jim laughing
Auntie Ethel & Jim
Hope Leslies finger is coming on alright
20th August 1968
Hello Sharon, hope you are as happy as can be. Sorry I can’t tell you anything about your country, as I’ve never been; not yet anyway.
Bye Don
23rd April 1979
Dear Rita, here we are enjoying our holiday with Frank, Jacky & Stuart. The weather has been very poor, but there is an improvement today. Hope all is well with you. Lynn her husband and the little ones are visiting on thursday, so we shall have a real tea-party.
Here I go again – just like Archie Bell minus the Drells.
Here I go again, thinking with my heart
But every time I see ya, I keep running back for more
April and October 2019 walking from Rhos to Colwyn.
Pandemics come and almost go – as do seaside shelters it seems.
The shelters of 1860 are quite literally a thing of the past.
Thye have become host to Niall McDiarmid‘s snaps of local business folk – the project developed when local residents raised concerns about the appearance of the shelters on the promenade.
Cllr Roger Parry said
The shelters are nearing the end of their lifespan and these sections of the prom will be upgraded as part of the waterfront project.
In the meantime, State of Independents will make great use of the shelters; celebrating our hardworking local businesses and hopefully encouraging footfall from the promenade to our high streets.
The last of the Rhos on Sea shelters is a dangerous customer suitably secured.
There remains two exemplars of the typology located at the Colwyn end of the bay.
The second shelter lacks the pierced concrete blocks.
So work progresses on the coastal defences, the promenade is refashioned after a fashion in the fashion of the day.
There is no longer a place for these unique exemplars of Municipal Modernism.
Before the work began, the promenade was a tired, uninviting and underused public space. Poorly lit and often host to anti-social behaviour, the uneven surfacing and crumbling shelters were the results of years of patchwork repairs.
The project has transformed the area into a public space which the local community can take pride in and make use of all year round.
Lately I have been frequenting bad houses Places no respectable man would be seen I hate myself for my weakness My past sickens me I tell myself I will not go Even as I drive there
At the Southern end of Tynemouth Longsands beach, on the North East coast, lies the decaying remains of Tynemouth Outdoor Swimming Pool. A concrete, rectangular, salt water tidal pool, built in the 1920s. Popular with locals and holiday makers alike for over 50 years. It began to lose favour in the late 70s with the introduction of cheap package holidays abroad, just as other British coastal holiday destinations lost out.
The pool fell into disrepair, and in the mid 90s the Local Authority demolished the ancillary buildings and bulldozed the rubble into the pool, at a cost of £200,000, before filling with concrete and imported boulders to form an artificial ‘rock pool’.
The anticipated marine life they introduced never flourished and the pool remains an eyesore to this day.
The Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea was built using reinforced concrete around 1937 and its dedication carries tribute to sailors lost at sea. The roof is designed to resemble the hull of a boat, and the windows in the crypt port holes. These aspects reflecting the maritime heritage of Amlwch.
Designed by Giuseppe Rinvolucri, an Italian architect who was originally brought to Wales as a prisoner of war. He subsequently married a local woman, and lived and worked in north Wales, specialising in Roman Catholic churches. He also designed a number of other churches in Wales, including those at Abergele, and Porthmadog.
Around 600,000 Italian soldiers were taken prisoner during the First World War, about half in the aftermath of Caporetto. Roughly one Italian soldier in seven was captured, a significantly higher number than in other armies on the Western Front.
About 100,000 Italian prisoners of war never returned home, having succumbed to hardship, hunger, cold and disease – mainly tuberculosis.
Uniquely among the Allied powers, Italy refused to assist its prisoners, and even hindered efforts by soldiers’ families to send them food.
From the 1930s he was living at St Francis Grange, Glan Conwy, an art deco style dwelling overlooking the Conwy estuary.
Prior to the construction of adjacent houses and the treatment of the concrete shell.
The main entrance leads into a small vestibule with raking sides; further doorways lead into the end of the main body of the church. The ribbing that is such a prominent feature of the exterior of the church also dominates the design of the interior; the body of the church illuminated by bands of geometrically patterned lights between the ribs. The lateral walls have marble panels which also follow the pattern of the ribs; to the top are paired panels, each with a moulded quatrefoil plaques depicting biblical scenes, plain paired panels below. The marbled panels continue at the far end of the church, raised up over round-headed doorways flanking a recess painted with a depiction of the crucifixion; star shaped lights follow the line of the domed arch.
I think it is worthy of mention how the whole mass of imitation stone frontage was done by one plasterer long gone called Llew – Inja Rock, whose pretty unique style of work is still to be seen elsewhere around town today. He once showed me how it was done, all with a little teaspoon. What patience and what a proven good job to stand the trial of time of 40-plus years without a great deal, if any, remedial work. A sound memorial to a good working man.
For many years I have cycled y on my tours around Anglesey- often stopping to marvel at this concrete anachronism.
This time I stopped to walk around and take some snaps – here they are.
The Pevsner Buildings of Wales guide calls it:
A piece of Italian architectural daring of the 1930s – a soaring reinforced concrete and brick vault formed on six arches, expressed as ribs externally and internally, with a conical apse. Three transverse bands of glazing in geometric trefoils of white and blue.
Five glass stars – made in France, perforate the East wall round the apse.
Rinvolucri’s team of builders constructed the innovative parabolic vault in six months in 1935.
The same guide calls it Futurist, closer to Freyssinet’s 1920s airship hangars at Orly, Paris, than to Catholic Church design, and unlike the conservatism of Anglesey building.
He died in 1962 and is buried in St Agnes Road Cemetery, Conwy with Mina, who died in 1991.
The final day the first sight of cloud and sea mist.
I awoke early and took an amble around Amble.
Then off on the road to Warkworth and beyond to Alnmouth – where I revisited a small group of asymmetric post-war dormer bungalows.
Stopping to view the flood plain of the River Aln, chatting perchance with the local environmental officer.
Who explained how the flood defences had been removed, as this encouraged the natural process of flooding and receding to proceed unhindered, thus preventing property from being interminably sodden.
We also discussed the decline in vernacular architecture and the fashion for all that is New England, much to the detriment of New Northumberland.
One day everywhere will look like a someone else’s vision of somewhere else.
The good folk of Craster have wisely prevented the local bus from entering the North Sea.
The way north took me over a well laid concrete track.
I came upon three wise men from Durham, Rochdale and Doncaster, gathered around a concrete-bag bunker.
They were all Grateful Dead fans who like me had attended the Bickershaw Festival in 1972.
The first and last outdoor festival I ever done attended, unforgettable.
Weaving down and around quiet lanes I encountered this Walker Evans workshop.
Armstrong Cottages is an estate originally built by Lord Armstrong for the workmen restoring Bamburgh Castle.
The 1901 Census lists the current inhabitants with their provenance and professions.
114 residents are listed for the 19 cottages, of whom 53 are working men employed in the building trade: their professions include stonemasons, joiners, plumbers, rope & pole scaffolders, blacksmiths, and plasterers.
Many come from Northumberland or Scotland, but a significant proportion are from further afield: Cumberland, Westmorland, Lancashire, Durham, Yorkshire, Derbyshire – and one from the Channel Islands.
Seven nights in November will now cost you the best part of a thousand pounds.
The Armstrong family the former owners, made millions from the sale of armaments.
If I thought that war would be fomented, or the interests of humanity suffer, by what I have done, I would greatly regret it. I have no such apprehension.
He also said:
It is our province, as engineers to make the forces of matter obedient to the will of man; those who use the means we supply must be responsible for their legitimate application.
I paused a wee while to take a sip of water and admire the agrarian architecture.
A couple on their bikes stopped to chat, as a babe in arms the lad had been transported by mam and dad, in a sidecar with tandem attached.
Such a delightful and poignant recollection – we wished each other well and went on our way.
I made my way from the rolling hills back down toward the coast.
Where a permissive path hugged the shore, which I cautiously shared with some equally cautious sheep.
Looking back toward Lindisfarne.
Looking forward to the past.
Pausing for the passing of a mainline train.
Berwick upon Tweed in view.
Come the evening I spent an hour or two in The Curfew, feasting on fine beer, company, haggis scotch egg and game pie.
Finishing with this well deserved and wonderful, bottle of Oude Geuze.
The final day – so many marvellous miles covered, forever stopping to chat, snap, look and learn.
No finer way to see the world, though so condensed and intense even at touring speed – apologies to all the things that I failed to see.
The building was originally developed by C&A and it is thought that funding for the reliefs might have been provided by the store and/or Northern Arts. It became BHS which subsequently closed, the building is now occupied by Primark, C&A estates still own the site.
Taking a bold leap into the unknown I left the city centre, unwisely following unfamiliar roads, predictably becoming very lost.
I sought assistance from a passing fellow cyclist, very kindly he guided me to Tynemouth, following a mysterious and circuitous course across the undulating terrain – thanks.
The city quickly becomes the seaside with its attendant retail bricolage.
An all too familiar redundant Lido – opened in 1925 and closed in the mid 90’s – but a Friends Group aims to breathe new life into the site.
The Park Hotel built in the 1930’s and recently refurbished has been bought by The Inn Collection Group.
A simple three-arched entrance had been built facing the seafront and the area was now completely enclosed within a boundary. In 1909, large rides appeared, including a Figure Eight rollercoaster and a Water Chute. Elderton and Fail wanted to make a statement and create a new, grand entrance to the fairground. They hired the Newcastle architects Cackett& Burns Dick to survey the site and begin drawing up plans for new Pleasure Buildings.
Building began in February 1910 and the construction was completed by builders Davidson and Miller 60 days later. The use of the revolutionary reinforced concrete technique pioneered by Francois Hennebique was perfect for the job, being cheap and fast. The Dome and surrounding buildings – a theatre and two wings of shop units – opened on 14 May 1910 to great fanfare. Visitors marvelled at the great Spanish City Dome, the second largest in the country at the time after St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, which provided a spectacular meeting place with uninterrupted views from ground level to its ceiling, 75 feet above.
Telegraph-wire cyclists, acrobatic comedians, singing jockeys, mermaids, they all appeared at the Spanish City during its first decade. One of the wings hosted the menagerie, where visitors could see hyenas, antelopes and tigers! This was converted into the Picture House cinema in 1916.
A little further along, a selection of Seaside Moderne semis in various states of amendment and alteration.
Before I knew it I was in Blyth.
The town edged with military installations
Gloucester Lodge Battery includes the buried, earthwork and standing remains of a multi-phase Second World War heavy anti-aircraft gun battery and radar site, as well as a Cold War heavy anti-aircraft gun and radar site. The battery occupies a level pasture field retaining extensive rig and furrow cultivation.
During WW2 Blyth Harbour was used as a major submarine base and that combined with the heavy industry in the area it made a very good target for the Luftwaffe.
827 men of the 225th Antiaircraft Artillery Searchlight Battalion of the U.S. Army, arrived at this location in early March 1944 and were attached to the 30th British AAA Brigade. Here they sharpened their skills in the high-altitude tracking of aircraft.
The cycle route took me off road along the estuary and under the flyover.
Encountering a brand new factory.
And the remnants of the old power station.
Blyth Power Station – also known as Cambois Power Station, refers to a pair of now demolished coal-fired power stationsThe two stations were built alongside each other on a site near Cambois in Northumberland, on the northern bank of the River Blyth, between its tidal estuary and the North Sea. The stations took their name from the town of Blyth on the opposite bank of the estuary. The power stations’ four large chimneys were a landmark of the Northumberland skyline for over 40 years.
After their closure in 2001, the stations were demolished over the course of two years, ending with the demolition of the stations’ chimneys on 7 December 2003.
UK battery tech investor Britishvolt has unveiled plans to build what is claimed to be Britain’s first gigaplant at the former coal-fired power station in Blyth in Northumberland.
The £2.6 billion project at the 95-hectare Blyth Power Station site will use renewable energy from the UK and possibly hydro-electric power generated in Norway and transmitted 447 miles under the North Sea through the ‘world’s longest inter-connector’ from the North Sea Link project.
By 2027, the firm estimates the gigaplant will be producing around 300,000 lithium-ion batteries a year.
The project is predicted to create 3,000 new jobs in the North East and another 5,000 in the wider supply chain.
An early start on another sunny day, cycling along long straight roads out of town, towards Middlesborough.
Having previously visited Hull and Scarborough and all points in between.
Slowly passing sleepy factories and desolate bus shelters.
Bunker like social clubs and flower lined roads.
The Albion club in South Bank has stood empty for the last three years.
Now local lad Mark Trainor has the keys – and says opening the doors to the club his own family frequented for years will be a dream come true.
He’s planning to cater for everyone, he says, and it won’t just be all about drinking.
Parents will be able to call in for a coffee after dropping the kids at school, there will be pool nights and Mark’s personal favourite – Pie Day Fridays.
Temenos is a Greek word meaning land cut off and assigned as a sanctuary or holy area.
Following a 1907 Act of Parliament the bridge was built at a cost of £68,026 6s 8d by Sir William Arrol & Co. of Glasgow between 1910 and 1911 to replace the Hugh Bell and Erimus steam ferry services. A transporter bridge was chosen because Parliament ruled that the new scheme of crossing the river had to avoid affecting the river navigation.
The opening ceremony on 17 October 1911 was performed by Prince Arthur of Connaught, at its opening the bridge was painted red.
In 1961 the bridge was painted blue.
In 1974, the comedy actor Terry Scott, travelling between his hotel in Middlesbrough and a performance at the Billingham Forum, mistook the bridge for a regular toll crossing and drove his Jaguar off the end of the roadway, landing in the safety netting beneath.
The cycle track followed the river, which sports a fine array of industrial architecture.
Tees Newport Bridge designed by Mott, Hay and Anderson and built by local company Dorman Long who have also been responsible for such structures as the Tyne Bridge and Sydney Harbour Bridge, it was the first large vertical-lift bridge in Britain.
In a slightly more upbeat mode St James the Apostle Owton Manor.
I convinced myself that this building on Station Road Seaton Carew was a former pub, I discovered following consultation with the local studies offices, that it was in fact a former children’s home destined to become a doctors.
I found myself looking back across the estuary to Redcar.
Northward toward Hartlepool.
Where the bingo was closed and the circus had left town.
Every Englishman’s home is a bouncy castle.
St John Vianneylocated on King Oswy Drive West View Estate.
Architect: Crawford & Spencer Middlesbrough 1961.
A large post-war church built to serve a housing estate, economically built and with a functional interior. The campanile is a local landmark.
The parish of St John Vianney was created in 1959 to serve the growing West View Estate, on the north side of Hartlepool. The church was opened by Bishop Cunningham on 4 April 1961. The presbytery was built at the same time.
I found myself on yet another former railway line.
The Cycleway was once a railway line designed by George Stephenson to take coal from the Durham coal fields to the docks in Hartlepool, where the coal was then distributed throughout the world.
Seeking assistance from a passing cyclist I negotiated a safe passage to Sunderland.
The Sunderland Synagogue is a former synagogue building in Sunderland, England. The synagogue, on Ryhope Road, was designed by architect Marcus Kenneth Glass and completed in 1928. It is the last surviving synagogue to be designed by Glass.
I took a right and arrived in Roker, where I saw these well tanned and tattooed cyclists taking a rest.
Pressed on, largely alongside the coast to South Shields.
Under advisement from a jolly passing jogger I took the Tyne Pedestrian Tunnel.
Tyne Cyclist and Pedestrian Tunnel was Britain’s first purpose-built cycling tunnel. It runs under the River Tyne between Howdon and Jarrow, and was opened in 1951, heralded as a contribution to the Festival of Britain.
Formerly the Scarbough to Whitby Railway – the line opened in 1885 and closed in 1965 as part of the Beeching Axe.
Yet again I chance upon a delightful post-war home.
I parted company with the track dropping down to the Esk Valley from the Larpool Viaduct.
Construction began in October 1882 and was complete by October 1884.
Two men fell from the piers during construction, but recovered.
I found myself in Ruswarp, home to this enchanting bus shelter.
I bombed along the main road to Sleights.
There then followed a hesitant ascent, descent, ascent along a badly signed bridleway, fearing that I had climbed the hill in error I retraced, then retraced.
A difficult push ensued, a precipitous path, rough and untended, rising ever higher and higher.
Finally arriving at Aislaby, more than somewhat exhausted – the village is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Asuluesbi.
Pausing to catch my breath I took the wildly undulating road to Egton – along the way I was alerted to the presence of a tea stop by two touring cyclists from Nottingham.
The curious name Fryup probably derives from the Old English reconstruction Frige-hop: Frige was an Anglo-Saxon goddess equated with the Old Norse Frigg; hop denoted a small valley.
An old woman at Fryup was well known locally for keeping the Mark’s e’en watch – 24 April, as she lived alongside a corpse road known as Old Hell Road.
The practice involved a village seer holding vigil between 11pm and 1am to watch for the wraiths of those who would die in the following 12 months.
Castleton Moor ghost.
In the village I was given further directions by two elderly gents, who had been engaged in a discussion concerning their long term mapping of acid rain levels in the area.
One was wearing a Marshall Jefferson t-shirt.
I climbed Langburn Bank onto the flatish open moorland.
Taking a brief break to snap this concrete shelter.
There then followed a hair stirring series of hairpin descents to the coast at Saltburn.
Built in 1928, this church was designed with some care and is an attractive, if fairly modest, Lombard Romanesque-style essay in brick. The use of a semi-circular apse, narrow brickwork and use of tile for decorative effect give it a pleasing appearance, typical of restrained but elegant work between the wars.
I arrived and took a look around, first time in town, here’s what I found.
The first leg of my journey northwards to Berwick, many thanks to all those kind souls who filled my water bottle, directed, redirected and misdirected me along my merry way.
Good fortune however had pointed me in the direction of this functional yet charming brick built church, on the edge of a huge roundabout – St Mary Queen of Martyrs RC in Bransholme.
The new St Mary Queen of Martyrs church was built at Bransholme in 1976-7 and the old St Mary’s church closed and demolished in 1982.
Architect for the new church was JT Reid of The Reid Partnership – Pontefract.
The entrance graced by these textured fascias.
Following a series of brief engagements with various local benefactors, I regained my intended route and joined the Hornsea Rail Trail – the bed of the former branch line.
The line was officially opened on 28 March 1864, the last passenger train ran on 19 October 1964.
Goods traffic continued to use the line as far as Hornsea Bridgeuntil 3 May 1965.
The place-name Swine is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Swine.
It appears as Suine in a charter of circa 1150, the name perhaps derives from the Old English swin meaning creek.
Two pioneering young entrepreneurial architects who worked with Le Corbusier and Ove Arup first met in the office of Berthold Lubetkin. In 1953, they formed Ryder and Yates in Newcastle upon Tyne. That Le Corbusier, Lubetkin and, to no less extent Newcastle born Arup, had a powerful influence on the subsequent design philosophy of Gordon Ryder and Peter Yates can still be seen in any evaluationof Ryder’s work today.
Located twixt Bull Bay and Cemaes Bay, accessed whilst walking the Anglesey Coastal Path.
The area is rich in Quartzite, central to the production of Silica Bricks, which are resistant to high temperatures, much in demand at the height of the Industrial Revolution for lining steel furnaces.
The ore on the headland was first mined around 1850, with the ore being hewn out the living rock by hand.
A little railway brought the ore to the cliff above the brick works, then lowered by gravity to the works below, where the rocks would be pummelled and rendered to a size that could be further processed.
Mining by manual endeavour lasted from around 1850 to 1914, the hazardous harbour and alleged poor quality products hastening the enterprises’s demise.
Porth Wen brickworks was designated as a scheduled monument by Cadw in 1986 and classified as a post-medieval industrial brickworks.
Having appraised the exteriors and pumping infrastructure, let us now consider the interior life of the site.
A site where a myriad working lives once unfolded – labourers, technicians, maintenance staff, administrators and managers.
They are now but fleeting shadows, their documents strewn across upturned furniture, empty lockers their standing open and untended, laboratories whose processes have ceased. A chaotic canteen with no-one to cook for, unsafe safety suits and unwashed washrooms.
Modern Mooch 