History of, and photo’s of the interior can be found if you CLICK. 

This second part of the castle was my fave bit of it as you are allowed to climb to the very top of the keep, and up to the top corners. Amazing views, so really this is not so much about the castle, as what you can see from the top of it.

This lovely Georgian building is called The Moot Hall, ‘moot’ being old English for ‘meeting’. It dates from 1812 and the courtrooms have been restored to the Victorian design from 1875. On my list of places to photograph! When it was finished, it was described as the most perfect example of Doric architecture in the North of England, this is the rear of the building  and is based on the Parthenon in the Athens.

Turnbull’s Warehouse, was built on the site of Lord Armstrong’s mansion in the late 1890s. Originally occupied by the printers R. Robinson & Co. it was subsequently taken over in 1963 by Messrs E. & F. Turnbull, a Newcastle-based ironmongers, who used it as a wholesale warehouse. In 2002 the building was redeveloped by Northern Land and the architect Bill Hopper as luxury loft style apartments. Posh peeps live here.

You can read about and see pictures of The Cathedral if you CLICK 

The Train Station, now managed by Virgin Rail, opened in 1850 is a Grade 1 listed building, and a nationally important transport hub, being both a terminus and through station serving  London to Edinburgh,  Durham to Middlesborough, and the Tyne Valley to Carlisle. It is also served by the adjoining Central station on the Tyne & Wear Metro.

The Tyne Bridge was designed by Mott,Hay & Anderson, comparably to their Sydney Harbour Bridge version, based on the design of the Hell Gate Bridge in New York USA, (which was completed in 1916). The bridge was completed on 25 February 1928, and officially opened on 10 October by King George V and Queen Mary , who were the first to use the roadway.  See Ray Clark?? London is so not the place, it’s Sydney, New York, NEWCASTLE!! What a combination, we could rule the world. 🙂

The Sage is an awesome building, it contains three performance spaces; a 1,700-seater, a 450-seater and a smaller rehearsal and performance hall. The rest of the building was designed around these three spaces to allow for maximum attention to detail in their acoustic properties. Structurally it is three separate buildings, insulated from each other to prevent noise and vibration travelling between them. A special ‘spongy’ concrete mix was used in the construction, with a higher-than-usual air capacity to improve the acoustic.  These three buildings are enclosed (but not touched) by the now-famous glass and steel shell. Hall One was intended as an acoustically perfect space, modelled on the renowned Musikverein in Vienna. Its ceiling panels may be raised and lowered and curtains drawn across the ribbed wooden side walls, changing the sound profile of the room to suit any type of music. Hall Two is a smaller venue, possibly the world’s only ten-sided performance space. Another place on my list!

 

The Millennium bridge is a pedestrian and cyclist tilt bridge spanning the river between Gateshead’s Quays arts quarter on the south bank, and the Quayside of Newcastle on the north bank. Opened for public use in 2001, the award-winning structure was conceived and designed by architect Wilkinson Eyre and structural engineer Gifford. The bridge is sometimes referred to as the ‘Blinking or ‘Winking Eye Bridge’ due to its shape and its tilting method. This next one is an old one I took with a crappy camera, but you can see what it’s like at night, must do a proper night shoot in Newcastle at some point.

The Byker Wall is the name given to a long unbroken block of 620 maisonettes in the Byker district.  They were designed by architect Ralph Erskine and constructed in the 1970s. The wall is just part of the estate which covers 200 acres. It won loads of awards for design but everyone round here thinks it’s pants. The Byker Wall was infamous as the home of “Ratboy,” a juvenile delinquent who hid in its heating shafts when running from police during the 1990s. So ya know, posh peeps don’t live here.

So that’s about it, except my little Fuji has a panorama function and this was the first time I tried it out, so here they are,

they’re OK but come out a bit small for my liking, I prefer doing pano’s in portrait mode, but it was easy and fun to do.

So that’s it for now, next time I’m going to post some shots I took wandering round between the Cafe, cathedral and castle, (that’s coincidental alliteration!)  with Sophie..

laters gaters

😉