Northumberlandia~ February 2018

Posted in Adventures, birds, Fuji, FujiX-T2, landscape, nature, photography, uncategorised, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , ,

After Sophie and I had finished in Druridge Bay, We travelled back towards home via Northumberlandia, The Lady of the North.

The History Bit

Northumberlandia is a  human landform sculpture of a reclining lady.  Made of 1.5 million tonnes of rock, clay and soil, she is 100 feet high and a quarter of a mile long. Her creation was part of the planning application made by the Banks Group and Blagdon Estate when they requested to create what is now the largest surface mine in England, Shotton Surface Mine. It’s made out of the left-overs from the mine nearby.  Designed by American landscape architect Charles Jencks,   the sculpture was built on the Blagdon Estate, owned by Matt Ridley, a journalist, businessman and author of “The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature” which I’ve not read, or ever heard of. I’m not sure if it’s a panacea to locals whilst the ground beyond is torn up for the opencast mining of coal, but it cost £2.5 million, paid for by the Blagdon Estate and the Banks Group, who carried out the construction work. and it will last a lot longer than the mine.  Locals didn’t want the mine but Northumberlandia should bring in tourists so that’ll make up for it apparently. 🙄  The mine will eventually dry up in a few years time and they’ll landscape it over.

So here are some pictures of it, I wish I had a drone for this!

She’ll have backache keepiing that position up.

 

Panorama from the head end.

 

Going up to the head_ no nasal hairs spotted

 

Hole in the ground- the opencast mine

 

Ready to roll

 

View from the top looking towards her feet

 

bottom right corner-nose tip/ middle rounds-tits/ top left- hip/ top right knee

 

her right hand, palm up

 

left hand palm down

 

hand sculpture pointing to the eye of the universe (which I didn’t know had been discovered!)

On the way back to the car I took a few photo’s of her over the lakes next to her right hand side, populated by blue billed tufty ducks, which has to be the best named duck species ever.

 

 

 

Blue billed tufty ducks

It’s a place that will change over time, so there’ll be a re-visit now and then. There’s a large carpark which is free to park in, with a couple of recharging posts for the rechargeable car brigade. There’s also a visitor centre and cafe though we didn’t go in this time. Although walking/ running /being pushed in a wheelchair or perambulator is acceptable, bike riding is prohibited.

Full album HERE

stay tooned for our next trip to Herrington Country Park.

 

44 thoughts on “Northumberlandia~ February 2018”

  2. I sort -of get it, but it must warrant an aerial photo. Time you bought a drone! 🙂
    Better than nothing, but surely a sop to the locals for the awful mine? Maybe I’m being unkind, not sure.
    Best wishes, Pete.

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  5. That open surface mine definitely looks like a lot prettier than the open surface mines at the Athabasca tar sands in northeastern Alberta where they’re open surface mining for heavy crude oil and it doesn’t look like such a pretty sight.

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    1. Ah perspective dear Van Helsing, you could fit The village of Cramlington,the mine and The Lady into Alberta about a gazillion times over and still have land to spare. But you win ours is prettier 😊

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  9. I remember seeing this on Country File many years ago, I’m sure you would do a better job of the ariel photos if you had a drone, still you managed to get some good shots of what appears to be a pile of dirt! 🙂

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  10. Amazing pictures, as always! This I definitely some place I would love to see for myself! The things they hire people to do! I agree that this lady should defini6over sore by now with that strange abstract pose they reclined her in!!

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