Saltwell Park is a Victorian park in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. Opened in 1876, the park was designed by Edward Kemp and incorporates the mansion and associated grounds of the Saltwellgate estate owner, William Wailes, who sold his estate to Gateshead Council for £35,000. Upon opening, it became known as “The People’s Park”. The park was expanded in 1920 when the council purchased the adjacent gardens to the Saltwell Grove estate and added these to the park. This extended the park’s total size to 55 acres. Towards the end of the 20th century, the park had fallen into disrepair, but between 1999 and 2005, it was subject to a £9.6 million restoration project, funded collaboratively by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Gateshead Council and is now host to around 2 million visitors per year.
The park is split broadly into three sections. Saltwell Grove, the southern section, is an area of grassed open space with a bandstand to the western corner. The central area contains the centrepiece of the park – Wailes’s former home, the Grade II listed Saltwell Towers and its surrounding belvedere walls. These have been fully restored and are now a visitor centre. There are also three war memorials, a yew-tree maze, a dene and an area containing several species of caged animals known as Pet’s Corner. The largest section of the park is the Northern Fields section which contains a four-acre boating lake with a wooded island at its centre, as well as three bowling greens and two pavilions.
Sophie and I have visited Saltwell before though I haven’t done a report on it before that I can find, so I am combining photo’s from the two outings, but Sophie and I went this weekend specifically to photograph the wonderful path of cherry blossom trees that appears at this time of year. But other stuff first!
Saltwell Towers
Saltwell Towers, former home of William Wailes and later to lawyer Joseph Shipley (founder of the nearby Shipley Art Gallery), was the seat of the former Saltwellgate estate and has been described by a BBC report as a “fairytale mansion”. The building is a dark red and yellow brick construction with asymmetrical towers, tall chimney stacks and corner turrets. It has been used for a number of purposes, including as a hospital during the First World War and as a museum from 1933 to 1969, but was then abandoned and fell into considerable disrepair. However,after a £3 million,five-year refurbishment programme the restoration was completed in 2004.
There is a Boer War memorial in the central section of the park around 100 metres south of Saltwell Towers. This consists of a bronze angel perched on a granite plinth and is dated 1905.
The Charlton Memorial Drinking Fountain, a stone and granite fountain inscribed in memory of George Charlton, the mayor of Gateshead between 1874–75.
The ‘Salte Well’ at the west entrance to the central section of the park is dated 1872 and is a sandstone construction with a basin in the central alcove.
There have been animals kept in Saltwell Park since June 1877 – initially, these included monkeys, deer and a raccoon. Caged animals are still kept in the north-east of the park in an area called “Pets Corner”, where there are a peacock and peahen, pheasants, rabbits and guinea pigs kept in a pair of aviaries built in 1880 and paid for by John Elliot, then chief constable of Gateshead. The aviaries are stone and wrought iron, octagonal constructions which were listed at Grade II by English Heritage in 1973.
I don’t like to see caged birds in such a small enclosure. Plus the spaces between the bars make for impossible photography!
The principal feature of the northern section of the park is a boating lake. This has been in situ since a tender to install a 4 acres lake with an island in the centre was accepted in August 1880.
Skye has had a better day today, we are on an emotional rollercoaster with her at the minute, she’s been eating, pooping, and is a bit more awake today. However she’s now living on the kitchen work benches and follows me about the kitchen tops getting in the way when I’m trying to cook, or as shown here, doing the ironing. She tried to get on the ironing board whilst I was doing it, but settled instead on my freshly ironed clothes. At least we have a respite, as tomorrow was going to be vet day if things had gone on as they were. Very relieved, until the next time.
So on with the ball shots. Today was a very blue sky day, but cold of course, so I waited until nearly sundown before going up to the Angel of the North to catch some golden hour tones in the sky, and on the angel.
This I think is my fave and so my shot of the day,
but also took some from different angles
and also here’s the angel without the ball,
Hope everyone has a good weekend, and Happy Thanksgiving to my USA followers!
Here is the round up of some pictures I took this week, and what they’re all about. Because I was late last week and posted on the Bank Holiday, this week started properly on Tuesday. As usual, a work day didn’t bring about many photo ops, but I got to sit in my fave place and take a couple of quickies whilst I had a coffee break.
Peace & Tranquilityview from the carserenity
all taken with my samsung phone with the VSCO app and different filters applied. I could sit here all day really! Wednesday I forgot to take one, but was a pretty meh kind of day anyhow. Thursday was a better day as I did a couple of sales, but I still didn’t take a shot, must try harder. 😀
So Friday came, and my hub says do you fancy a trip into Newcastle ( our nearest town) as he had to take his car in for brake fixing and stuff and had a couple of hours to kill. So off we went, and I took my iphone to show the blog all around Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. I don’t go th ere often enough and it’s my main town. It has some beautiful architecture and statues, and is about the coolest city I’ve ever been to. So here we go, welcome to The Toon!
Firstly the very tall statue of Charles Grey, Earl Grey 2nd, who was a big deal up here.
Grey’s Monument
the inscription reads as follows-
“THIS COLUMN WAS ERECTED IN 1838
TO COMMEMORATE
THE SERVICES RENDERED TO HIS COUNTRY BY CHARLES EARL GREY K.G.
WHO, DURING AN ACTIVE POLITICAL CAREER OF
NEARLY HALF A CENTURY
WAS THE CONSTANT ADVOCATE OF PEACE
AND THE FEARLESS AND CONSISTENT CHAMPION OF
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
HE FIRST DIRECTED HIS EFFORTS TO THE AMENDMENT
OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE IN 1792,
AND WAS THE MINISTER
BY WHOSE ADVICE, AND UNDER WHOSE GUIDANCE,
THE GREAT MEASURE OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
WAS AFTER AN ARDUOUS AND PROTRACTED STRUGGLE
SAFELY AND TRIUMPHANTLY ACHIEVED
IN THE YEAR 1832.”
which just about tells you what a great guy he was, and wish they still made them like that!
Eldon Square Shopping centre
nothing much to say about this except this is where you can shop indoors, like a USA mall I guess. But that geometric rooftop bit in the distance is St James Park, the home of Newcastle United Football team, which is a very big deal up here.
text break
This is where people sit to text, call, have a cuppa, reorganise their shopping bags etc, at the foot of the Greys Monument. In term time lunchtimes it’s heaving with students from the Uni.
The Golden Lady Clock
The Gold Lady Clock is on the corner of Pilgrim Street and Blackett Street, and is the symbol of the Northern Goldsmiths. Naked Lady statues are quite often found in Tyne & Wear, I’ll have to make a collection of them and do a post about them. Needless to say Northern chaps are a lusty lot. 😀
back alley
this is where my new clinic next week resides, it’s off to the right here, and I’ll no doubt take a pic of it on Tuesday when I go, but I like this little alley leading up to it, Newcastle has a lot of back alleys to explore.
strange guy
not sure what his game was! In Nirthumberland Street now which is a big shopping are up from the Monument, and where you also find people busking and doing weird stuff.
paint pot drummer
this guy was doing a great job of drumming on upside down paint pots, presumably empty. There’s been a youtube video of someone doing the same thing I think in America, so he’s obviously ‘borrowed’ the idea. He was really good though!
Phones 4u
I like the incongruous juxtaposition of old and new that happens in citys like this.
heads up
These heads and carvings were salvaged when the old library was demolished to make way for a new street. These are 7 gods and goddesses with Neptune in the centre (the chap gods look more like clergymen to me but hey ho, art is in the eye of the believer and all that) but I think it’s cool they kept the carvings and added them to the new retaining wall.
guitar man
Phil always likes to check out the guitar shop when he’s in town, and he needed a set of strings, so we got them and had a look around. While we were in the shop the call came through from the garage that the car was ready and we hotfooted it to the metro station, where we found 2 of the 3 potential men statues.
Potential 1potential 2
didn’t have time to find the 3rd potential man but apparently it’s 3 views of the same man, I haven’t a bliddy clue what it’s all about but they were sculptured by Sean Henry who is (apparently) UK No.1 sculptor, so they must mean something. Hmmmm. 😀
So that’s Friday day, and at night my lovely hubby made a party for my birthday last weekend, as he’d missed it, and we had a lovely time,lots of wine & whisky and music and just the 2 of us.
Saturday we were ill.
Saturday night we had to go to a family bash as Phil’s neice’s daughter was 21 and had a party by the sea front, so we pulled ourselves together and made a good effort at being at the party. I took my polaroid so took some family pics to put on the wall when I finally get my photo board up!
View from the balcony of the Sundial.Paul & PhilShelly & Karly
Phil’s daughter & daughter-in-law
Jan & Barry
Phils nephew and Mrs.
Carl,Karly,Steve,Shelley
Da Kidz.
Other Paul,Neil & Carl
Cousins and son-in-law
Carl,Neil & Karly
Neils face makes me laugh!
Today I went out taking pictures with my friend Sophie. We meet up a fair few times in the year and go off exploring somewhere, and I catalogue our adventures in my smugmug galleries so here is a selection from today. We went to Saltwell Park and Cemetery today ( we do like graves!) Saltwell park is a beautiful oasis in the middle of urban Gateshead, and has won many awards for it’s loveliness. It has a long & interesting history, which can be found on wiki .
As we left the car park, we got the first hint that summer is just about over and autumn is nearly upon us.
autumn to be
Salty Towers
Yes it’s called Saltwell Towers really.
Salty Towers side on.
The guy who had this built was a stained glass maker, not a single one in the building though.
on the lake
I love these bonkers peddle boats, must have a go on one next time.
ducklettsbottoms up
nothing more funny than a supposedly graceful swan upending to look for food.
Mr.Bolshy
This guy was in a really bad mood, chasing geese and generally swanning around being bolshy.
Mr.Bolshy, Tony’s edition
I remember Tony Single saying he didn’t have swans where he lives, and I was thinking he might like this dark contrast version.
ship ahoy cap’n
Love that this guy wears a Captains hat when playing with his model boat. 🙂 We soon found out he was in a model boat club competition just past the lake, so we went in and took pictures of course. We also had to vote on which ship we liked best.
Sophie shooting boatsSophie shooting more boatsbirdy
Saltwell also has a small wildlife section, with a few budgies and peacocks, but they are in cages, which saddens me always. Birds should be in the sky.
However hens can’t fly, and this one was ginormous!!This is his rear end 😀
fluffy bumsimbiosis
still some flowers left but not many left in the rose garden, which is quite stunning in bloom time.
Sophie Bomb
these are the flowers in the Tyne Bridge sculpture, and I took the shot just as Sophie walked past. We have a rule that we don’t take each other’s photo, but now and again we sneak one, and sometimes it’s accidental, but we also have a rule not to publish them. I don’t think we’re too good at sticking to the rules. Well I’m not anyway. 😀
Saltwell Dene
The Dene is a walk next to a rivulette with lush foliage and little waterfalls,and there’s a lovely twinkling silvery water sound while you walk around.
chocks away
So off to the cemetary over the road, and I managed to catch the magpie just as he took off.
baby graves
Saltwell Cemetary is HUGE! And quite modern, one of the most poignant sights was this section dedicated to little ones.
DIY or Robbing Graves??
This is such a crap shot but I only got the one chance before the lady saw me, and we could NOT work out what the heck they were doing. Speculation on burying their dog or digging for treasure.
Overseers
So thats it for this week, another long one, and now to get ready for work tomorrow. Phil’s on night shift boo hoo. Never mind, soon be the weekend 😀
Well the week started off Ok with nice weather, and I have made a decision to take some form of photograph every day, which isn’t always easy when work is so busy. Somehow I forgot to do one on Monday 😀 so that was a great start!
Tuesday
This was my first day at a new clinic starting at Age UK Gateshead. The shop is in quite a rundown part of Gateshead, but the lady running it is lovely, I had a nice quiet room to do my tests in and both my clients had too much wax in their ears for me to proceed!
Tuesday
I was quite taken with the name of the closed up pub opposite Age UK The Moon & Sixpence, I googled the name and it’s actually the title of a book by W.Somerset Maugham, about an english stockbroker who abandons his wife and children and runs off to Tahiti via Paris to be an artist, and it’s loosely based on the life of Paul Gauguin. Why a pub in Gateshead should be named after this book is beyond me, as far as I can find out Mr.Maugham never came near the North East so has no connection, but still, it’s a nice name and thats what drew me to take the shot. The other building I took a shot of is in Sunderland, The Harbour View (because the view is of the harbour of course) which apparently is a great place for live music, and good food, though I’ve never been. What caught my eye is the graffiti of what looks like Dean Martin on the wall of the pub, I don’t think he ever came to the North East either, but hey ho, it looks fab.
Wednesday
another busy day so all I took a picture of was my lovely chicken salad I had for tea haha and I’ve stuck it in the Tuesday collage! In truth I had the same tea on Tuesday so it still fits.
Thursday
Oh Thursday- day of doom! I should have been a day off but went to work for most of it and managed to take this shot of the church next to where one of my clients lives
but that was the only good thing about the day really as it all went to ratshit when I got home. I had an email frenzy for 2 hrs as there are a lot of problems with works new processes, I’ll spare you the boring details but it drives me mad and makes work harder than it has to be. Sigh. After that I decided to sit and have my tea and read my latest book, when I thought I could hear the rain start pattering on the conservatory roof, but on looking out the kitchen window the sky was clear and blue with fluffy clouds. So I went to the conservatory and holy guacamole the place was full of bazillions of flying ants, copulating all over my windows and blinds! It was the most horrible of sights and I hate buggy things at the best of times, let alone a gazillion of them. Of course this was the one night The Hubster had gone out on a schoolboys reunion so I was on my own with it. I shut the conservatory door and googled flying ants to discover they are really ordinary ants who once a year grow wings and mate like crazy fofr a day, then go back to being normal ants. How bloody bonkers is that!??? Why can’t they just mate like normal bugs inside their own homes?? So, I also learned that to kill them I would need some mega poisonous bug killer (which I didn”t have) or could use a solution of 1 part vinegar and 1 part water as the acid in the vinegar also causes them to expire. On the whole I do not like killing insects and stuff, but this was too much and I filled up my orchid sprayer and became The Exterminator! I did not take pictures of this as it was just awful. I sprayed and sprayed, for over an hour and bit by bit they ceased to live, but still some survived, When I ran out of vinegar I used bleach, but still there were loads left. In the end I got quite distressed with the whole thing so shut the door on them and got my camera and went drove to the coast where I consoled myself with breathing in the sea air, and lovely skies and sea.
Phil got home before I got back and thought I must have had fish and chips for tea as the place stank of vinegar! When I got home we decided to leave everything till Friday.
Friday
Apart from having the killing fields to contend with, my poor back tyre has been going down quite quickly and I’ve been having to pump it up periodically to keep it going. So in the morning I took her up to my local garage and a very nice smiley young chap put a new valve in the tyre, and all is well with the Rav again. Then I came home and got to grips with cleaning the conservatory, I stripped everything out and went to work sweeping up the corpses, there were still plenty of surviving stragglers that I had to bash over the head with the dustpan brush, but eventually they were all gone, the place was spotless, and nippon has been put into any cracks around the floor til Phil gets chance to go round with filler. What a bliddy nightmare!! For dinner we had another disaster, Peri Peri chicken. It said MEDIUM heat on the sauce bottle (you can also get hot and extra hot!) and it nearly blew our heads off! No way would I try extra hot. Hmm in retrospect maybe I should have used that on the ants. Finished the night off with a movie Thor 2 which had amazing special effects and visuals, and Chris Hemsworth had is shirt off at one point which is never a bad thing to see :). Then we sat in our newly lovely conservatory and chatted and had a few glasses of cheer before going to bed.
Friday
Saturday
a much lovelier day, Phil and I did gardening! We went to our local garden centre to get some lawn feed, and I bought some new herbs for my pots, forgot to take a pic of them, but here’s one of Phil weeding the front bit, I took this sneaky out of the bedroom window.
and then we had a mini ODE (which is oudoor eating experience, a euphemism for BBQ because whenever BBQ is mentioned, it rains).
My Trendy Hubby
yummy cheeseburgers cooked by my trendy guy! Then we watched a really good British movie Closed Circuit, with Eric Bana, the watched a couple of music dvd’s. Phil has been transferring our old music video’s to dvd and they’ve come out really well, so we did Bon Jovi New Jersey followed by Bryan Adams, great stuff but we didn’t get to bed til 3am!
Sunday
Today has been another cool day, wet weather but nice anyway. We got up late of course, and had a leisurely breakfast, then I did a photo for the Sunday challenge group- which was to make a maade up advert for something.
Shelley and Cal came to visit which was fun
and then I cooked a lush Sunday lunch.
Beefcake meets beef!Sunday lunch
and that was the week that was! Start all over again tomorrow, bring it on!
fraggle ~ rocking a camera across the Universe 
You must be logged in to post a comment.