Thursday 27 June 2013

The Angel of the North.

Since it's was completed in 1998 the Angel of the North has been one of the best known sculptures in the Country but for all my travels up and down the country it was only last week that I first saw it. You'd think, for something of these dimensions, I'd see it from miles away but it was the brown sign directing me there that I first saw and I was almost turning off the road into the carpark before I saw it at all (mind you, the A1 past Gateshead and Newcastle is a bit inadequate and requires concentration on the road rather than the surroundings).

Designed by Anthony Gormley (who has had occasional mentions in these pages for his iron men in Edinburgh), it is 20 metres (65 feet) tall and has a wingspan of 54 metres (175 feet). The skeleton of it is made from 50mm thick steel and the skin is 6mm thick. The site originally had old mine working on it which were cleared.  Eight holes, 3/4 of a metre across, were drilled to the bedrock 20 feet below and filled with concrete, then 1 and a half metres of concrete over an 8 by 13 metres area were laid on top of that to anchor the sculpture. In all 600 tonnes of concrete hold up the 200 tonnes of steel.

It was quite busy when I was there but I seem to avoided most of the visitors in these shots. Seems that people like to be photographed doing an impression of the Angel with it in the background.








7 comments:

Pam said...

Great shots of the lines, and a few people help get a perspective. It's a biggie, all right!

John @ Beans and I on the Loose said...

That is really cool. It is things like that That I drive miles out of my way to go see.

Becky said...

The Angel of the North is amazing. I would love to see it in person. Your photos were great.

Sandy's witterings said...

Pam and Wayne - certainly is !

John, I was prepared to drive a few miles to see it too but as it happened it turned up within half a mile of me leaving the motorway - bit of a result.

Becky - worth seeing in person, unfortunately, so firmly concreted in, it's certainly not going on tour.

The Glebe Blog said...

Impressive pictures Sandy.
I've had one very quick glimpse of the Angel and that was on a sodden day back in 2005.
I hope it's well anchored, it looks quite top heavy.

Shundo said...

Yet to see this in real life, but I am always curious at how the wongspan looks bigger and more solid than you expect. In the past picture though, I can imagine it squatting down and leaping into the air to glide away.

Sandy's witterings said...

The stats seem to suggest that it's going nowhere Jim, though with a 100 tonnes worth in the wings, it certainly is top heavy

Shundo, I can see how it looks like it's about so squat (and at 200 tonnes wouldn't you need a bit of a push off to fly). I think it's the knees - before I went I hadn't noticed that Mr Gormley had very definately giving him quite shapely legs and knees - it makes him (could be a her I suppose) look much more capable of take off :)