Other Public Artworks
(on or close to the cycleways)
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Windy Nook - Richard Cole
Completed in 1986, Richard Cole's Windy Nook, 160 metres high and covering 5,500 square metres, is still one of Europe's largest environmental sculptures. The work transformed a former colliery slag heap into an ambitious piece of land art and a much-used facility for the Gateshead community. Enjoyed as a walking and recreation site, visible as a dramatic landmark, and noted for its excellent views - across the Tyne, coast and Cheviot Hills - Windy Nook also provides a habitat for birds and wild flowers and an exciting play area for the locality.
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The terraced design consists of concentric semicircular stone walls and turfed earthworks descending the hillside and incorporating 2,500 tons of granite recycled from pillars supporting the old Scotswood Bridge. Richard Cole aimed to achieve a scale in keeping with the elevated hill site and create an organic structure sympathetic to the surroundings. On maturing, the work has integrated naturally with the landscape - so much so that even local people feel it has always been there, and it is often assumed to be an ancient hill-fort rather than a contemporary artwork.
Close to the Team Colliery Waggonway |
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 NCN 14 near the Nine Arches Viaduct |
 Stone Garden
by Alberto Carneiro
Alberto Carneiro, a Portuguese sculptor, has made a 'stone garden' for the former Derwenthaugh Cokeworks, near to the Derwent Walk, during the Four Seasons Project in 1996.
Close by there is a Millennium Milepost.
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Derwent Walk Express - Andy Frost
Andy Frost's Derwent Walk Express is probably the only locomotive which tows its own passing landscape behind it. This colourful sculpture acts as a sign for the Swalwell entrance to Derwent Walk Country Park, an area restored and landscaped as an urban improvement scheme. The painted plywood construction (2.5 x 33 metres) combines a steam train with slices of countryside - plants, birds, animals, insects and a distant power station. Mounted on the bridge abutment of a railway viaduct on the former Derwent Valley branch line, the sculpture reflects the area's great railway heritage and its present regeneration as a country park. Installed in 1987.
Located at the start of the Dewent Walk in Swalwell
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The Teams 'Gas Works Wall' and Bridges
Jennie Moncur, a tapestry weaver, was commissioned to create a series of designs for bridges throughout Gateshead. These brightly-painted works now number 22 following a successful partnership with British Rail during the Gateshead Garden Festival. Building on this, Jennie was asked to create a tiled mural for a wall fronting the Gas Works, the resulting work along with the ongoing bridge repainting scheme offers a cohesive design solution to the industrial environment.
On NCN 14 Keelmans Way and Bensham Cycleway
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