Urban Heritage on the Tyne

I spent an afternoon in Newcastle with my son today. As well as searching for new school shoes and a new rucksack to replace the one which fell apart in his hands last week, we were on the hunt for the Tyne Kittiwakes, the world’s most inland breeding colony. On the way we stumbled across so some amazing heritage treasures from the very obvious (although not celebrated enough) Grey’s Monument to historic architecture and hidden graffiti. I couldn’t help draw a comparison between this and the photos of Hexham which I posted yesterday – both connected by the same mighty river.

Back to the kittiwakes, I am in awe of them…usually nesting on isolated rocks and cliff faces, here they are in the middle of the city, underneath the Tyne bridge, one of the busiest pedestrian and vehicular thoroughfares and completely undisturbed by all of this. As my son said, they are ‘epic’.