7,258,491 hotelsin 60 categories
Drive the A1 past Gateshead and it arrives without warning: a rust-coloured figure on a grass mound beside the carriageway, wings held straight out across the skyline. It has stood there since 1998, on a hill of earth piled up where a colliery once stood, and it was made to be read at speed by people who were never going to stop. Turning off for it takes you to a different object altogether, close enough to see the vertical ribs running down its body and to put a hand on the steel.
We at Travelmyth, the hotel search engine that ranks stays by your interests and needs across 60 stay categories, have put together this guide to Antony Gormley's Angel of the North. It covers where the sculpture actually stands, how to reach it by car or bus, what it is made of and how it holds itself up in a North East wind, and the argument that ran for years before it was ever built.
The Angel stands in Gateshead, not Newcastle. Its address is Durham Road, Low Eighton, Gateshead, postcode NE9 7TY, in Lamesley parish, and the county is Tyne and Wear. If you have seen it described as a Newcastle landmark, that is shorthand rather than geography: national travel guides routinely file it under Newcastle, but the sculpture belongs to Gateshead, out beyond the town centre on the A1.
It sits on a hill overlooking the A1 and A167 roads and the East Coast Main Line, and it faces south, towards the traffic travelling north into Gateshead and Tyneside. The design brief called for commanding views from distances of up to four kilometres, arcing through 100 degrees, with landmarks including Durham Cathedral in sight. Train passengers on the main line, about 600 metres to the west, see it as they pass.
By car, the site is reached from the A167, and there is a car and coach park that lets you stop and walk up to the sculpture. Parking has space for 26 cars plus four disabled bays, an area for two coaches, and cycle stands. There are no toilets on site.
By bus, the Angel 21 runs frequently from Newcastle and Gateshead, stopping on Durham Road close to the sculpture. The journey takes about twenty minutes from Newcastle's Eldon Square Bus Station and about ten from Gateshead Interchange. The bus stops on Durham Road near the sculpture, and the stop for the return journey is a short walk away on the opposite side of the road.
Check the operator's current timetable and fares before you travel, since both change.
No. The Angel of the North is free to visit and accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week: there is nothing to book, and the outdoor site is accessible at all times. Sitting on and touching the sculpture is encouraged rather than discouraged.
The Angel stands 20 metres tall with a wingspan of 54 metres from tip to tip, which is wider than a Boeing 757 or 767. The wings are 6.2 metres high where they meet the body, and the whole figure sits on a base 5.3 metres high, on ground about 75 metres above sea level.
The sculpture is generally described as weighing about 200 tonnes: the body weighs 100 tonnes and each wing 50 tonnes. Some contemporary engineering documentation from Arup gives a total of 208 tonnes.
The Angel is made of weathering steel containing a small amount of copper, which forms a patina on the surface and gives the sculpture its rust-orange colour. The colour is the material behaving as designed, not neglect. Bronze, often used for sculpture, was ruled out because it would not have been strong enough at this size.
Rather than relying on a conventional internal skeletal frame like the Statue of Liberty, the Angel uses its steel structure and prominent external ribs to transmit wind loads into the foundations. Ove Arup and Partners were the structural engineers, brought in to work out how a structure this size could take winds of over 100 miles per hour.
Below ground, concrete piles about 20 metres deep anchor the sculpture into solid rock. The site had old mine workings under it, and 100 tonnes of grout were pumped in to stabilise the ground. The Angel was designed to last more than 100 years.
Gateshead Council first conceived of a landmark sculpture for the southern approach into Gateshead and Tyneside in 1990. The chosen site formed part of the former Team Colliery complex, whose pithead buildings and workings had occupied the area for generations; the colliery remains were cleared and earth piled into the knoll the Angel now stands on.
Antony Gormley was commissioned by August 1994, at the age of 43, with the structure originally intended to cost £500,000 and to be finished by 1996. Gateshead's planning committee voted 15 to 5 in favour on 4 January 1995, and the full council voted 41 to 14 to approve the scheme. Funding eventually reached £800,000, of which £584,000 came from Arts Council England and £150,000 from the European Regional Development Fund.
Hartlepool Steel Fabrications built it, with steel fabrication beginning in June 1997. On 14 February 1998 the components travelled in convoy from Hartlepool to the site 45 kilometres away, the body on a 48-wheel trailer, moving overnight. The body was lowered into place on the morning of 15 February, the first wing was in position by lunchtime and the second by dusk, watched by more than 1,000 local people as well as journalists, photographers and television crews.
The idea of an angel came from Pat Conaty, the chairman of Gateshead's planning committee, rather than from the artist. Gormley was reluctant at first, saying he did not make motorway art, and changed his mind only after visiting the site, which he compared to a megalithic burial chamber.
Asked why an angel, Gormley answered that no-one has ever seen one and we need to keep imagining them. He gave the figure three functions: a historic one, to remind us that coal miners worked in the dark below the site for two hundred years; a second, to grasp hold of the future and the transition from the industrial age to the information age; and a third, to be a focus for our hopes and fears. A plaque beside the sculpture carries his words that it matters to him that the Angel is rooted in the ground, the complete antithesis of what an angel is.
The form is based on a cast of Gormley's own body, and the face has no individual features. The wings are not flat: they are angled about 3.5 degrees forward, which Gormley described as giving a sense of embrace.
The Angel was not welcomed. Local newspapers ran campaigns against it and local politicians joined them. Some critics compared the sculpture to fascist or communist monumentalism, and the Gateshead Post drew a comparison with a 1930s Nazi statue. Others raised concerns that its proximity to the A1 dual carriageway would cause traffic accidents, or that it would interfere with television and radio reception.
Opinion turned after it was installed, and the sculpture is now widely recognised as an example of public art and a symbol of Gateshead and the wider region. Gateshead Council notes that many people's original views changed once it was in place.
One thing has not changed. A clause Gormley added to the original 1994 agreement means the Angel cannot be illuminated, and the council has held to it: in 2011 it blocked plans by Tourism Ireland to illuminate the sculpture for Saint Patrick's Day. Projections have been attempted anyway. Morrisons apologised in 2014 after projecting an advertisement onto it, which Gormley called shocking and stupid, and the Vote Leave campaign drew a legal letter from his solicitors in 2016. Not every intervention has been commercial: on Christmas Eve 2018 ten people abseiled the sculpture to put a santa hat on its head.
The Angel was made to be seen from many angles and by motorists passing at speed, so the passing view is the one it was designed for first. That is part of why stopping is worth the detour.
One practical note. Since the installation in 1998 the view from the nearby car park has become more obstructed as the trees around the site have grown, so it is worth walking away from the car park for a clear full-length view. The sculpture faces broadly south, towards the northbound traffic, so the front can receive good daylight around the middle of the day, depending on season and weather.
Gateshead Council describes the Angel as seen by more than one person every second, which it puts at 90,000 every day or 33 million a year. That figure counts sightings, most of them from the A1 and the East Coast Main Line rather than from the mound itself. The number who actually stop is far smaller.
The Angel sits south of Gateshead town centre, beside the A1, which makes it a poor fit for a day spent walking the Quayside and a natural one for a day you are driving south or arriving from that direction. Treat it as a stop rather than a destination.
Gateshead Council credits the Angel with a good deal of what you will see on the river: it calls the sculpture the catalyst for the cultural regeneration of Gateshead Quays that led to the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, BALTIC and the concert hall now called The Glasshouse.
For the rest of the city and the Gateshead bank, see our guide to what to see in Newcastle upon Tyne. When you are working out where to base yourself, Travelmyth lists stays across Newcastle upon Tyne ranked by the things you care about, so you can filter for a boutique-style property or somewhere family-friendly, and combine any two.