The Northern Spire bridge in Sunderland opened in 2018. It’s the tallest structure in Sunderland, soaring to 105m—a little taller than Parliament’s Elizabeth Tower.

The A-frame pylon was manufactured in Belgium and brought to Sunderland by barge. Perhaps appropriately, the first three vehicles across the bridge after it opened were locally-built Nissans.

This is a picture I took earlier in the week of the Millennium Bridge lit up, as it is every night, in its rainbow-like colour scheme. The current lighting system was installed in 2009, and is LED based for super energy efficiency.

It’s the (first, second, third, fourth) fifth time I’ve featured the bridge this year, so you may be bored of seeing it by now…! In my own defence, this is the first night-time shot of it!

This is one of the footpaths on the High Level Bridge linking Newcastle and Gateshead. The top deck of the High Level Bridge carries trains, whilst pedestrians and road traffic cross on the lower deck. It was opened by Queen Victoria herself, and if you’re wondering about the dates and designers, this plaque might help:

The bridge was the world’s first major wrought iron tied-arch design, and spans 1,337 feet across six spans. During the Great Fire of Newcastle and Gateshead in 1854, it’s said that the bridge “vibrated like a thin wire”.

One has to wonder whether these not-so-good vibrations caused the first flaws in the ironwork that developed to severe cracks found when the bridge was due for restoration in 2005. These led to the bridge being closed for three years, and road traffic now being restricted to only taxis and buses in a single direction.

In the first year after it re-opened, though, some 32,000 drivers – my dad and brother included – ignored these restrictions. Perhaps, like dad and Glenn, all of them got lost and confused, ended up at the entrance to the bridge before they knew it, and were unable to turn round!

In response, Northumbria Police launched a crackdown, and fined over 1,000 drivers £30 in a few short weeks. Electronic registration number capturing monitoring equipment now automatically issues fines to anyone who breaks the rules.

This is the Hownsgill Viaduct. It’s 55m high, and a little over 200m long. It used to carry the Stanhope & Tyne Railway, but these days carries only the C2C cycle route. Construction was completed in 1858 to Sir Thomas Bouch’s design.

Bouch would later go on to design the Tay Bridge, which collapsed in use. Seventy-five people were killed, and Bouch’s reputation and career were left in tatters. Whilst the Hownsgill Viaduct is still standing, its fate has become almost as grim: it’s one of the UK’s suicide hotspots. In 2011, there was a death every two weeks. In response, Durham County Council is arranging the construction of a 3m high steel tube and cable fence.

Suicide barriers are a knotty public health issue: whilst they seem logically sound, it’s difficult to come up with strong evidence of their effectiveness. The most famous study in this area (and one which came up in my Part A MFPH, as it happens) is of the Bloor Street Viaduct in Toronto – where, actually, fewer suicides occurred each year than at Hownsgill. The study suggests that whilst the Luminous Veil barrier prevented suicides from the viaduct itself, it had no impact on the suicide rate as a whole. Of course, study design is a huge problem in this field, but it remains the case that no published study has shown a reduction in the overall suicide rate as a result of the erection of a barrier.

I guess the only thing we know for certain is that suicide is better tackled through comprehensive and wide-ranging suicide prevention programmes rather than through barriers alone. Psychiatry services often suffer when healthcare resources are tight; yet the biggest cause of death in British men under the age of 35 is suicide. Let’s hope that the vital work of mental health teams isn’t dismissed by anyone as “easy pickings” in the ongoing recession.

Over the course of this photographic year, I’ve featured lots of bits of the Ouseburn, a local river that runs from its source, near Newcastle airport, to the Tyne, near the famous Quayside. It also passes fairly near my house.

I’ve featured it so many times now that I know it’s become a groan-worthy subject for some: Wendy included! But today, I wanted to show you the Ouseburn at Ouseburn: the point at which the river flows through its namesake part of Newcastle, in the Ouseburn Valley. This is it flowing under the huge Byker Bridge:

The Byker Bridge was opened in 1878, and, in something resembling current Government policy, its construction was funded by a toll charged for use until 1895. It was designed by Robert Hodgson, who was better known for his rail bridges. It is built entirely of brick, and is almost 100ft tall and over 1000 feet long. This picture gives a better sense of scale:

Perhaps the more interesting construction which lies almost alongside Byker Bridge is the Ouseburn Viaduct, which carries the East Coast Mainline. It was – remarkably – originally a timber construction built in 1839. Thirty years later, the timber was switched to iron. Unfortunately, the viaduct is currently undergoing a £10m restoration, and so all that can be seen today is a web of scaffolding:

I’ll have to visit again when the work is complete… Ouseburn will be back!

I’ve mentioned Newcastle’s quayside kittiwakes before – they’re very controversial because although ornithologists argue that their presence is valuable, they make a heck of a mess around the Tyne Bridge, on which they nest. The hanging sign outside this quayside bar provides a graphic demonstration of the unpleasant mess they liberally spread.

This is my contribution to the internet’s wide collection of touristy photos of the Jubilympic Rings on Tower Bridge. They’re roughly the same size as those on the Tyne Bridge, but with five-times the price tag (true story!)

Since that’s a boring choice, here’s a sign that made both Wendy and I wince:

It’s actually a logo for a risk management firm, but immediately made Wendy and I think of diarrhoea and vomiting, outbreaks of which consume fair portions of both of our working lives!

Both of today’s photos come courtesy of suggestions from Wendy… so if you don’t like them, don’t blame me!

A few days ago, I mentioned the Royal Victoria Docks Bridge – and since I’m in London today, I thought I’d share a picture of it. As I said, it was built with the capability of running as a transporter bridge like the one in Middlesbrough, but this facility hasn’t been used.

Just a little way from that bridge is the new Emirates Airline. The consensus amongst Londoners that I know is that this is far more a tourist attraction than a serious transport proposal. As a tourist of sorts, I didn’t want to buck the trend, so I hopped on here, at the station on the North bank:

And here’s a pretty picture of the venue formerly known as The O2, but which the IOC now insists on us all referring to as the North Greenwich Arena:

But the most pressing question I had after my brief “flight” was: what’s in the box?

I assume it’s some sort of emergency equipment, but it’s a pretty small box. Do any of my well-informed readers know what’s in it? I’m intrigued…

As I’m coming to the end of my time working on Teesside, I think it would be impossible to leave without featuring one of the most iconic sights of the area: the Tees Transporter Bridge. The photo below might give a more familiar view, but it’s very difficult to fit the bridge into a single frame when this close up!

The bridge was built 101 years ago, and remains in perfect working order. It is the world’s largest operational transporter bridge, and it carries people and vehicles along the A178, connecting Middlesbrough to Port Clarence. It remains the furthest downstream crossing of the River Tees.

There are only eleven transporter bridges left in the world, and still fewer that actually work. In the United Kingdom, only Newport boasts another working transporter bridge; there’s another bridge in Warrington that’s been out of use since 1964, while London’s Royal Victoria Dock Bridge was designed with (as yet unused) transporter bridge capabilities.

As with all transporter bridges, it works through loading people and vehicles onto a gondola, suspended from the main structure. This then moves back and forth – in less than two minutes each way – allowing traffic to cross. Here’s the gondola in action:

The current tolls are surprisingly small: just £1.30 for a car, or 70p for a pedestrian or cyclist. For a smaller fee, it used to be possible to climb the steps at either end and walk across the top of the bridge. A restoration project going on at the moment will install glass elevators to transport visitors to the top, making the reportedly extraordinary views accessible to everyday visitors once again.

I’ve featured the Millennium Bridge a few times: once with bollards, once during the removal of the bollards, and once without them. But today is the first time I’ve featured it tilted!

It cost £22m to build, and tilted for the first time in 2001. It’s so energy efficient that it costs just £3.60 in electricity to open. One thing that many people don’t realise is that the tilting of the bridge has a secondary function, beyond letting ships pass: it tips any litter dropped on the bridge into special traps, making the bridge uniquely self-tidying!