This is a bit of Newcastle’s ancient town wall – specifically, the Durham Tower bit. The wall was built in the 13th and 14th centuries, and was once 2 miles long, 2m thick, and over 7m high. There were 17 towers like this one, all within shooting distance of each other to repel attackers. The construction of the wall was funded through a special tax – a murage – which was levied for a hundred years.

The wall kept the town reasonably well protected from invaders, seeing off attacks from David II of Scotland and the Earl of Douglas among others. By the 18th century, the wall had fallen into disrepair, and Scottish armies were able to invade Newcastle a couple of times. By the late 18th century bits of it started to be knocked down, because it started to get in the way.

These days, it’s a scheduled ancient monument which is also the home to a notable literary landmark: Morden Tower, where many great 20th century poets came – and still come – to read their work. Allen Ginsberg, Ted Hughes, Basil Bunting, and Seamus Heaney are just four of the hundreds of previous poetic visitors! It’s also the place where the band Whitehouse once gave a performance in which the entire audience walked out. I don’t think that’s ever happened to any of the poets!

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.

Designed and built entirely on Teesside, and opened in 1934 by the Duke and Duchess of York (later the Queen Mother), this is the Tees Newport Bridge. It has a span of 82m, and two 55m lifting towers with counterweights of nearly 7,000 metric tonnes.

The little hut perched on the middle of the bridge is the winch-house, from where the up-and-down movement of the bridge was controlled. I say “little hut”, but I understand that it’s actually a quite beautiful oak-pannelled control room, modelled on the bridge of a ship. The bridge was winched by electric motors, though did have petrol backups. The third-line backup was to winch by hand, but it’s said that this would have taken twelve men eight hours.

22 years ago, after a final ceremonial raising and lowering (which is actually on YouTube), the road bridge was bolted in place: there was really very little point in continuing to maintain the lifting mechanism given that the innavigable (at least to big ships) Tees Barrage was just about to be constructed a little upstream. There was initially some speculation that the massive steel counterweights could therefore be detached and sold as scrap, until some bright spark realised that they were still actually supporting the weight of the road bridge, even though movement was prevented by the bolting process.

The bridge remains busy with traffic, as it’s part of the A1032.

As Olympic preparations continue apace, the country’s biggest metal Olympic rings have been clamped to the Tyne Bridge to celebrate Newcastle’s status as one of the host cities. They look really quite smart. They are the correct colours, of course, though the contrast with the bright sky in this photo makes that hard to see.

At first glance, from a distance, they didn’t look much different in size to the ones at St Pancras. But closer up, it’s clear that they really are quite huge: 25m wide, in fact, 50% bigger than the ones on The Mound in Edinburgh!

Hall One is acoustically astounding, and also looks gorgeous. Unfortunately, a photo can’t really show acoustics, and my bad photography makes the hall look pretty dull (though the decision to drape a black curtain in front of the rear of the rear of the stage doesn’t help).

Nevertheless, Wendy and I really enjoyed seeing Ramin this evening, and as we left the Sage, we saw the Tyne Bridge looking twinkly and pretty.

It may be an apocryphal tale, but I understand that the Vermont Hotel, in response to Council cuts, paid the electricity bill for the lighting of the Tyne Bridge for to benefit its guests’ views. If it is true, the owners will no doubt have celebrated when the current LED lighting system was installed, as I’m sure it cut the bill substantially…

Though, having said that, the hotel recently went into administration. It’s since been sold, and is now anticipating a £3m makeover. Hurrah!

This is the 160m Tees Barrage, built to maintain the upstream river at a constant level, preventing flooding and allowing excellent watersports facilities to be created: so good, in fact, that the 2001 World Canoe Championships were held here. The white water course is to be an international training location for London 2012.

It took from 1991 to 1995 to construct, and was the country’s biggest civil engineering project during that time. Its construction cost £50m, and used 650 tonnes of steel and 15,000 cubic metres of concrete; and a further £4.6m is currently being spent on upgrading the facilities. The Gazette has some very dramatic pictures of the original construction, including one arresting shot showing how the Tees was temporarily diverted from the site to allow construction.

It’s a remarkable feat of engineering, combining brute strength with precision control, made all the more remarkable by a fairly charming appearance.

In recompense for my forgetfulness yesterday, I’ve got a small collection of photos today.

If you’re thinking that the above looks like someone has built a house on top of a block of flats, you’re not far wrong. It’s CIAC, or community in a cube, a new residential development in Middlesbrough’s shiny new Riverside One development. It consists of a block of flats of various sizes, with a couple of luxury houses on the top. It’s a fully sustainable development, and architecturally interesting to say the least.

This shows the same building from a different angle, showing both “perched houses”. Also notice the bizarre Playschool-esque windows in the cutaway portion.

Walking round the back of the building, this whole other surprise awaits: a strange inset geometric patterned wall, and paving resembling a jumbo zebra crossing. Oh, and a lamppost at a decidedly jaunty angle.

On a related note, the surrounding naked streets are the first I’ve driven on, and it’s certainly a disconcerting experience that forces you to slow right down – especially at junctions.

There’s no denying that CIAC and the whole Riverside One development is distinctive, and also modern. But it isn’t quite to my taste. But perhaps you’re asking yourself what the sales office for such a distinctive development looks like… Well, it certainly isn’t your usual portacabin or converted garage!

I’ve spied the new BHS on Newcastle’s Northumberland Street this afternoon. It’s in the building vacated by Next after they shuffled off into Eldon Square, and is a few doors up from its previous home, which has been subsumed into the expanding Primark.

Graham Soult has some great before-and-after comparison shots to see the impressive scale of the building’s transformation.

On my visit, my eye was drawn to the cafe on the second floor with floor-to-ceiling windows, which strikes me as a little vertiginous. I’m also not entirely keen on having two BHS signs above one another – I understand the logic (the higher one isn’t terribly visible from the doorway), but couldn’t they just have put a logo on the doors? There were six big visible logos on the frontage on my visit (four on posters), and it really cheapens the brand.

Anyway, I’m being picky. It’s a nice looking shop from the outside – certainly moreso than the old, unloved Next – and it’s a relief to get rid of some of Northumberland Street’s scaffolding!

My 100th photo is of the war memorial in Lincoln. It stands in St Benedict’s Square in the city centre.

I tried to take a picture if the Stonebow, which was built in the 16th century and marks the position of the original Roman gate allowing access to the south of the city. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a disaster, not least as I took it from the back:

Still, it’s the 100th day of the year, and my 100th photo-a-day, so I must be doing something right!

St Leonard’s Hall at the University of Edinburgh’s Pollock Halls. I don’t really know anything about it, but it’s a building that looks like it has a history!