It’s not the most original shot, but the Ross Fountain seemed appropriate given that it’s only a couple of days since I was in England’s capital: it came from London to Edinburgh following the 1862 World’s Fair in South Kensington. Unlike me, it took a decade to make the journey, and is originally French.

Interestingly, Edinburgh Museums claim it was bought at the Great Exhibition of 1862: a claim that’s repeated on many other websites. As a bit of a world’s fair buff, I think they’ve confused the famous Crystal Palace Great Exhibition of 1851 with the Great Exposition of 1862 – the latter was funded by the profits of the former – but then I’m no historian, and might be confused myself.

I don’t really have anything interesting to say about Edinburgh Castle, other than pointing out that the £15 admission price seems excessive to me: you can visit Alnwick Castle for a whole year for less if you really want to go to a castle…! Though, I guess, that advice isn’t a huge amount of good if you’re in Edinburgh!

Today’s photo shows the old bus station on Worswick Street in Newcastle. It’s been disused for almost 15 years, and is now something of an unofficial, and presumably rather inefficient, car park.

This whole area of the city centre has been ear-marked for regeneration for a long time, but nothing seems to have happened as yet…

This is the “restaurant directory” outside the flagship store of the Fenwick chain on Newcastle’s Northumberland Street. Listed are the ten restaurants in the store: the Northside Diner; the Terrace Restaurant; Café 21; Johann’s Coffee Shop; the Majorca Café; Tivoli; Pret a Manger; Yo! Sushi; Caffé Nero; and the Patio Restaurant.

I reckon that ten restaurants within a single department store must be close to a record. I know that Harrods famously has 25 restaurants – not that I’ve counted and independently verified the claim – but I can’t think of any UK department store other than Harrods or Fenwick with anywhere near ten. Can anyone else think of any?

Local legend has it that this branch of Fenwick is the most profitable branch of any department store chain in the UK. The Sunday Times Rich List is often the cited source of this information, but I can’t see it under the Fenwick family’s entry in any of the Rich Lists in the Times’s archive, so I’m not absolutely convinced.

The flagship M&S virtually next door – which houses five restaurants of its own (an M&S Cafe, Kitchen, Restaurant, Deli and Food on the Go) – has a food hall which is frequently authoritatively cited as the chain’s most profitable, so the claim about Fenwick isn’t as outlandish as it might first appear.

Anyway, as interesting as all that is, I thought the picture was a bit rubbish. So here’s a bonus one of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge now that the ugly bollards have been removed.

This is the Infinity Bridge across the Tees in Stockton, so called because it looks a bit like a ∞ when reflected in the water. I first wrote about this bridge when its design was still being decided and I was studying at the University of Durham’s Queen’s Campus, eight-and-a-half years ago:

The new design for the bridge in Stockton has been decided. Five designs were drawn up for the bridge (which will go from the university campus to the other side of the river, where there is currently – well, nothing, actually). These designs were then put to a public vote, via post, phone and online. The overwhelming winner of the vote was design ‘D’. So they’re building design ‘C’. No, I didn’t understand either.

Here’s a BBC Tees article from the time, which shows all five proposed designs. It’s interesting to see that the artist’s render in this case stands up very well to comparison with the finished product. But I’m still quite fond of the design the public voted for.

It’s also worth noting that, all this time on, there’s still very little on the far side of the bridge!

St Mary’s on Gateshead quayside is over 900 years old. It’s over 30 years since it was last used as a church, having been an auction house, a tourist information centre, and now – appropriately – home to Gateshead Heritage.

It caught my eye because of its plain glass (rather than stained glass) windows, which give it an unusual sort of ethereal quality… which, I suppose, is appropriate for a former church. I think this photo might just be a little too light to really show it, though.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the bollards around the Gateshead Millennium Bridge (or the “Vessel Collision Protection System”, to use the proper name) were to be removed. As I walked past this evening, the Forth Sentinel was beavering away at that very task.

Wendy was quite insistent that today’s photo should feature one of the many cows we came across while out and about today, so I’ve included one in this shot (bottom left)!

And here’s another shot of the Penshaw Monument, a little closer up:

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge has always struck me as slightly oddly named: it is named not for the river it crosses, but for the smaller of the two conurbations it connects; and opened some time into the new Millennium. Incidentally, the ugly bollards in the river beneath are due to start being removed any day now.

This is a building in Gosforth that I find completely fascinating: it has so many different features that it somehow looks unreal, like something off a film set or out of Disneyland.

This is the fairly impressive roof of Eldon Garden, which is marred by the 80s decor which consists mainly of arched mirrors, presumably to try and make the space look lighter. Given the arty reputation Eldon Garden tries to create for itself, I reckon it would look great with a bit of a renovation and a hanging artwork – something like a mini version of Snow’s Flight Stop in Toronto – but something more local to Newcastle, of course, and perhaps more in keeping with the wrought iron supports.