Outlying Breasts

I came across a couple of breasts as I entered the main area. At least they looked like breasts. The nearby map said that they were viewing mounds. I followed the spiral pathway to the top of one of them. There was a cairn on top that might well have been interpreted as a nipple. It did provide a good sideways view of the main sculpture. I could make out her head and quite a prominent nose. Further eastwards were two more breasts, larger than the one that I was stood on. The lower area was more difficult to distinguish, which might actually be a good thing in the interests of modesty. There were a few lakes surrounding the main figure. They hold 5 million gallons of water, enough for 10 Olympic swimming pools. I was hoping to see some birdlife; a few corvids and gulls flew here and there, but I couldn’t see any wildfowl on the lake. I decided to take a closer look at her head and so I descended the spiral of her outlying breast and headed towards her larger ones. 

Head

It didn’t take long to make my way up the side of her right breast, past her chin and nose, and then up to her head. I found a viewing area at the top. There was a pillar on the summit with a sculpture of a life-size hand pointing skywards. The inscription ‘Eye Of The Universe’ was next to it. It was all very mysterious. Looking eastwards, I could look over the Lady of the North's ample breasts to that indeterminate area beyond. Over to the north, I could definitely make out the five fingers of her hand. There seemed to be paths everywhere over the sculpture. It was high enough to get a good view beyond the confines of the sculpture park.     

When I was here in 2019, the area to the north was an active opencast mine. I remember seeing massive earth moving trucks thundering about. I was therefore quite surprised to see only fields there today. There still seemed to be some large buildings in that direction, but all the excavations and trucks had all disappeared. Wikipedia said that it closed in the summer of 2020. It opened in 2010 and 1.5 million tons of its rock and soil were used to create Northumberlandia. Enough to cover 4,000 football pitches, 4 inches deep, apparently. The parkland that has been created covers 46 acres and has 4 miles of footpaths. I could see some lakes and tracks over to the west. They looked worth investigating once I’d explored Northumberlandia’s other bits. 

Her Other Bits

I descended her head. The area surrounding her nose was quite steep and out of bounds. The paths around the sculpture were formed using easy gradients. I therefore had to circle her right breast a couple of times to reach her nipple. Some people had obviously got bored of the meandering paths and taken direct routes to the top, despite the signs saying that you should stick to the paths. This was a shame since it had caused damage to the sculpture in places. Looking eastwards, I still couldn’t make much sense of her lower bits and so I descended the breast to take a closer look. 

There was a stone built seating area on her hip. Looking westwards I could see her nose and head through her breasts. I investigated her knee and ankles, but they seemed to be fairly abstract to me. I made my way down through the labyrinth of paths, between two lakes and reached the path that follows the perimeter of the main sculpture. I started making my way around it in an anticlockwise direction. 

Cramlington Aerodrome

I reached a couple of information boards that documented the history of Cramlington Aerodrome. The airfield was situated in the fields to the north of the current Northumberlandia site. This was built in 1915 in response to German airship attacks along the northeast coast. Later on, a large shed was built to house an airship. These were used to provide air patrols to identify zeppelin incursions. The non-rigid airships had a flying time of 22 hours and a top speed of 52mph. In 1929 the Airship Development Company came to Cramlington to build a small airship that would be used for advertising purposes. The airship had a gondola attached underneath with a capacity for two people: the pilot and the coxswain. Walter Wilson’s grocery chain was the first supplier to hire it. I’d never heard of them, but Google says they were big in the northeast, especially in Sunderland, and the business was sold in 1998. The airship crashed when flying over Belgium in 1930…presumably Walter was wanting to expand his shops into Europe. The damage was so bad, the airship had to be scrapped.   I made my way alongside Northumberandia’s body, past her fingers and around her head, back to the entry point to the sculpture. 

It had been nice to visit the Lady of the North again. The walk had been easy and she’d offered fine views of various parts of her anatomy. The day was still young though and so I decided to explore some of the area around the sculpture parkland (see the Captain’s Log, Northumberlandia’s Extension).