Putting Cone on the Map: A Walk from the Baltic

Angela Connelly — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 17:00:26 +0000

During the Jetty project, I have spent some time talking to people who all say one thing: you have to put Dunston Staiths on a map. It has also been pointed out to me that Gateshead has probably tried every regeneration strategy that time has privileged. And so, I set about creating a walk that begins at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and ends at Dunston Community Centre, with Dunston Staiths as a key feature of the walk.It takes in slum clearance, culture-led regeneration and garden festivals.

The Royal Geographical Society have a fantastic website where people contribute their walks of Britain so that other people can enjoy them. And so, the 80 years of history that can be seen from the Baltic to Dunston is now available on their website.
The walks are self-guided and you can choose from different formats.The walk booklet contains everything that you need to know including practical information, route maps and the commentary. You can either print it out or download it onto an iPad or eReader. Alternatively you can download an audio version of the commentary onto an mp3 player. You also need to print out the accompanying booklet which contains the essential map and directions as these are not incorporated into the audio.

Let us know what you think at info@jetty-project.info

Angela Connelly, 21 July 2014

Connecting with ‘Power and the Water’

Angela Connelly — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 10:49:17 +0000

Power and the Water: Connecting Pasts with Futures is an AHRC-funded project involving the Universities of Bristol, East Anglia and Nottingham. The project examines the nature of environmental connectivities since industrialization and how their legacies challenge us in the early 21st century.

Early in April 2014, Angela met up with one of their researchers, Dr Leona Skelton (The University of Bristol) who is researching the degeneration and regeneration of the River Tyne. It turns out that not only is Leona from Gateshead, but that she also visited Dunston Staiths during the Gateshead Garden Festival in 1990.

A redshank in flight over the Tyne. © Jonathan Siberry, Licensed for Reuse Under Creative Commons (CC-BY-2.0 UK) via Flickr

Leona has written a wonderful blog about her reflections on how industrial interventions can have a positive affect on urban wildlife, which you can find out more about in the “Environment” section. She raises some interesting questions about the unintended consequences of human influence on nature.

The Jetty Project » regeneration

Putting Cone on the Map: A Walk from the Baltic

Connecting with ‘Power and the Water’