The Angel of the North in rare images
IT’S 20 years since the North East welcomed a striking new landmark - the Angel of the North.
Today it’s a world-famous, proud regional symbol. It’s strange to think that back then there were arguments over money and the Angel’s aesthetic appeal in certain quarters.
The whole operation would be completed over the weekend of February 14 and 15, 1998, with the world waking up to the completed structure on Monday, 16.
The Chronicle reported on “the military-style operation that will herald the arrival of the Angel of the North”.
Our story continued: “Three huge lorries will take the giant steel statue from Hartlepool to its hilltop home in Gateshead tonight.
“Britain’s biggest cranes will then erect Britain’s largest sculpture on Sunday.
“Revolutionary manufacturing methods were devised by Hartlepool firm, Steel Fabrications, who beat off competition to build the 200-tonne statue.
“Concrete weighing 150 tonnes was used for the foundations on the former pithead baths site overlooking the A1 at Eighton Lodge.
“Tomorrow two huge telescopic cranes will erect the Angel’s 65ft body - the size of four double decker buses - and attach wings with a span of a Jumbo jet’s.
“Murray Padkin, of Initial GWS Crane Hire, said: ‘We supply cranes to off-shore oil rigs but this is new. This is a very unusual job and is something we are very proud to be involved in - building a local Eiffel Tower’.”
A few days later, with the work successfully completed, the Chronicle reported: “Hundreds of people lined the surrounding countryside and cars crawled along nearby roads. From pop star Neil Tennant to TV personality Janet Street-Porter, everyone was eager for a glimpse.
“Four engineers set to work on the striking statue from first light yesterday, raising the torso, then the wings, with two giant cranes.
“Cheers and applause spread through the crowd as the second wing was finally slotted into place.
“For artist Antony Gormley, it was the final stage in a four-year project.
“He said: ‘I was pretty nervous and didn’t sleep much the night before, but I’m pretty relaxed now.
“‘It was the fact that I hadn’t seen the sculpture completed. I’d seen it lying down in bits, but this was the first time I’d seen it whole and up. I feel very good about it’.”
Twenty years on, we couldn’t imagine Tyneside without the magnificent Angel of the North.