Not A View From A Window!

In these interesting times (actually a Terry Pratchett Discworld novel), Steve over at Bogenwald posted “A View From A Window” and wondered what the view from peoples’ windows was like.  Since we live in a Victorian terraced street, the view  from the front is other Victorian terraced houses, and the view from the back is the backs of different Victorian terraced houses!  So I decided to take some pictures this morning when we took the dogs for their walk – all of the views shown were within 10 minutes walk of our house on the route we’d normally take with the dogs (so we didn’t need to drive anywhere, just in case Northumbria Police are reading this)!

First picture is more of a step back in time 1900 years rather than a walk of a couple of minutes!  Shown above is the reconstructed gateway of the Roman fort of Arbeia, built over the location of the original western gateway.  One of the gates is open, but by taking the picture from this angle I managed to avoid getting any houses or cars in the picture.  When the fort is open you can get inside the gateway and up to the top level.

If we keep walking we get round to the mouth of the River Tyne, protected by the two cannon shown above.  The small tower with the weather vane is one of the original Lawe Beacons, used to guide ships into the Tyne (before the current piers were built).  The one above is the lower beacon and the upper beacon, which stands across the road behind the cannon, is shown below.

And another view of the cannon!

There is also a sign about the history of 205 Battery just in front of the cannon.

In fact, the current Army Reserve unit based in South Shields is 205 Battery, Royal Artillery, although these days it’s equipped with MLRS vehicles.  As an aside, a very long time ago I served in 203 Battery, part of 101 Medium Artillery Regiment (when it was still called the Territorial Army) and 205 Battery was (and still is) also part of that regiment.

As we walked further round, I took a picture with a view across to the north side of the Tyne, showing Tynemouth Castle (left of centre in the above photo) and Priory (right of centre.  Usually there would be quite a few people walking along the promenade visible running across the middle of the picture, but not in these days of social distancing and essential travel only.

Lastly, a view past the Tyne pier heads to the North Sea – unfortunately I couldn’t get closer for an uninterrupted view!  Probably significant, but there were actually no ships in sight at all, whereas there is usually at least one car carrier waiting to come in to the Tyne and other cargo ships waiting offshore.

So after this little walk, the dogs just wanted to be back home for a snooze!

I know how they feel!  Stay safe everyone!