The Angel of the North
Its wings are wider than a Boeing 757's, it weighs as much as 100 elephants, and it started life as a plaster cast of one man's body in Gateshead.
Published
Quick Facts
- Location
- Low Eighton, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, beside the A1 and the East Coast Main Line
- Built or opened
- Installed in February 1998
- Artist
- Antony Gormley
- Height
- 20 metres (66 ft)
- Wingspan
- 54 metres (177 ft)
- Weight
- About 200 tonnes of weathering steel
- Cost
- Around £800,000, mostly from National Lottery and other arts funding
- Fabricated by
- Hartlepool Steel Fabrications, engineered with Ove Arup
A giant built from one man's body
The Angel began with a plaster cast of Antony Gormley's own body. That cast is the basis of the figure's torso and legs, scaled up to a monster size that you can read from a moving car. Gormley had been making sculptures from casts of himself for years. His later work, such as the iron figures on Crosby Beach in Another Place, follows the same idea. The Angel is the same human form blown up to the size of a small aircraft.
Why the wings tilt forward
The wings are not flat. They are angled 3.5 degrees forward, which gives the figure a feeling of embrace rather than a stiff, crucified pose. It's a subtle detail, but it changes how the sculpture feels when you stand beneath it. The span is 54 metres, which is roughly the width of a large passenger jet. Because the Angel stands on a hilltop, the wings seem to catch the sky as you approach from the south on the A1.
A hill that used to be a colliery
The Angel stands on the site of the old Teams Colliery pithead baths, where miners once washed off the coal dust. The idea was to put something enormous on a spot that had been dug, shaped and then abandoned by industry. The symbolism fits the area. Gateshead and Tyneside built ships, dug coal and forged steel. The Angel is a piece of heavy industry in its own right, made from steel by Teesside-area fabricators and welded in sections, then trucked to the hill and bolted together on its foundations.
Built to take a gale
Making a 200-tonne figure stand on an exposed ridge needed serious engineering. The steel is a weathering type that develops a rusty-brown surface layer, so it never needs painting, and that deep russet colour is now part of its identity. The foundations are anchored deep into the rock beneath the hill, designed to keep the figure upright in the fierce winds that sweep across the site. The Angel was also designed to last for a century or more.
From grumbling to garlands
Not everyone loved the idea of it. Some locals had doubts about spending Lottery money on a big steel figure, and the project drew plenty of argument before it arrived. Once it was up, opinion swung. The Angel has become one of the most recognisable pieces of public art in Britain and a symbol of the North East. Fans of Newcastle United have draped a giant black-and-white shirt with Alan Shearer's number 9 across it, a very Tyneside way of claiming it as their own.
What to look out for when you visit
Walk right up to the feet and look straight up. The scale only really lands when you're standing under the wings, with traffic roaring past on the A1 below you. Look at the surface of the steel too: the ribbed, riveted-looking texture and the changing colours of the patina. Then walk around the hill for the best views of the wings as the light changes. Trains on the East Coast Main Line run right alongside, so the Angel is also a landmark for anyone heading north or south by rail.
Notable people
- Antony Gormley
- Alan Shearer
Test yourself
Play the UK quizMore to see nearby
Hadrian's Wall
Published
Hadrian's Wall once gleamed white, with a gateway every Roman mile, and it did more than mark a line: soldiers patrolled it, taxed trade and deterred raiders.