A Sunday Walk – Part II

We walk along here quite often – at least once or twice a week – much as we do past the Castle and the Priory. It’s almost a reflex action if I have my camera with me, I’m somehow compelled to take certain photos. No doubt one day I’ll be able to show you the Priory as it appears virtually every month. I feel just the same about the High Light and Low Light in North Shields, the two white buildings in this photo.













They are landmarks that have been there for hundreds of years - in some form or other since 1725, guiding ships into the mouth of the River Tyne, safely past the Black Middens.  I think it's seeing paintings of the quayside from the 19th century that show one or both of these lighthouses and then seeing them for real is the thing that really gets me about them. 

They are now private homes; I can’t imagine what that would be like, having such a strangely shaped house, not to mention one built in 1808.  However, come to think of it, I remember that the former windmills that were used to drain the Norfolk Broads have also been converted into houses, which would be roughly similar.

I remember a few years ago when the Low Lights was for sale.  The description is all that remains:  apparently it has 4 bedrooms. 

Well, enough maritime history. Tomorrow we’ll talk about Stan Laurel for a change.