Residents leave mark on newly-opened park space
Jul 9 2009 The Journal
HUNDREDS of local people have left their mark on a new pocket park.
Over 300 have carved names and messages on bricks which form part of Belmont Green park on Enslin Street in Walker, Newcastle, which has won the Urban Green Space category in the Local Government Chronicle's Street Design Awards .
The park has been created form a featureless piece of open space.
Wallsend-based artist Alan Vaughan worked on the project with Belmont Residents Association, Newcastle City Council, Bridging NewcastleGateshead, Groundwork, and the Walker Riverside team.
More local input saw benches made from railway sleepers dedicated to ships which were build in the area.
One bench is named after HMS Somali, a Tribal class destroyer launched in 1937. Two hours after war was declared in 1939, Somali sighted an unidentified vessel being camouflaged at sea. That ship was the 2,377 ton Hanna Böge of Hamburg, Germany. She was captured to become the first prize in the war at sea.
She was engaged in the pursuit of the battleship Bismarck and was later assigned to convoy duty on the Murmansk run when in 1942 she was sunk by a U-boat.
Also commemorated in the park is the ice breaker Baikal, built for use on the giant Russian lake, the destroyer Tordenskjold, built in 1898 for the Norwegian navy and the 1960 liner Principe Perfeito. Alan Vaughan said: “This has all given local people a great sense of ownership of the park.
“The idea for the inscribed bricks came from the way people often leave names of other marks in concrete which has been laid for street repairs. The transformation of the land to a pocket park has made a tremendous difference.”
