The River Tyne has so many magnificent bridges, true spectacles from the land and to cross over, but until you've went under them in a kayak you've hardly seen the half of it, come with us and see the spectacle of architecture through the ages, 3 cameras, 2 mad Geordie blokes and 2 kayaks and seven bridges, the bridges you will see in this video like you've probably never seen them before are;-
Gateshead Millennium Bridge - 2001
Tyne Bridge - 1928
Swing Bridge - 1876
High Level Bridge - 1849/50
Metro Bridge - 1981
King Edward Bridge - 1906
Redheugh Bridge - 1983
Scotswood Bridge - 1967
Some serious design and architecture eye candy going on here covers 170 years of cutting edge bridge designs, plus two dapper Geordie blokes doing all the paddling.
Here in Newcastle it was the heart of the Victorian Industrial Revolution, George Stephenson the man who pioneered one of the many early steam locomotives lived up river about 6 mile from our launch point, in the video you'll see many relics along the river from this era, some preserved and some just there left to the ravages of time and others running like they wee built yesterday but instead hundreds of years old almost untouched.
We are in the tidal salt water part of the river, as we enter the water it's about 90 minutes from high tide.
The bridges over the Tyne between Newcastle and Gateshead are justifiably famous. They are not merely bridges, but icons for the North East. Over the years the single (Georgian) bridge existing in the early Victorian period has been joined by six others. First the High Level Bridge, giving the river its first railway crossing, then the Swing Bridge (replacing the Georgian bridge), and the first Redheugh Bridge, replaced twice, to be followed by the King Edward Bridge and the most famous of them all, the new Tyne Bridge.
After many decades came the Queen Elizabeth Metro Bridge and finally, in 2001, the Gateshead Millennium Bridge opened to provide a stunning pedestrian and cycle link between the redeveloped quaysides on either side of the river. In the space of less than a mile seven bridges link Newcastle with Gateshead.
Further upstream are bridges at Scotswood and Newburn, the old Chain Bridge at Scotswood being one of the oldest until replaced in 1967. A major tributary, the Derwent, flows into the Tyne on its south bank near Swalwell.
The 'Coaly Tyne', as it was called because of its domination by the coal trade, has also seen shipyards like Swan Hunters, Hawthorn Leslies and Readheads, great engineering works like Reyrolles, Parsons, Clarke Chapmans and Armstrongs as well as a host of smaller enterprises along its banks making all manner of things.
