Angel of the North

This iconic sculpture has been spreading its wings since February 1998 and is one of the most popular public pieces of art. Antony Gormley's Angel of the North stands at 20 metres tall and has a wingspan of 54 metres. It dominates the skyline and can be seen from the A1 motorway. Made from 200 tonnes of steel, this sculpture is simply magnificent, especially when you visit it up close. Receiving more than 150,000 visitors a year and 90,000 drivers a day viewing it from the passing motorway, the hilltop site was not just chosen so that The Angel could be seen. The site was former colliery pithead baths associated with the Gateshead mining history. In the 1990s it became re-claimed green landscape. Antony Gormley, OBE has been quoted 'the Angel has three functions - firstly a historic one to remind us that below this site coal miners worked in the dark for two hundred years, secondly to grasp hold of the future, expressing our transition from the industrial to the information age, and lastly to be a focus for our hopes and fears - a sculpture is an evolving thing'.