Distance Covered: 4.5 miles Time to Complete Walk 2 hours
Suitable for dog walking: Yes
Discover the port of Middlesbrough on this walk that takes you from the Riverside football stadium passing the iconic Transporter Bridge and then to Teessaurus Park with its impressive dinosaur sculptures. A great walk and a very educating walk around this brilliant town.
General Safety Tips: Take care sing the roads and approaching roundabouts. Keep to the pedestrian part of the paths keeping the cycle route clear
In the station head down into the tunnel and emerge on the other side and turn right.
The stadium was built to replace Ayresome Park after the Taylor Report, which required all top division football stadiums to be all-seater. After the report was delivered in January 1990, Middlesbrough needed an all-seater stadium by August 1994, and were unable to expand Ayresome Park outwards owing to its location in a residential area, and expanding the stadium upwards would have limited the club to a capacity of around 20,000 seats – the club wanted a considerably larger capacity. The decision was taken by club officials to build a new stadium; Teesside Development Corporation offered them the Middlehaven site by the River Tees for development.
The new 30,000 seater stadium was constructed by Taylor Woodrow Construction for £16 million, taking approximately nine months to complete after work began in the autumn of 1994. The name of the stadium was chosen by the club's fans, following a vote during the final game at Ayresome Park. The other choices available were Middlehaven Stadium, Erimus Stadium and Teesside Stadium. When first opened, the name was amended to Cellnet Riverside Stadium (and then BT Cellnet Riverside Stadium) as part of a £3 million sponsorship deal with Cellnet, but this deal ended after the 2001–02 season.
Tenemos
Temonos is a giant sculpture by internationally renowned and acclaimed sculptor Anish Kapoor, and one of the world’s leading structural engineers Cecil Balmond. It is situated on the bank of the river Tees, between the Transporter Bridge and the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough. As tall as Nelson’s column and as long as a football pitch (50 metres high by 110 metres long), it is one of the largest public sculptures ever made and has become a striking and familiar feature of the local skyline. It was unveiled in 2010.
The sculpture was specially commissioned as part of a regeneration initiative for the Tees Valley, to help communicate a sense of pride and ambition in the region. Engaging such world-famous artists sent out a strong, positive message about the value of the area and its people. This is also reflected in the sculpture’s name, Temenos – a Greek word for a special, sacred piece of ground. Anish Kapoor is known for his abstract – often giant – installations and sculptures. Balmond is best known for his innovative work creating buildings and structures which, at times, appear to defy gravity. Together, their work explores and plays with traditional shapes and scale.
Temenos is an excellent example of this. It consists of thousands of metres of wire mesh, suspended and gently twisting between two giant steel rings. The artistic vision came from Kapoor, who created the original conceptual model using a pair of tights stretched between two rings. Balmond made sure the sculpture would literally stand up and withstand the elements, while also conveying the grace and fragility of Kapoor’s concept and design.
While Temenos was commissioned as part of a future-facing initiative for the Tees Valley, the artists were careful to also reflect and celebrate the region’s extraordinary history. The materials and sheer scale and strength of the sculpture look to the past, reflecting Teesside’s heritage as an industrial powerhouse. The sculpture’s construction also reflects local heritage both in terms of heavy industry and precision engineering. Locally sourced materials were used and local people employed where possible.
The sculpture’s form, however, looks to the future. It changes depending on how it is viewed – whether from below, nearby, far away or by looking straight down the middle to the Transporter Bridge at the other end. Some have described it as a giant butterfly net’. To others, it reminds them of the net shapes in computer-generated 3D designs, which morph and change when viewed from different angles.
Transporter Bridge
The Tees Transporter Bridge, also referred to as the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge or locally as The Transporter, is a bridge over the River Tees in northern England. The northern side is in Port Clarence (County Durham) and the southern side is in the Middlehaven (North Yorkshire), the latter an area of Middlesbrough. It is grade II* listed and the longest existing transporter in the world. and its winch house and piers are grade II listed.
It is the furthest downstream bridge crossing over the river. It is classed as the A178 road, the road between Middlesbrough and Hartlepool. As of 2022 the bridge is not operational. When working, it carries a travelling 'car', or 'gondola', suspended below the fixed structure, across the river in 90 seconds. The gondola can carry 200 people, 9 cars, or 6 cars and one minibus.
Teessaurus Park
Teessaurus Park is a 10 acre urban grassland recreational area and sculpture park opened in 1979 in the Riverside Park light industrial estate, Middlesbrough, on the southern bank of the River Tees. It was built on a former slag heap in what was the Ironmasters district and represents, without any irony, the iron and steel industry that used to exist on the site and in the area. The park has its own small car park and has become something of a nature reserve. The route of the Teesdale Way passes through the park. The park was started as a result of entering an Art to Landscape competition organised by The Sunday Times and the Arts Council. Middlesbrough Council had commissioned a life size painted steel sculpture of a triceratops called Teessaurus from Genevieve Glatt that was fabricated by Harts of Stockton at a total cost of £16,000 and installed on a mound at the northern end of the park. The park was opened with this sculpture in 1979 and two infant triceratops were added later. From 1987 onwards, a life-size brachiosaurus, brontosaurus, mammoth, stegosaurus and tyrannosaurus sculptures were added at the sides of the park. These sculptures were built by workers on the government Youth and Employment Training Scheme at Amarc Training and Safety
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