Bottles, Mermen and Fertility Idols

Solving mysteries in Cleveland and (a bit) beyond

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by Daniel Cochran on December 2nd 2023

Another year of public art archiving done here at North East Statues, and it’s been another busy one. First off, Grace Redpath and I were fortunate enough to add Karis Richardson to our growing team of volunteers right at the end of 2022. Karis is currently working on her PhD and has been delving into Middlesbrough’s Bottle of Notes in recent years. She’s written some fantastic articles for us this year, a few of which I’ll share below. We’re always looking for more article contributors, so get in touch if you think you might want to add to our archive.

It’s been a busy year for Grace too: she gave her first conference speech at Vaughan Williams Memorial Library in London on Longsword Dancing in East Cleveland. She also began a new role at the wonderful Land of Iron museum at Skinningrove (a town which she’s revisited in a fair few articles this year).

Due to their diligent research, we managed to add 41 new articles to the website this year, interviewing a host of artists, commissioners, and craftspeople. We’re now well over the 100 mark in total.

None of this would be possible without our loose association of regular helpers. A big thank you to Teesside Archives, Stockton Libraries, Tony Duggan, Simon McKeown and all at Mima, Reuben Kench at Stockton Council, Nick Wesson and the Land of Iron crew, as well as the many contributors at Memories of Middlesbrough and Stockton on Facebook. Thanks also to anyone I’ve missed – we really appreciate all you’ve done. Now let’s see what the highlights of 2023 were.

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2023 Recap

Bottle of Notes

Karis is our resident Bottle of Notes expert, and with the 30th anniversary of the sculpture arriving last September, it was only fitting that she dive into its history.

Newspaper articles at the time liked to dub the Bottle “controversial”, but it is still standing 30 years later. The only large-scale work by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen to be found in the UK, the Bottle of Notes is a site specific work unique to Middlesbrough. Made in Tyneside with Yorkshire steel, using Swedish-Dutch-American artistry, now at home in Teesside.

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Majestic Cinema Friezes

Grace and I were both involved with trying to preserve these wonderful art deco friezes, which can be found on the dilapidated and demolition threatened Majestic/Odeon cinema building in Hartlepool. Erected in 1936, the panels are a beautiful example of cinema design and we hope that they can be preserved if or when the building is torn down by Hartlepool Development Corporation.

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Keystone Heads

Our most popular post this year was Middlesbrough’s Keystone Heads, which once adorned the Royal Exchange and have recently been cleaned, restored and resited in Exchange Square. Their stern faces have much to say about what the town was and wanted to be.

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The Skinningrove Merman

Legend has it that long ago a “merperson” was captured by the residents of the coastal village Skinningrove in 2012 Saltburn based freelance artist Glynis Johnson worked with pupils from Whitecliffe Primary School to immortalise him in art. Grace took a look at this one, and it definitely led her down a rabbithole.

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Sculpture 74

Installed during refurbishment of Middlesbrough’s Linthorpe Road in 1974, Sculpture 74 was one of the only pieces of public art in Middlesbrough chosen by a public vote. It was removed in the 1990s.

Piecing together the history of the sculpture has been possible through meticulously scouring
physical archives and matching it up to unlabelled photograph archives. New information
surfaces periodically, and we now know Phillip Morley was the full name of the designer, and
it was fabricated at Sunderland Sheet Metal Workers.

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The Huntcliff Figure

Grace travelled back to the coast to examine another oddity – a Bronze Age fertility statue. Now housed in the Dorman Museum, the Huntcliff Figure is possibly over 4000 years old and was found on Saltburn beach in 1886. It spent most of the 20th Century outside the Ship Inn. Rubbing its belly is said to help one acquire fertile loins (but is strongly discouraged by the museum team).

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Zak Newton Murals

I’ve been on a bit of a mission this year to document the life and works of the late Zak Newton, a painter and signwriter who was based in Stockton-on-Tees. We now have articles on two of his three murals in the town, and expect to get the final one up in early 2024 – as well as a general overview of his art. You can read about this unique and meticulous man in our entries on his George & Dragon and Locomotion No. 1 murals.

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So that’s 2023 in a nutshell, but there are many more articles on the website to discover. 

Next year we have a lot more in the pipeline, including a lot more interviews, a website redesign, and hopefully some events as well.

Once again, we’re all about collaboration here at North East Statues. If you have any information, questions or materials, please get in touch on our Ask Us page.

Have a wonderful new year, and thank you for your continued support.

Daniel, Grace & Karis