Training: a tour of the City Centre East murals

It's been a bit of a wait to get this week's first run in, but at least when the time came, I already had a plan for where to go. Miracles do happen. Good job, really, cos it was another day when I really didn't feel like going for a run. How much of that was down to boredom with the routes available to me and how much was down to my tiredness, I'm not sure. Anyway, off I went to tour the various murals that I knew in the city centre and to its eastern side, primarily Ouseburn.

Mural #1, painted recently, replacing an earlier mural based on Teardrops by Womack & Womack

With the sheer number of photos I ended up stopping to take, it's hard to say what kind of pace I had. But apart from the short slog to haul myself out of the Ouseburn valley, I generally felt pretty good. That's "good" in inverted commas, I guess, as I never really feel good as such, but at the end, I did feel that the only thing stopping me going for longer (than the 6km it turned out to be) were the need to work and the lack of any more murals I knew about. (That said, I've just remembered one in Monument Metro station. 🤦‍♂️)

#2 the Laing (lower right), #3 magpies on Bewick Court (top), #4 café at Manors (lower left)

Anyway, back to the murals. The whole idea started when a colleague mentioned there was a brick-based Shakespeare mural somewhere nearby. I swore I'd seen it before, but couldn't remember where. Luckily, there's this thing called Google, so I soon found out where it was and realised it was in running distance. And that, combined with the ones in the Ouseburn, it would make a decent reason for a run. I quickly rattled off most of those I knew in the Pilgrim Street / John Dobson Street area before heading past Manors towards the Ouseburn.

#5, my favourite, the Alfa Romeos at Bonello Auto Services on Stepney Bank

On arriving at Ouseburn, I knew I'd be presented with a glut, starting with my favourite of the lot: the Alfa Romeo mural at Bonello Auto Services. This one beautifully complements some of the classic cars you can spot in their workshop and really is a delight. From there, it was just a hundred yards or so to a few in rapid succession, many of which are on or surround The Ship Inn.

#6, #7, #8 and #9. The left two are on either end of The Ship Inn

Further down Lime Street, while there were more wall paintings, I didn't bother taking a photo, as they were little more than graffiti artists' tags or just some fairly basic block colours. Nothing as striking as those I'd just passed.

Crossing the Ouseburn itself at the bottom of Byker Bank, I then ran back up alongside the river to the point where it emerged from its culvert. There, I went directly up the steps to the bottom end of the City Stadium park... which was absolute murder. But at least it meant I was close to the Shakespeare Mural. It kind of looks like it's made of brick, but on closer inspection, you can see the bricks are painted. The giveaway is the fact that some colours go only halfway down the brick. Still, it's an interesting, if somewhat out of place, cultural reference.

#10 Shakespeare be hangin' in Heaton, bro

My route back to the office then saw me circumnavigate the Biscuit Tin Studios (where the wife used to work) in the hope of grabbing a photo of the exterior. Sadly, while it does effectively have a long wall for the resident artists to practice on, they'd all chosen to do nothing more than tag it. So, again, I didn't bother with a photo.

The rest of the run was mural-free until I was just a handful of yards from the end, with the final photo being of the wall outside Horticulture. Unsurprisingly, this was my fastest stretch, coming in at a 4:53/km pace. Perhaps the bigger surprise was that none of the preceding kilometres had gone over 6:00/km. I certainly hadn't felt fast, so that was a win.

#11, another by the same artist as the Guinness one at the start, Alex Mulholland

At some point, I'll do a bit more research and find other murals to visit. There must surely be more; after all, I only went east. There's a lot more of the compass to explore yet. 🙂