The Iconic Angel of the North Comes of Age!
Today marks the 21st birthday of the iconic Angel of the North!
Raised on the 15th February 1998, the Angel of the North is believed to be the one of the most viewed pieces of artwork in the world! To put this into perspective, it is seen by more than 90,000 people every day or 33 million per year.
To celebrate, we have compiled our top 21 Angel facts!
Happy Birthday ‘wor Angel’!
21 facts about the Angel of the North
- It’s built on a former coal mine
- It has a skeleton that runs from its feet to its chest to give extra support. This hollow steel tube – a series of cylinders and cones – mirrors the shape of the body. It is 30mm thick plate steel up to its knees and 15mm thick above. The lower body ribs are welded directly on to the core.
- It’s diaphragm (they look like ribs in the surface), they are actually 50mm thick horizontal plates which go right through the body – up to six metres by three metres and weighing almost five tonnes. There are five of these – the most crucial in the chest which line up with the horizontal diaphragms on the wings to provide a solid anchor point.
- One hundred and fifty tonnes of concrete were poured to form piles to root the sculpture into solid rock 20 metres below.
- A concrete slab one and a half metres thick and covering an area 13 metres by 8 metres was then laid on top of the piles, with a plinth 5.3 metres high on which the Angel stands.
- The body of the Angel was lifted into position by a 500 tonne crane and lowered onto 52 three-metre bolts. It took them twenty minutes!
- It was made in Hartlepool so had to be driven very SLOWLY to it’s panoramic hilltop location. The sculpture is huge and had to be transported in 25 metre sections at a maximum speed of 15mph – we’re glad we weren’t on the A1 that day!
- After the sculpture was erected, it took a team of welders three days the attach the final ‘skin plates’
- The sculpture can withstand winds of 100 miles per hour
- Sculptor Antony Gormley OBE used a plaster cast of his own body as the basis for the design
- From hilltop position, it is one of the most viewed pieces of art in the world. It is estimated it is seen by one person every second thanks to its location next to the A1.
- The body alone is 20 meters long, that’s as long as four double decker busses
- Its wingspan is 54 meters
- If you turned the Angel on its side, it would still be taller than the Statue of Liberty
- It is made from enough steel (with a small amount of copper) to make four tanks
- Plans for the Angel were almost scrapped as people thought it may be too distracting for drivers using the A1
- The total cost was £800,000
- It was voted as one of the Wonders of Britain alongside Big Ben, Stonehenge and Windsor Castle
- The angel has been dressed up in an Alan Shearer shirt and a Santa hat (which was eventually taken down by The Grinch)
- It is believed to be the largest angel sculpture in the world
- Employees of Birtley Group get to see it every day, we have an awesome view of it.
