Saltwell Towers rise again
Date: 2004-07-15, Publication: The Journal
Stained glass genius William Wailes looked out over his mansion in a Tyneside park yesterday for the first time in more than a century.
Wailes designed and built Saltwell Towers in Gateshead in 1862, but his extravagant creation fell into dereliction in the 1970s and was a candidate for demolition.
But salvation came with plans to revive the listed building as part of a £10m restoration project for the Victorian Saltwell Park which started five years ago.
Yesterday the reborn Saltwell Towers was opened and an 1845 portrait of Wailes, itself retrieved from storage at the town's Shipley Art Gallery and restored, was unveiled and given pride of place in what would have been the glass designer and manufacturer's bedroom.
The Heritage Lottery Fund contributed £6.9m to the park project and the revival of the building has cost £3m - the equivalent of the sale of 140 million lottery tickets, a percentage of which goes to good causes. The unveiling by Gateshead council leader Mick Henry and Mayor Pat Ronan was watched by Wailes's descendants
Peter Rankine Defty, Wailes's great great grandson and Maria Dorman, his great great great granddaughter, had travelled from Kent and Cambridgeshire.
Maria had found out about the restoration while on a weekend short break to the North-East last year.
She said that there was glass by Wailes in a local village church near her home and in nearby Ely Cathedral.
"His windows are everywhere and we have always talked about him in the family. We are very proud of him and the restoration of Saltwell Towers is like the phoenix from the ashes."
Peter, originally from Whitley Bay, said: "I have travelled a long way to be here but I wouldn't have missed it for anything."
William Wailes was born in Bywell in Northumberland in 1808 and started in business as a tea merchant in Newcastle. He eventually sold the mansion and land to the Gateshead Corporation for £30,000, or £1.7m in today's money, and the 50-acre park opened on the site in 1876.
Saltwell Towers has now been re-born as the park's visitor centre, with facilities including a café, toilets, IT facilities, an exhibition on the history of the park and glass artwork by Bridget Jones.
Ornamental gardens around the mansion have also been replanted using Victorian varieties. The opening was conducted to music by a harpist and a string quartet.
Mick Henry, who as a boy living in Lobley Hill in Gateshead would visit the park regularly, said the restoration of the park and the release of red kite birds of prey in Gateshead's Derwent Valley on Monday complemented the resurgence of the town's riverside with buildings like the Baltic and Sage.
"Having an open area where people can meet, relax and enjoy their surroundings is still as important today as it was in the 19th Century, so it is great to see the first stage of this impressive restoration project come to life," he said.
"When work started five years ago, Saltwell Towers was little more than an empty, roofless shell. Now it is like something out of a fairy tale." Back to Archive | 
