- Location: Newbiggin-By-The-Sea, NE64 6EB
- Opening times: 24 Hours
- Entry: Non-applicable
- Access: Free parking at Church Point car park.
I have no idea when I first heard of Sean Henry’s sculpture Couple – possibly on the BBC news website when the artwork was first installed in August 2007 – but I do know that when I learned of its existence it was something I wanted to see. It’s dramatic sea-based setting (it is the UK’s first permanent offshore public art installation) was one hook, as was the fact that, unusually for statues, it was painted; these bronzes had flesh tones. The fact that London art critic Jonathon Jones called Couple “the stupidest sculpture of the past 20 years” in an article for the Guardian was also a selling point. The bottom line is it looked kind of quirky, and that was good enough for me.
Couple is a bronze sculpture of a man and a woman, each 5 metres tall and dressed in contemporary if slightly drab clothing, standing together but ever so slightly apart on an oversized steel plinth in the bay at Newbiggin-By-The-Sea. Apparently in high tide the couple look as if they are standing on the surface of the water. The installation forms part of the village’s sea defence breakwater which prevents Newbiggin’s long sandy beach from being swept away. Like the Angel of the North before it, it initially divided local opinion, but has since charmed the majority. The local council has obviously sussed that Couple is bringing people into Newbiggin, and have helpfully put up several brown signs to point visitors in the right direction.
And here I am today, following those self-same signs to the Church Point car park. Yesterday, the sun split the sky, has it had done for most of May and June. Tomorrow, it will again. Today, however, it is bucketing down. I can see Couple – you can’t miss it once you pull into the car park – but it is just another smudge of grey against the grey parking area, the grey sea, and the grey sky, all seen through a grey downpour. There are a surprising number of parked cars for such a miserable day, but not a soul in sight. They must all be in the Maritime Centre that sits between here and the shore. An optimistic ice cream van waits, optimistically.
I head down to the beach to take some photos of the statue, but even with the tide quite a bit out the eponymous couple remain a considerable distance away. No matter, here’s a handy breakwater that I can walk along to get closer. It is only after I clamber up that I realise the idiocy of my actions. The surface of the breakwater is very rough and uneven, the rain is pouring down, the wind is whipping spray into my face and rendering my intended pathway slick and slippery, and I’m wearing sandals. Tonka-tough Keen walking sandals, sure, but sandals for all that. The people back in the completely glass-fronted café in the Maritime Centre must be in gales of laughter watching this drunken man-crab scramble along his slippery slope. Visions of rescue helicopters and crushing humiliation form in my brain, and I decide to give up. Just before I do, my efforts receive an unexpected reward. I had read that the sculpture was so far out to sea that they got no real sense of scale, and that it was only if a boat passed that the viewer could truly appreciate the size of the sculpture. A boat did indeed pass in front of Couple just as I was calling it a day, and I can now confirm that both parts of the previous sentence are true.
So much for my trip to Newbiggin-By-The-Sea. Tomorrow I’ll be bagging some brown signs further up the coast, and then will be heading for home via the Edinburgh city bypass. However, when tomorrow dawns we are back to brilliant blue skies and I really fancy seeing what Couple looks like under such conditions. I decide to travel home by heading south and then cutting across the country on the A69, which is considerably longer than my original route, but it will allow me to stop off at Newbiggin again. And I am so glad I did because, as Dinah Washington once so rightly said, what a difference a day makes.
When I drive into Church Point car park I can see Couple, truly see them beyond the greys of yesterday. The woman’s white top and light blue denims shine in the sun like an advert for washing powder, and although the chap is dressed largely in black the indigo hue of his jeans is clearly discernible. They look less like giant humans than colossal versions of those tiny figures that populate model railways. I walk along the beach taking pictures of the sculpture from various angles, and what a glorious beach it is. With the orange of the sand and the blues of the sky and sea I feel like I’m walking through a David Hockney painting. Although it wasn’t busy – it not yet being the summer holidays in England – there were many outbreaks of traditional seaside fun. Kids making sandcastles, out in canoes, in swimming; going by the glass-shattering squeals it was a safe bet the water wasn’t warm.
I am sure I read somewhere that the beach at Newbiggin was a mile long, but I feel I had done that already and there is still plenty more to go. Ahead of me, just behind and beyond Couple, lay a lone boulder, a conspicuous intruder on the sand. I come across a sign later that informs me it is the Hunkleton Stone, “an ‘eratic’ (sic) boulder from the last Ice Age dragged to Newbiggin from distant Northern lands”. I decide that’s as far as I need to go, and opt to leave the sands to make my return journey via the promenade. This proves fortuitous as en route back to the car park I come across another version of Couple, identical to the original in every way except size. This model, apparently called Land Couple according to my later internet research, stands about half my height and are therefore about a sixth the size of the pair on the plinth. They are a welcome presence as they watch their gargantuan twins forever scanning the horizon, as they allow visitors to appreciate the realism and detail in Henry’s work.
Destination or Diversion?
A stop to view Couple is no more than a diversion, but on a lovely summer’s day such as this that idyllic beach makes for a very attractive destination. If I had more time I would also have liked to have visited the 13th century Parish Church of St. Bartholomew, very imposing on its headland setting both during yesterday’s rain and today’s sun, and the Maritime Centre, as well as having a wander around the town.
