Wallsend
From Free net encyclopedia
Template:GBthumb Wallsend is a town on the north bank of the River Tyne in Tyne and Wear, England. Wallsend literally means the "end of the wall", for it is situated at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall, built by the Romans. The fort of Segedunum can be seen in outline at ground level and the Roman bath-house has been restored.
Wallsend has a history of shipbuilding and was the home of the Wigham Richardson shipyard, which later amalgamated to form Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, probably best known for building the RMS Mauretania. This express liner held the blue riband, for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic, for 22 years.
Other famous ships included the RMS Carpathia which rescued the survivors from the Titanic in 1912, and the icebreaker Krasin (launched as Sviatogor) which rescued the Umberto Nobile expedition on Spitzbergen in 1928, when Roald Amundsen perished. The story is retold in the movie The Red Tent, starring Sean Connery and Peter Finch.
Charles Parsons launched his revolutionary Turbinia here in 1884, thus not only revolutionising the navies of the world, but also, through the large-scale production of affordable electricity, making a significant contribution to the modern age. He features in a BBC film called The Inventor of the Twentieth Century
Russian novelist Yevgeny Zamyatin worked at Swan Hunter in 1916-17, and used it as background for his great anti-utopian work We, which was a major influence on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four
WWII ships built here include HMS Sheffield, HMS Victorious and the flagship of the Home Fleet, HMS King George V. All took part in the sinking of the Bismarck.
The town is home to Wallsend Boys Club, an association football club, which has produced many famous players such as Alan Shearer, Lee Clark and Peter Beardsley.
Wallsend Metro station serves the town.