Heritage...

The wheel is a favourite of kids and adults alike, my father in law picture should have adorned the wheels images...
While the square was being developed the council erected boards with all the ships names throughout the years , I walked it with Stephen Wake.....he worked on so many! This one we sailed to Ethiopia......and this one to Germany he’d say ....I miss him dearly, his tales are fading...his memory is not.

The Keel Line is a strip of granite that shows, year by year, the names of 8,102 ships built in Sunderland since 1786, with notable people, places and events illustrated by local graphic artist Bryan Talbot. The line runs straight through the square, on across St Mary's Way to the Vaux site and down to the River Wear, linking the disparate spaces. At 291.7m from start to finish, it's the same length the Naess Crusader, the longest ship ever built in Sunderland (launched in December 1972).

The start of the Keel Line is marked by a 3.5m-high interactive bronze and glass sculpture by Stephen Broadbent, called Propellers of the City. This giant wheel displays photographs of 400 former shipyard workers.
Sandstone and granite paving make the new square an appropriately grand setting for the existing Edwardian magistrates' court. Further interest is added by play fountains, coloured illuminations, adjustable lighting, and stone 'friendship benches' carved with the crests of Sunderland's various twin towns.