page_title: Penshaw Monument
section_title: 2010s and 2020s: reopening of the staircase and vandalism
hierarchical_section_title: Penshaw Monument / Subsequent history / 2010s and 2020s: reopening of the staircase and vandalism
context_page_description: Penshaw Monument is a memorial in the style of an ancient Greek temple on Penshaw Hill in the City of Sunderland, North East England. It is near the village of Penshaw, between the towns of Washington and Houghton-le-Spring in the historic County Durham. The monument was built between 1844 and 1845 to commemorate John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, Governor-General of British North America and author of the Durham report. Owned by the National Trust since 1939, it is a Grade I listed building under the name of the Earl of Durham's Monument.
  John and Benjamin Green designed Penshaw Monument. It was built by Thomas Pratt of Bishopwearmouth using local gritstone at a cost of around £6000; the money was raised by subscription. On 28 August 1844, while it was partially complete, its foundation stone was laid by Thomas Dundas, 2nd Earl of Zetland in a Masonic ceremony which drew tens of thousands of spectators. Based on the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, it is a tetrastyle temple of the Doric order, with eighteen columns—seven along its longer sides and four along its shorter ones—and no roof or cella.
context_section_description: In August 2011 the National Trust opened the staircase to the public for the first time since 1926 and began to provide guided tours of the top of the structure. More than 500 people attended the reopening, although only 75 were initially allowed to climb it; further tours took place in subsequent months. The trust now normally provides tours every weekend between Good Friday and the end of September. Tours last 15 minutes and only five people are allowed to go up at once; National Trust members can do so for free, but non-members must pay £5. By March 2013, over 3600 people had received a tour.
  In March 2014 the council announced that it would spend £43,000 to replace the floodlights with 18 new energy-efficient LED lights, which it expected would save £8000 per year in operating costs; they produce a softer, whiter light than their predecessors, and can be programmed to illuminate the monument in different colours. They were paid for with a government loan and expected to reduce annual energy consumption from 75,000 kilowatt-hours to less than 10,000. An archaeological watching brief was carried out during the lights' installation. In April 2015 nine of the new lights, worth £20,000, were stolen; thieves used bolt cutters to breach the monument's security gates and open the lights' steel enclosures. The installation was fully complete by August 2015. The monument has since been illuminated in various colours to commemorate events, including the colours of the flag of France after the November 2015 Paris attacks; the colours of the Union Jack on 31 January 2020 to mark Brexit; and blue on 24 March 2020 as a tribute to National Health Service and social care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  On 26 July 2014, extensive areas of the monument were vandalised with red spray paint. The graffiti included text and symbols related to the 2005 film V for Vendetta. The National Trust said it had hired specialist contractors to remove the graffiti at a "considerable cost". Although the Trust did not ask for donations, local residents and businesses gave £1500 to pay for the removal. In 2019, as an April Fools' Day joke, it was announced that Penshaw Monument would be "moved stone by stone" to Beamish Museum in County Durham. The museum claimed the move was due to "the discovery of an infestation of a rare breed of worm in Penshaw Hill"—a reference to the Lambton Worm legend. In August 2019 the National Trust received £200,000 from Highways England's Environment Designated Fund. It said it would use the money to provide better access to the monument by replacing old timber steps with new ones made of sandstone and limestone, and improve signage at the site using information from new ground surveys. Repairs were also carried out on the monument itself, including stone repair and repointing on its stylobate. It was originally proposed to add a new spur path, and ditches at the side of the main path with soakaway pits for drainage; however, these plans were abandoned, partly because of their archaeological impact.
caption: The monument from the walkway
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