The Spanish City was a permanent funfair in Whitley Bay, a seaside town in North Tyneside, Tyne & Wear, England. Erected as a smaller version of Blackpool's Pleasure Beach, it opened in 1910 as a concert hall, restaurant, roof garden and tearoom. A ballroom was added in 1920, and later the funfair.
Just yards from the seafront, the Spanish City had a 180 ft-long (54.86m) Renaissance-style frontage, and became known for its distinctive dome, believed to have been the second-largest unsupported concrete dome in the UK when it was built, now a Grade 2 listed building. There are towers on either side of the entrance, each of which carries a half-life-size female bacchanalian figure in lead, one holding cymbals, the other a tambourine. The building's architects were Robert Burns Dick, Charles T. Marshall, and James Cackett.
The band Dire Straits immortalized the Spanish City in their 1980 hit single, "Tunnel of Love," which from then on was played every morning when the park opened. By the late 1990s the building had fallen into disrepair and was closed to the public in the early 2000s. In June 2011 ADP Architects won a commission to regenerate it with a plan that includes a 50-bed, four-star boutique hotel, 20 apartments, a 1950s diner and a pleasure garden. The completion date is 2014.
Read more about Spanish City: History, In Popular Culture
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