Apollo Pavilion

This Brutalist monument resides in the middle of a housing estate and was designed by artist Victor Pasmore, which explains why it is also known as the Pasmore Pavilion.

Victor Pasmore became the Consulting Director of Architectural Design of the Peterlee development corporation in 1955. He went on to design the town focused around a central abstract artwork.

The pavilion was constructed in 1969. The name is a reference to the Apollo Space Program and is the centerpiece of the Sunny Blunts housing estate. 

The pavilion spans a small lake and in its original form, it provided a pedestrian link between the two halves of the estate.

For a while, the pavilion went unloved and was poorly maintained, after several failed attempts to secure funding, or local support, for restoration work funds eventually came from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2008, with the restored pavilion unveiled in July 2009.

The pavilion was granted Grade-II listing in December 2011 by English Heritage.