The Roman Fort in South Shields

He titled his painting " WESTOE NETTY"
The word "NETTY" is the North Eastern term used to describe a toilet and it is thought by some to have derived from the time of the Roman occupation of the town. In Italy a row of toilets is called a Gabinetto.

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The original oil painting was exhibited in the town's museum and library on January 1972 Olley's second exhibition, controversy soon followed.  An Alderman made a formal complaint to the Libraries Committee describing it as netty art and tried to have the exhibition closed down.  Meetings were hurriedly called, the Council were divided on the issue as were the towns-folk but before any decision could be made the final day of the
exhibition came and went. However, hundreds of people had came to view the controversial painting for themselves and masses of publicity had been generated which catapulted Olley's career forward at a rate of knots.   

The response to the painting convinced him that there was enough interest to have prints taken from it and soon they were being sent around the world.

The humble old urinal at Westoe had gained international status and was on the list of tourist attractions.  However it eventually fell into disrepair and around the time of the poll tax the valuers for the new Uniform Business Rate
informed the Council that instead of a rateable value of £8.00 it was to be increased to £575.00 and by May 1993 it was bricked up.

Early in November 1997 the area around the Westoe Netty was cleared for a new development to take place and the bull-dozers moved in.  The race was on to save the 107 year old toilet!  Bob Olley negotiated with the Town Council, developers and the demolition contractors to give him some time to arrange it's
removal. 

Although they were all extremely helpful they could only allow him two weeks.  His idea was to number all the bricks and urinal troughs then remove them individually, but storing them was going to be the problem, so he hit on the idea of allowing people to adopt a brick. For £2.50 they were given a certificate with a brick to look after until the Netty was rebuilt, all the proceeds were donated to the towns Margaret Sutton Special School.

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