April 2023 and the shops and homes are being prepared for demolition.
The company responsible for the demolition also dropped the Robert Tinker, on nearby Dalton Street.
While it is not yet clear exactly what will replace the shopping parade, work has already started nearby on other projects within the scheme. The first phase of development in Collyhurst will see 274 new homes built in the area.
The council has pledged to reinstate the William Mitchell totem nearby.
However the weight of the concrete sculpture and its base have presented unforeseen challenges.
Siting a crane above the Victorian rail tunnel is an issue, as is the cost, a quote for £100,000 was deemed excessive. So stasis is the order the day – the immovable object awaits an unstoppable force.
The sculpture is one of four around Manchester – the Hulme exemplar is long gone.
The weir and former causeway stands across the River Dee. It was originally built in 1093 by Hugh Lupus, first Earl of Chester. It was built for St Werburgh’s Benedictine Abbey – now Chester Cathedral. It channelled the water to allow it to power a series of mills along the Dee. These mills were amongst the largest and most valuable in England during the 13th century. They were in use until 1910.
The weir was restored in the early 20th century to serve the City Council’s hydro-electric power station
Chester generated its own clean carbon-free electricity for almost half of the city’s needs from the hydroelectric building on Castle Drive between 1914 and 1949.
From 1932 the city was buying electricity from the Central Electricity Board’s embryonic national grid in order to cope with demand which grew to over 23,000 consumers by 1946.
At nationalisation in 1948 the corporation’s system came under the Merseyside and North Wales Electricity Board – Manweb, which in 1968–70 built its administrative headquarters in Sealand Road. The buildings had as their centrepiece a seven-storey Y-plan office block, which dominated the skyline looking west from the city centre until it was demolished in the 1990s.
I was wandering the streets of Chester when I came upon this decorated doorway in Newgate Street.
In consultation with the current owners panda mami – we concurred that the building was once in service to the electrical generating industry.
Architecturally pre-National Grid, this implies that it would have been part of Chester’s independent provision.
It can be seen in the top left of this archive photograph.
Electricity House in the days of Chester Corporation Electricity Department.
If she’s put together fine and she’s reading my mind I can’t stop I can’t stop myself Lightning is striking again Lightning is striking again and again and again and again
Lou Christie and Twyla Herbert
The arch above the entrance is adorned with these carved stone electrical emblems – also rendered in the Futurist Moderne manner.
The pumping house is to become a visitor’s centre – named the Hydro Hub.
Singin through you to me Thunderbolts caught easily Shouts the truth peacefully Electricity
Having taken a particular interest in this particular piece of public art for some time – I need to go and take a little look.
But what will we see along the way, as we hasten along Rochdale Road?
Which once looked like this, way back when in 1904.
Though some things inevitably come and go, as some things are prone to do.
The city is undergoing yet another reinvention as Manchester becomes – an attractive place to invest and do business.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:19
Once there was a gas works here – adjoining Gould Street, seen here in 1958.
The Gould Street Gas Works was a gas manufacturing plant located in Manchester, England. Originally built in 1824, the plant was operated by the Manchester Corporation Gas Department and was in operation from 1833 to 1969. It was named after the street on which it was located, which was named after John Gould, who was a prominent Manchester businessman in the 19th century.
The Gasworks New Town neighbourhood is one of seven envisioned by the £4bn Victoria North masterplan. It will feature nine buildings ranging from 8 to 34 storeys. The 6.6-acre site has most recently been home to a car park but the green development will overwhelmingly prioritise walking and cycling over driving. It will result in tens of millions of pounds being pumped into the city’s economy over the lifetime of the development.
Plans for a trailblazing city centre regeneration scheme that will create more than 1200 homes has been approved by Manchester City Council.
A total of 85 of the 1200, will be affordable homes available through Shared Ownership.
Though as of March 31st 2023 ground is yet to be broken, no signs of the:
New centre of gravity for central Manchester that will create thousands of jobs and inject tens of millions of pounds into the city’s economy.
So you zig-zag wanderers, make the most of these wide open expanses of affordable car parking, while you can.
The future may yet be here today – or the next.
Let’s duck under the railway, through this sad damp pedestrian tunnel – the domain of the cash strapped daytime drinker, transient tagger and disaffected leaflet distributor.
Next thing you know you have emerged into the daylight on Dalton Street – we have been here before seeking the Collyhurst Cowboy.
Photograph: Dennis Hussey
Onwards to Eastford Square.
The shops and maisonettes are due to be demolished any day now – no longer to gaze open-eyed upon the former quarry of Sandhills.
Around the front the diggers have been a digging – digging up around the base of the totem.
The work is to be re-sited by the nearby tower blocks.
The end is nigh.
Heading now for Collyhurst Road and the Irk Valley – seen here in 1960.
Looking back on the Square and the Dalton Street flats – Humphries, Dalton, Roach, Vauxhall and Moss Brook Courts under construction.
Vauxhall Street now but a shadow of its former self – the last traces of industry long gone.
Reclaimed over time by trees and dense underbrush.
Crossing Collyhurst Road and up and over the railway via Barney’s Steps also known as the Lowry Steps.
LS Lowry
By the late 1950’s the whole of this area which we called Barney’s Tip became a refuse tip for Manchester City Council.
The area is in the process of being reconfigured as a delightful country park.
The investment will also help develop an initial phase of the planned City River Park incorporating St Catherine’s Wood as part of a network of public open space, including improvements along the River Irk and works to improve flood resilience, unlocking the potential of the Irk Valley that will characterise the wider Northern Gateway project.
The first phase of the City River Park will begin work to transform former railway architecture to develop the new Viaduct Linear Park north of Victoria Train Station, new stepped public realm space – Red Bank Terraces, along with new green space by the River Irk and the key improvements to St Catherine’s Wood.
Collingham Street is lined with trucks, trailers, stalls and mobile homes.
But there’s nothing temporary about this Cheetham Hill neighbourhood; most residents have lived here for years and many plan to spend the rest of their lives here.
Founded more than forty years ago, it was created by the Showman’s Guild of Great Britain – and it’s reserved exclusively for fairground workers both retired and current.
Built on Queens Road tip, a former rubbish dump, and rented out by Manchester Council, many of the 52 homes belong to older retired showmen or families for whom an itinerant lifestyle has become more challenging.
It’s a close-knit community with a unique shared history.
Though not without its own particular issues it would seem, according to the MEN.
The licensing out of hours team has received noise complaints relating to the premises which was found to be open beyond permitted hours when visited. Officers also identified breaches of the Health Act during inspections in which people were seen smoking shisha pipes in an enclosed extension at the back.
We will leave the Flamingo be and head back into town – but not without giving a nod to this confusing collision between this self-made scrapyard-man chic gate and the ever changing skyline of overheated urban regeneration.
The new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Prifysgol Aberystwyth University – Penglais CampusSY23 3AH
Led by London Welshman Hugh Owen, a small group of patriots sought from the 1850s onwards to raise enough money by public and private subscription to establish a college of university status in Wales. A project of enormous ambition, the University opened its doors in 1872 initially with a handful of teachers and just twenty five students in what was then a half-finished hotel building – the Old College on the seafront.
The first decade presented many challenges for the University’s survival. The generosity of a few individual benefactors and organised appeals for support from the ordinary people of Wales kept the University in being, and, perhaps more importantly, deeply rooted it in the minds and the affection of the Welsh people. A matter of considerable pride is that the University has made a significant contribution to the education of women, being one of the first institutions to admit female students.
Since those early days, Aberystwyth University has gone from strength to strength and now has more than 6,000 students and 2,000 staff. As the institution grew, its main campus moved from Old College on the seafront to Penglais Hill. This finely landscaped site enjoys spectacular views over the historic market town of Aberystwyth and the Cardigan Bay coastline. New buildings, including major arts and science developments, halls of residence, a magnificent Arts Centre and sports facilities are located here.
In 1935 Percy Thomas prepared a plan for the layout of a new campus, and was appointed as architect for the first three buildings to be constructed – Cledwyn, Pantycelyn and the swimming bath. This marked the beginning of the move away from the college by the sea to the college on the hill.
Built in a simple Georgian modern style, faced with Forest of Dean stonework, the building’s main entrance features a broad architrave adorned with low reliefs of agricultural scenes, and there are decorative circular stonework emblems in between the windows of the upper floor.
The carved stone work is by David Evans.
A Manchester-born sculptor who attended the Manchester School of Art, and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. After active service in the World War I, he resumed his studies at the Royal Academy, where he was instructed by Francis Derwent Wood. In 1922, he won the Landseer Prize and later went to work in the British School at Rome. He had been exhibiting at the Royal Academy since 1921. His works from the 1920’s are mainly highly stylised religious and mythological themes.
During his stay in the United States, he executed some significant work for public buildings in New York. The locations there included Rockefeller Center, Radio City, Brooklyn Post Office, a bank on Wall Street, St Thomas’s Church on Fifth Avenue.
Here are the four decorative panels placed higher on the building.
Immortalised in this elegant educational stamp set – designed by Mr Nicholas Jenkins of the Royal College of Art
To the right of the entrance this striking mosaic – action is ossified in the manner of a semi-permanent Pollock.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre is one of a number of campus buildings designed by Dale Owen of Percy Thomas Partnership, and completed in 1970-1972.
Built to a strongly horizontal design using grey granite aggregrate, the facade is essentially an overhanging rectangle framing of glass with an off-centre overhang. The position of the building providing unobstructed panoramic views over the main piazza style concourse and the sea beyond.
David began lecturing at Cardiff College of Art, later teaching and holding administrative posts at University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, retiring in 1988 as director of the department of visual art.
David Tinker was prominent in so many aspects of the visual arts in Wales throughout the second half of the 20th Century as a painter, sculptor, teacher, and stage designer.
Tinker is perhaps best known as one of three originators of the 56 Group with Eric Malthouse and Michael Edmonds, the new generation of young artists in Wales who were interested in modernism and keen to ally themselves to the international art world.
The 56 Group had no manifesto and for the most part they acted as an exhibiting co-operative; not all were abstract painters and their work was stylistically very different from one another, but all shared radical ideals. Their orderly revolt against the establishment was unique in the history of art in Wales.
They championed abstraction and allied themselves to European and American modernism, at a time when painters in Wales were being commended for recording the urban, rural and industrial face of Wales and its inhabitants.
As might be expected, the art establishment more readily accepted 56 Group avant garde works, and those artists who had been achieving some success as painters of the contemporary scene suddenly found themselves side-stepped, and labelled parochial.
The period 1966-1974 saw in his paintings a move toward hard-edged abstraction in which Tinker employed geometry-based structures, simple arithmetical problems, colour mixed from a restricted palette, and gentle tonal gradation.
Middleton has not the gloom of so many South Lancashire towns its size. It benefits from its position close to the hills, but it has also the advantage of a large medieval church on a hill and of a number of buildings by one of England’s most original architects of the period around 1900.
He was the most advanced English architect of his generation, stylistically moving through through art nouveau, vernacular, expressionist and finally art deco phases a decade or more before other designers. He became England’s uncontested pioneer of flat roofed modern buildings. He worked more like an artist than an architect, designing buildings, furniture, stained glass, sculpture, metal and plaster work. His buildings are mostly clustered in the towns of Middleton, Rochdale, Oldham, Huddersfield and Hale. Influenced by the writings of William Morris, he saw himself as an artisan serving the people of these localities.
Sixty-seven sets of designs for the proposed free library at Middleton were received by the Corporation of that borough in response to their advertisement; and a joint committee comprising of six members of the Corporation and six non-members has awarded the premium to Mr Lawrence Booth, architect of this city.
Curiously, we encounter an anchor.
Around 10pm that evening when weather conditions deteriorated to near hurricane-force gales, with the Sirene making little headway despite tacking.
Losing her helm, her sails in tatters and within sight of the Great Orme, the gales drove her back through the night towards the Lancashire coast. Eventually, and with great difficulty, Captain Gjertsen and his crew managed to manoeuvre the stricken vessel between the Central and North Piers. Becoming increasingly unmanageable, and swept in by the rushing tide and gale force winds, the Sirene looked a doomed vessel. She was helpless in the close shore currents, and unable to drop anchor she was at the mercy of the waves. She was carried alongside the North Pier, tearing off a section of the pier superstructure and part of her own keel.
Thousands of people lined the Promenade to witness the spectacle as she came in on the south side of the pier; many more stood on the pier itself, but there was a mad rush for safety when the ship collided against the structure.
The captain and crew survived, including the ship’s cat, many offers were made for the cat, but the captain refused them.
Onwards through Jubilee Park opened in 1889 to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
In 1906 Alderman Thomas Broadbent Wood commissioned his son, Edgar, to design a flight of steps to lead up to a contemplation spot in the park – the inscription reads:
Who works not for his fellows starves his soul.
His thoughts grow poor and dwindle and his heart grudges each beat, as misers do a dole.
Nearby we find a memorial to the Middleton Flood – following torrential rain, the canal embankment at Mills Hill broke, flooding the already swollen River Irk, subsequently deluging the town.
Much of the present building was erected in 1412 by Thomas Langley – born in Middleton in 1363, who was Bishop of Durham and Lord Chancellor of England. He re-used the Norman doorway from an earlier structure to create the tower arch. Also distinctive in this region is the weather-boarded top stage to the tower.
The church of St Leonard was enlarged in 1524 by Sir Richard Assheton, in celebration of the knighthood granted to him by Henry VIII of England for his part in the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The Flodden Window, in the sanctuary, is thought to be the oldest war memorial in the UK. It commemorates on it the names of the Middleton archers who fought at Flodden. The church also has one of the finest collections of monumental brasses in the north of England, including the only brass in the UK depicting an English Civil War officer in full armour, Major-General Ralph Assheton.
George Pace designed a war memorial and, in 1958, added a choir vestry and installed new lighting.
Wikipedia
Middleton Old Cemetery once the Thornham and Middleton Burial Ground, which became the local authority cemetery in 1862.
Retrace to the Library – adjacent is the Parish School 1842
Part of the timber framing to the right of the front door has recently been tree-ring dated and confirms a building date of 1622. The first tenant was Isaac Walkden, son of Middleton schoolmaster, Robert Walkden. Isaac died during a typhus epidemic in the summer of 1623. His will, preserved at Lancashire Archives, includes an inventory of all his possessions listed on a room by room basis. There were a total of 9 beds and 20 chairs or stools in the 6 rooms. This, together with barrels, brewing vessels, pots, glasses, etc, strongly suggest the building was an inn. The Walkden family went on to run the Boar’s Head until the end of the 17th century. They also farmed nearby land including what is now Jubilee library and park.
In 1888, the fledgling Middleton Corporation purchased the building from the church with the intention of demolishing it to build a town hall. Discussions were held in 1914 but, thankfully, the plan was abandoned due to an outcry from the public spearheaded by architect Edgar Wood.
Further down Long Street to the Assheton Arms Hotel.
Then around the corner to the Manchester & Salford Bank again by Edgar Wood
Next door the former Market Place Bank latterly RBS.
Plans to convert a long-vacant town centre bank into a nightclub have been revived despite previously being rejected over anti-social behaviour concerns.
An application to change the use of the former Royal Bank of Scotland, in Middleton, was refused by Rochdale council’s planning committee eighteen months ago, with members citing a history of alcohol-fuelled trouble in the area.
Further up Market Place the faience fronted Bricklayers Arms formerly a Bents and Gartsides boozer – delicensed in 2012 and Converted to a takeaway.
Moving along Wood’s much altered Guardian Buildings 1889.
The Guardian Buildings, were commissioned by Fred Bagot, the proprietor of the Middleton Guardian newspaper and a man with a reputation at the time for keeping a tight control of finances. In consequence, Guardian Buildings were one of Edgar Wood’s low budget buildings, of which there are several in and around Middleton. The building housed the operations of the newspaper with the cellar containing the printing machines and the tall ground floor housing a shop, office and more machines. The whole of the first floor, with its pair of oriel windows, was taken up by the composing room.
It fell into disrepair after the church moved to smaller premises in Alkrington in the 1960s.
The building collapsed in July 2012, when it was hit by a fire.
On Townley Street Lodge Mill built in1839 beside the River Irk battling on despite recent setbacks.
In August 2019, Martin Cove and Paula Hickey opened a small ice cream shop on the ground floor of the mill – named the Ice Cream Shop at Lodge – selling locally-made ice cream from Birch Farm, Heywood.
Across the way the magnificent Sub Station and Electrical Department Offices.
Then taking a turn around the banks of the Irk down Sharp Street onto Lance Corporal Joel Halliwell VC Way, where we find the Middleton Arena – BDP 2009
Then over the road to Oldham Road and Grade II ListedWarwick Mill 1907 G. Stott of J. Stott and Sons.
The mill recently changed ownership and new owner, Kam Lei Fong (UK) Ltd, has been working with Rochdale Borough Council over the past nine months on proposals to redevelop the site.
The plans will form the cornerstone of a new masterplan for Middleton town centre focusing on delivering new homes, business space, highway and environmental improvements, new walking and cycle routes to pave the way for the planned extension of the Metrolink into Middleton Town Centre.
The station, with 13 stands, cost £4.5 million and replaced the previous station which dated to the 1970s.
The Middleton Arndale Centre commenced trading in 1971, although it was officially opened by Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent in March 1972.
Once home to The Breadman designed by Rochdale’s town artist of the time, Michael Dames.
Photo: Local Image Collection – Touchstones
Now trading as the Middleton Shopping Centre
The brick reliefs illustrating the town’s history are by Fred Evans of Dunstable, who completed the work in one week during May 1972 using a high powered sandblasting blaster.
Thanks to Phil Machen for the top tip.
At the centre of the public domain the Middleton Moonraker 2001 by Terry Eaton
According to folklore, the legend has several different interpretations. One version is that a traveller came upon a drunken yokel trying to rake a reflection of the moon in a village pond, convinced it was cheese.
This version conveys the notion that the men were drunk and acting foolishly.
However, an alternative narrative – and perceived to be the most reliable version – tells a different story and dates back to the time when smuggling was a significant industry in rural England.
It appears that many residents wish to rid themselves of the Moon Raker moniker and presumably become Middletonians.
There’s so much more to Middleton’s history than the Moonraker. Why did they spend all that money on a fairytale?
There were 3,000 Lancaster bombers built in Middleton during World War Two, a magnificent contribution to the effort to beat Hitler.
The bulbs inside the moon which light it up at night haven’t worked for five years.
Bernard Wynne
Along Long Street the Cooperative store what was – next door the long gone Palace Cinema demolished in 2001.
The brickwork, use of white aggregate for the arches, and tinted glazing are similar to Devane’s Stephen Court building on St Stephen’s Green.
The nine-building Irish Life Centre complex was originally built between 1974 and 1977 comprising office space, as well as two blocks of apartments. The complex was built on the former site of the Brook Thomas warehouse and timber yards along with other adjoining sites costing £900,000.
1970s
Irish Life, now part of the Canadian multinational Great-West Lifeco, were the original developers.
The 14-foot copper-bronze sculpture Chariots of Life by Oisín Kelly 1915 – 1981, greets staff and visitors at the entrance plaza. Although completed in 1978, the sculpture was not unveiled formally until 1982.
Inside the Abbey Court Garden there was once a large colourful mosaic, Sweeney Astray – 1987 by Desmond Kinney. The glass mosaic was comprised of twelve panels narrating Sweeney’s wanderings through forests and hills, from prose and poems dating back to the 1600s and updated by Seamus Heaney in the early 1980s.
Formerly the Friendship – which suddenly became surplus to requirements, when the Old Street area was redeveloped, and the adjacent Magistrates Courts built.
So far so good, these are the facts we are located.
In an unfamiliar street, in an unfamiliar town.
I myself had the good fortune to grow up here and drink in the Friendship.
Even so I have no recollection of this distinctive concrete column, neither does the whole of the internet.
Do you?
Though very much in the style of the day – exemplified by William Mitchell there is currently no attribution for this work.
The report argues that the Northern Gateway should offer mixed, affordable and age appropriate housing and amenities. An equitable development plan should be developed, through community-led engagement, to ensure that the benefits of regeneration are shared amongst new and existing residents.
As of 2021 there is inaction and stasis
Collyhurst was described as a ‘forgotten place’ by some residents who felt that there had been insufficient investment in local housing and amenities.
The Northern Gateway remains a hidden portal to who knows where.
Detailed proposals for a second scheme to be delivered within neighbouring South Collyhurst, one of the seven neighbourhoods to be developed as part of the overall Framework, are expected later this year.
Far East Consortium and Manchester City Council’s 390-acre masterplan will now be known as Victoria North, a move that aims to “create a sense of place”, according to Gavin Taylor, regional general manager at FEC in Manchester.
The Northern Gateway has served us well as a name as we shaped plans for the area’s regeneration. But as we begin to bring forward development this year, it’s the right time to start creating a sense of place for what will be a significant new district in Manchester, as well as an identity that people can engage with.
Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said:
We are at the beginning of an incredibly exciting phase of history for this part of Manchester and with some eagerness to see how this potential unfolds.
Victoria Riverside, a 634- home development marks the first stage of the regeneration project with the first apartments hitting the market.
The three towers – Park View, City View and Crown View, are based within the Red Bank neighbourhood.
Red Bank has been described as:
A unique landscape and river setting making the neighbourhood perfect for a residential-led, high-density development – all set in a green valley.
The putative William Mitchell totem continues to keep silent watch over the Square.
The original master plan would have swept away the Victorian Technical Institute and Salford Art Gallery.
Across the road are the Maxwell Buildings.
They were built between 1959 and 1960 to a design by the architect C H Simmons of the Lancashire County Architects Department.
The interior decorative order of Sixties’ institutions was integral to the architectural design, sadly this is no longer so.
The hall has a great musical heritage.
Featuring the Fast Cars who we have previously encountered in Swinton at the Lancastrian Hall.
Which may be the subject of ambitious redevelopment.
Take a turn around the corner to the Cockcroft Building.
The east facing mural painted out and obscured by retrofitted infrastructure.
These incised stone panels obscured by plants.
To the left is the Clifford Whitworth Library – this is the original architectural impression – signed Peter Sainsbury.
The original fascia was tile clad.
Subsequently replaced by uPVC boards.
Yet again the original interior was integral too the architectural scheme and period.
Across the way the Chapman Building.
It was designed by WF Johnson and Partners of Leamington Spa, as a lecture theatre block and gallery. It sits with its long axis running parallel to the railway behind. The series of grey volumes, occasionally punctuated by colourful floods of red and green trailing ivy, hang together in a less than convincing composition. The orientation and access to the building seem confused and detached from any cohesive relationship to the rest of the campus, but there is something perversely attractive about the right essay in the wrong language. The reinforced concrete building contained five lecture theatres, communal spaces, an art gallery, AV support areas and basement plant rooms. Following a major refurbishment in 2012, several additions were made to the exterior and its total concrete presence somewhat diminished. It still houses lecture theatres and a number of other learning and social spaces.
To the rear of the building there are some of the original details, now painted a series of funny colours.
A ways down the road the former Salford Technical College.
Now the part of the University of Salford, this grouping is probably the most significant work by Halliday Meecham during this period. The blocks wrap to almost enclose a courtyard and they step up in height towards the rear of the site. To the front is a lecture theatre block in dark brick. The multi-storey elements are straightforward in their construction and appearance and have had their glazing replaced. Perhaps the richest elements here are the three totemic structures by artist William Mitchell, which were listed at Grade II in 2011. Mitchell was actively engaged with the experiments of the Cement and Concrete Associations during the 1960s and produced a wide variety of works for public and private clients; other works regionally include the majority of the external art and friezes at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral and the Humanities Building at Manchester University. These textured concrete monoliths appear to have an abstract representation of Mayan patterns and carry applied mosaic. They were made on site using polyurethane moulds. There is another Mitchell work hidden behind plasterboard in the inside of the building.
April 1965 saw the Salford City Reporter proudly boast in an article that
The Ellor Street dream begins to come true – complete with interviews with residents of the newly constructed Walter Greenwood, Eddie Colman and John Lester Courts all which towered some 120 feet above the Hanky Park skyline.
These particular blocks of flats were of special significance because their completion was the end of the first stage of the Ellor Street redevelopment scheme which was to provide 3,000 new homes, the £10 million pound Salford Shopping Precinct and a new civic centre – which never got built – making this A Salford of the Space Age.
The tower blocks are now clad and the site a construction base for cladders.
Full details of Salford’s complex and extensive redevelopment can be found here at Tower Block.
Walter Greenwood Court was demolished in 2000/2001, whilst Eddie Colman and John Lester Court are now student accomodation for the nearby Salford University.
The construction of the shopping centre and surrounding areas continued and on 21 May 1970 the new Salford Market officially opened. From 1971 onwards new shops inside the precinct itself began to open.
However, due to a lack of funds and a political scandal which saw chairman Albert Jones jailed for eight months construction of Salford Precinct was halted. The site had only 95 shop units compared to the proposed 260, the hotel and two storey car park were never built.
The architectural core of the site has been retained, including the 23 storey Briar Court residential tower.
Tucked in behind is Mother of God and St James RC Church.
Clearances took place from the middle of the twentieth century and new high-rise housing blocks were built, as well as a shopping centre.
There was a Catholic presence in the area from 1854, when schools were built. What was described in The Tablet as a beautiful church, an Early English Gothic design by M. Tijou – presumably Herbert Tijou, architect of the chapel to Loreto College, Manchester, was opened by Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster in 1875.
One hundred years later this church was demolished and replaced by the present building.
The architects were Desmond Williams & Associates, the design bearing some similarity to their St Sebastian, Salford. In 2010 the church of All Souls, Weaste, was closed, and the marble sanctuary furnishings brought to the church.
Description
All orientations given are liturgical. The church is steel framed with brick walls and a monopitch roof (originally covered with copper, now with felt). Bold brick forms create a presence, and the design is somewhat defensive, with few windows. The building is entered from a lower porch which forms a narthex. The slope of the roof and the stepped clerestory lighting create a striking impression inside, and full-height windows towards the east end incorporate stained glass figures said to have originated in the previous church. Marble sanctuary furnishings are presumably those from the church in Weaste and appear to be of later twentieth century date, while the font is of traditional type with a clustered stem and may have come from the earlier church.
Returning to The Crescent the High Street Estateis all but demolished, save for one resident and their row.
This is an area which has seen a succession of clearances, redevelopment and shifts in demographics during a relatively short and intense period of change.
That process of change continues to hastily unfold.
Whilst cycling twixt Redcar and Newcastle one sunny Monday morn, I espied a tower on the distant horizon.
I pedalled hurriedly along and this is what I found.
Dawson House aka Kingsway.
A fifteen-storey circular tower block of 60 one-bedroom flats and 29 two-bedroom flats, making 89 dwellings in total. The block was built as public housing at the western fringe of the Town Centre development that began in 1952. Approved in 1973, the block is of triangular concrete-beam construction.
The architects were Elder Lester Associates.
The block was built by Teeside County Borough Council.
Stanley Miller Ltd.’s tender for the contract was £778,850.
The tower block was opened on 3rd April 1975 by the Mayor of Stockton Borough Council, John Dyson.
The block is described as ‘gimmicky circular tower block’ in The Buildings of England: County Durham by N. Pevsner.
In November 2013, a time capsule was buried in front of The Family, under a stone with the inscription Forever Forward 30 11 2013.
The capsule is not to be unearthed until the year 2078.
Twenty million pound bid to take back control of the centre of Billingham.
The council says: Proposals include addressing the physical condition of Billingham town centre in support the Council’s ambition to take back control of the centre. Redevelopment would solve the challenges of changing retail trends that are contributing towards excess retail space and high vacancy rates.
This includes exploring options for mixed-use redevelopment and high-quality public spaces that improve accessibility within the town centre and a modern retail offering.
Built in 1968 by local architects Elder Lester and Partners as part of the expansive plans for the town centre along with the Forum, La Ronde nightclub was to form part of the expansive plans for Billingham focused on the pursuit of increased leisure time.
La Ronde’s distinct cylindrical form comes from the car park access ramp that winds around the stair core to the upper floors of the club. The elevated drum-like form inset with cross latticed concrete webs was cast entirely in-situ.
In 2006, the council demolished La Ronde and Forum House at the cost of £500,000 to make way for a supermarket.
The Forum
In 1960, Billingham Urban District Council, began one of the most ambitious new leisure centres in Europe. The Forum was funded by the district’s new-found wealth – a product of the local petrochemical industry. It was designed by local architects Elder Lester and Partners and brought together a variety of recreational activities including an ice rink, swimming pool, sports centre, theatre, and bar all under one roof. The Forum opened in July 1967 to great enthusiasm. Weekly attendance over the first six months was between 20 000 and 30 000 people, far exceeding all expectations.
The inclusion of the theatre alongside the sports facilities broke new ground in recreational planning and in the shift from sport to the broader notion of ‘leisure’, the Forum predated architectural thinking of the time by nearly a decade. The building’s form is derived from the functions within, expressed in a variety of bulbous elements. The most distinctive is the canopy of the ice rink roof which is hung using steel cables running the length of the roof and cross-braced to achieve a clear 73m span.
We awoke, we dawdled around Deal, prior to our delightful breakfast.
Though the pier appeared to be closed.
Extending elegantly over a still, still sea.
The present pier, designed by Sir W. Halcrow & Partners, was opened on 19 November 1957 by the Duke of Edinburgh. Constructed predominantly from concrete-clad steel, it is 1,026 ft in length – a notice announces that it is the same length as the RMS Titanic, but that ship was just 882 feet, and ends in a three-tiered pier-head, featuring a cafe, bar, lounge, and fishing decks.
The lowest of the three tiers is underwater at all but the lowest part of the tidal range, and has become disused.
Pausing in Ramsgate to admire Edward Welby Pugin’s Grade II Listed – Granville Hotel.
The Granville development, so named after George Leverson Gower, second Earl Granville (1815-1891), was a venture undertaken by Edward Welby Pugin, together with investors Robert Sankey, George Burgess and John Barnet Hodgson on land acquired from the Mount Albion Estate in 1867. The scheme was to be an important new building in the eastward expansion of the town and the emergence of a fashionable new suburb. At the outset, the intention was to build a relatively restrained speculative terrace of large townhouses with some additional facilities. However, as the scheme progressed and it became apparent that buyers could not be secured, revised plans for an enlarged hotel complex were adopted in 1868 and brought to completion in 1869. These plans, which added a series of grand rooms including a banqueting hall, receptions rooms and an entrance hall in addition to a tunnel to connect to the railway line on the seafront, gardens, a complex of Turkish baths and a vast landmark tower (originally 170ft high, although truncated at a relatively early date), were remarkably ambitious. Ultimately, as it would transpire, the scheme was rather too ambitious on Pugin’s part; with his increasing reliance on loans eventually culminating in bankruptcy in October 1872, an event which precipitated his demise as an architect, tragically followed by his death just three years later.
Overlooking the sea, the ornamental gardens were laid out and presented to the Borough of Ramsgate by Dame Janet Stancomb-Wills in 1920 and opened to the public in June 1923 by the Mayor of Ramsgate Alderman A. W. Larkin. They are maintained by Thanet District Council and were Grade II listed on 4 February 1988.
The gardens were designed by the architects Sir John Burnet & Partners, and constructed by Pulham and Son. The main feature of the gardens, is a semi-circular shaped colonnade carved into the pulhamite recess.
On the upper terrace, approached by broad flights of steps, the gardens proper are reached. In the centre, and immediately over the shelter, is a circular pool enclosed on the north side by a semi-circular Roman seat.
On leaving the town we encounter this engaging flint church – Holy Trinity
Erected 1829-1830. David Barnes Architect, extended 1925.
Built of flint and rubble.
One of the first visitors to this church was Charles Dickens who offered a very unflattering description in his work, Our English Watering Place:
We have a church, by the bye, of course – a hideous temple of flint, like a petrified haystack. Our chief clerical dignitary, who, to his honour, has done much for education, and has established excellent schools, is a sound, healthy gentleman, who has got into little local difficulties with the neighbouring farms, but has the pestilent trick of being right.
In Margate the tidal pools are full of waveless sea water and kiddy fun.
The former crazy golf course is undergoing an ongoing programme of involuntary rewilding.
Time now for tea and a welcome plate of chish and fips at the Beano Cafe.
I miss my haddock and chips from Beano in Margate, brought to you with a smile and he remembers everyone.
Great customer service and friendly staff, see you soon.
The food is awful and the customer service is even worse: when we complained about the food the staff argued with us and wouldn’t do anything to change the food or refund, avoid at all costs!
You were conceived as an integral part of the Merseyway development, which on its inception, was held in the highest regard.
Innovative architecture with confidence, integrity and a clear sense of purpose.
The failure of BHS was a national disgrace, venal management, asset stripping, avaricious, grasping rodents ruled the day.
Dominic Chappell, who had no previous retail experience, bought the high street chain from the billionaire Sir Philip Green for £1 in March 2015. The company collapsed with the loss of 11,000 jobs 13 months later, leaving a pension deficit of about £571m.
A sad end for a company with a long history and presence on the high street.
With an architectural heritage to match:
BHS’s chief architect at this time was G. W. Clarke, who generally worked alongside W. S. Atkins & Partners, as consulting engineers. The stores – like Woolworth’s buildings – were composite structures, with steel frames and concrete floors. Clarke sometimes appointed local architects.
At first, like C&A, BHS retained the narrow vertical window bays and margin-light glazing that had characterised high street façades in the 1930s, but by the end of the 1950s Clarke had embraced a modified form of curtain-walling.
This architectural approach became firmly associated with BHS, with framed curtain wall panels – like giant TV screens – dominating the frontages of many stores.
Of late the store has been home to Poundland – though time has now been called.
Poundland’s retailing concept is extremely simple: a range of more than three thousand – representing amazing value for money.
Our pilot store opened in the Octagon Centre, Burton-upon-Trent, in December of 1990, followed by new stores in High Street, Meadowhall and other quality trading locations. Shoppers loved the concept and so did fellow retailers and landlords. The stores proved to be a huge success. Meadowhall’s success was repeated by further stores opening by the end of the year.
The store has been a success even during COVID restrictions, let us hope that the planned return goes ahead.
So here is my record of the building as is, a tad tired, but in its day a simple and authoritative amalgam of volumes and materials.
Mixing variegated grades of concrete, tiling, mosaic, brick, steel and glass.
Above the current market office is an impressive painted mural by art students from Dresden commissioned especially for the market in the 1950s in a Socialist Realist manner, depicting farming and industrial scenes.
The Gordon Cullen tiles have been renovated and re-sited within the exit corridor.
Still in clear view the stone relief work of John Skelton November 1956. Three of the eight column have incised Hornston stone works, depicting the activities of the CWS.
Get yourself there pronto – current restrictions considered of course.
Walking the stairwells, ramps and interlocking tiers, the curious pedestrian becomes aware of the ambition and complexity of the scheme. Often identified on local social media groups as an anachronistic eyesore, I feel that it is a thing of rare and precious beauty.
Knock most of the precinct down, free the river, but keep this wall and what is within.
Anon
Some are slaughtering imaginary white elephants, whilst others are riding white swans.
Currently under the ownership of Stockport Borough Council, changes are afoot.
Work to redevelop Adlington Walk in Stockport starts this week, as the first stage in the regeneration of the 55-year-old Merseyway shopping centre.
As of today work is still in Covid induced abeyance, it is still possible to walk the old revamped Adlington Walk. The future of retail in particular and town centres in general is in the balance, the best of the past and the finest of the new should be the watchword.
The scheme and car park redevelopment, is managed by CBRE of Manchester.
The future shopper is looking for more than just a simple buying transaction, they want an experience, entertainment and excitement.
This is where Merseyway Shopping Centre’s future lies.
CBRE Group Inc. is an American commercial real estate services and investment firm. The abbreviation CBRE stands for Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis. It is the largest commercial real estate services company in the world.
Their net worth as of January 28th 2021 is $21.18 Billion.
It is to be hoped that these dreams of entertainment and excitement, may be realised in the not too distant future.
In the meanest of mean times, in the mean time let’s have a look around.
The future moocher is looking for more than just a simple buying transaction, they want an experience, entertainment and excitement.
As I was out walking on the corner one day, I spied an old bollard in the alley he lay.
To paraphrase popular protest troubadour Bob Dylan.
I was struck by the elegant symmetry and rough patinated grey aggregate.
To look up on the world from a hole in the ground, To wait for your future like a horse that’s gone lame, To lie in the gutter and die with no name?
I mused briefly on the very word bollards, suitable perhaps for a provincial wine bar, Regency period drama, or family run drapers – but mostly.
A bollard is a sturdy, short, vertical post. The term originally referred to a post on a ship or quay used principally for mooring boats, but is now also used to refer to posts installed to control road traffic and posts designed to prevent ram-raiding and vehicle-ramming attacks.
The term is probably related to bole, meaning a tree trunk.
Having so mused I began to wander a tight little island of alleys and homes, discovering three of the little fellas, each linked by typology and common ancestry, steadfastly impeding the ingress of the motor car.
Yet also presenting themselves as mini works of utilitarian art – if that’s not a contradiction in terms.
Having returned home I began another short journey into the world of bollards, where do they come from?
PAS 68 approved protection for your people and property combining security, natural materials and style.
My new pals seem to be closely related to the Reigate.
Available in a mind boggling range of finishes.
Bollards can be our friends, an expression of personal freedom and security.
A pensioner says he will go to court if necessary after putting up concrete bollards in a last-ditch attempt to protect his home.
Owen Allan, 74, of Beaufort Gardens, Braintree, claims motorists treat the housing estate like a race track, driving well in excess of the 20mph speed limit, and that the railings in front of his home have regularly been damaged by vehicles leaving the road.
He was worried it would only be a matter of time before a car came careering off Marlborough Road and flying through the wall of his bungalow.
I have cause to thank the humble concrete bollard, having suffered an assault on our front wall from a passing pantechnicon, I subsequently petitioned the council, requiring them to erect a substantial bollard barrier.
Which was subsequently hit by a passing pantechnicon.
They are our modernist friends, little gems of public art and should treated with due respect – think on.
Having walked from Hebden Bridge to Halifax with Mr Phil Wood, we approached Hall Street – and gazed admiringly at this striking building, from across the A58.
Attributed to C.S. Oldfield and it was completed in 1972 apparently they did the relief too.
20th Century Society
A low serrated, ridge and furrow conical roof, corona and steel spire breaking the skyline.
Very much a building of two halves, the single storey hall, adjoining the body of the church, which is raised on a plinth.
They are linked by an internal hallway.
An intriguing mix of restrained classical detailing, along with the more modernistic roof and internal structure.
From the outside it is possible to discern the stained glass panels in the corona.
To the right of the main entrance is a modular sculptural relief, modelled in concrete cast in fibreglass.
There are eight individual modules, set in a grid of six by eleven – sixty six in total, rotated to break up the rhythm of the piece.
I was blessed on the day of my visit, with permission to photograph the interior, many thanks to Pastor Mark.
Arriving by train at 8.30, just in time to check out the new lighting scheme in the station foyer.
Replacing the previous lighting.
Which in turn replaced the original Thirties lighting.
The forecourt redevelopment is a work nearing completion.
I was on my way to Intake by bus so it’s off on the 66 from the Frenchgate Inetrchange.
An urban environment so anonymous, that it can only just recognise itself. I was helpfully informed by two radio controlled security guards that photography was illegal.
More Interzone than Interchange.
Here are my transgressive snaps, I made my excuses and left – on the next available 66.
Decanting from the single decker I made my way across the way to All Saints, a George Pace church of 1956.
Built on the foundations of an unrealised Neo-Romanesque church of 1940, but reorientated east/west.
I legged it back to catch the bus back, the returning 66, much to the surprise of the surprised driver, making his return journey.
Jumping the 41A to Scawsby, displaying my risible home-printed map to the driver, requesting a shout when we arrived at the indicated destination, which he was unable to discern, and which I had failed illustrate.
I had contrived to arrive at the end of the line, a bit part player in a non-existent Béla Tarr film.
Following a thorough tour inside and out, I returned promptly to the town centre, on the limited stop express X19.
And hotfooted it to the Waterdale Centre, a work in progress, the CGI figures being as yet, a mere figment of the development officer’s fevered dreams.
Doncaster Council documents from the planning application for the demolition say, that while the exact project is not yet fully in place, discussions are taking place with the council on the project and grant funding is being sought to help the future regeneration scheme. But the council has said it supports schemes that would revitalise the Waterdale Centre area for retail, leisure, and tourism uses.
The centre is now owned by the Doncaster-based property firm Lazarus Properties, who bought it from the Birmingham firm St Modwen.
Lazarus director Glyn Smith said his firm had faith in the local economy of Doncaster town centre, even though larger multinationals seemed to be shying away.
The ABC was built by Associated British Cinemas(ABC) as a replacement for their Picture House Cinema which had opened in 1914. It opened on 18th May 1967 with Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago presented in 70mm. Designed with 1,277 seats arranged in a stadium plan by the architectural firm Morgan & Branch, with input by architects C. ‘Jack’ Foster & Alan Morgan. It was decorated in a modern 1960’s style.
Closed in January 1981 for conversion into a triple screen it re-opened on 9th April 1981 with seating in the 3-screens.
The Cannon Group took control in the mid-1980’s and it was re-named Cannon and it closed on 18th June 1992, screening its opening film “Doctor Zhivago”.
The building has stood empty and unused since then, but in 2007, it was bought by Movie World for just £150,000. It is reputedly being re-modeled with extra screens added, however by 2009, only a clean-up of the interior has been achieved. The building sits empty and unused in 2020.
Cinema Treasures
The delayed opening of the new Savoy Complex will no doubt inform the future of the Cannon.
It’s a familiar tale of the local authority, developers, leisure and retail outlets chasing dreams, cash and hopefully pulling in the live now pay later public.
It’s all part of the Doncaster Urban Centre Masterplan which will transform the way Doncaster looks and the way residents and businesses use the city core.
The area is a pivotal point, I sincerely hope that the Waterdale Centre is revived, along with the adjacent Civic Quarter car park.
I noted the restrained Modernism of the National Spiritualist Church.
The service begins with a short prayer. The congregation sings three songs during the service using music that most people would recognise. There is usually a short reading or lesson on something to do with spiritualism or events in the world. There is also a talk by the guest medium who use their inspiration or intuition to compose an uplifting address.
Then the business of contacting the spirit world begins.
Along with its curious relief panels.
Back around to the back of the Waterdale and the surviving former bank fascia, civic offices and library.
Back through the Waterdale to discover the saddest of retail archeology.
The long lost tiled café wall and a mysterious porch.
First there was the first, then secondly the second – this is the third and last underpass.
A fitting finish to the series as we pass through the final subterranean frontier out into the clear light of the South Yorkshire day.
Each one is a neglected gem of municipal modernism, the underpass a feature under threat, the pedestrian often subsumed by the drive to accommodate the motor car.
As of last Wednesday, we all seem to have tenuously hung on in there.
Oh we’ll hear the thunder roar, feel the lightning strike. At a point we’ll both decide to meet at the same time tonight.
Modern Mooch 