Close by the Grimsby Town Railway Station are several examples of the work of Harold Gosney – born in Sheffield, he studied at Grimsby School of Art and London’s Slade School of Fine Art.
The majority of Gosney’s early commissions were collaborations with architects and he has made a significant contribution to public art in Grimsby.
He is the artist responsible for the reliefs on the Abbey Walk Car Park.
The large Grimsby seal by the entrance to the Grimsby Central Library
And the Grim and Havelok themed copper relief on the side of Wilko store in Old Market Place.
On the way to the Central Library along Osborne Street there are a number of 60’s offices and shops
New Oxford House.
To our left the magnificent Central Library
Adorned with this delightful concrete honeycomb.
And the figures of the Guardians of Knowledge.
Sculpted by Peter Todd, the former head of Grimsby Art School.
There’s a bronze mixture in the fibreglass to make it look bronze like. They were made at home, we lived in an old school in Walesby, he set up a 15ft table. They were made of clay then with about 10 pots of boiled rubber, he moulded the clay and they were filled with fibreglass and resin.
Pip Todd.
Modular relief to the rear of the Library.
Heading down Doughty Street to circumnavigate the car park.
Taking in the Garden Street Signal Box.
Boarded up, the box blights a popular route into town and is currently home to tens of pigeons.
The first is an example of Trellis by Mitzi Cunliffe.
The second on the former BHS is unattributed.
On its opening the centre was thought by Ian Nairn to be one of the finest in the country.
Further along we encounter Santander and New Look.
Whilst just around the corner lurks a William Mitchell door on the former RBS branch.
A towering mass wrote Pevsner.
A brick service tower and aggregate-clad slab.
It was designed by George Winterburn and built in 1973.
With an adjoining brick functionalist block of 1935.
Next door are the Magistrates’ Courts.
And across the way the Bus Garage of 1925.
Wandering down Freeman Street we find the former ABC Cinema.
Architects: William Riddell Glen
A Co-op Shop was attached.
Opened by Associated British Cinemas(ABC) on 4th December 1937 as the Regal Cinema, it had an original seating capacity of 1,966, with 1,280 in the stalls and 686 in the circle. It was equipped with a Compton 3Manual/6Ranks theatre organ which was opened by Wilfred Southworth. The organ console was illuminated.
It was renamed ABC in 1961. In July 1966, the ABC was modernised and alterations took place. The new ABC occupied the balcony of the original cinema building and had a seating capacity of 1,231 when it re-opened on 18th March 1967. The former stalls seating area was converted into a Kwik Save supermarket and shops. The layout was unusual in that the circle started at the very rear of the stalls. The new cinema was also back to front – the original projection box was now above the proscenium, and became the plenum room.
The Modernism of Freeman Street Market is much diminished.
Long gone are the East Marsh Flats 1963 – demolished in 2018.
Let’s take a swerve right to Hope Street.
Where we find the Royal National Mission To Deep Sea Fishermen – now Hope House.
With its marvellous mosaic.
Onwards down Victor Street toward the former Ross House now occupied by Young’s Foods.
In the mid-1960s, a new eleven storey headquarters was built in Grimsby by Myton, a division of Taylor Woodrow
Architects: Howard V Lobbs & Partners – Lobb had a busy practice specialising in schools and had been responsible for coordinating architects on the Festival of Britain. He was also responsible for the design of the British Pavilion at the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels.
In addition were also responsible for the M1 Services at Leicester.
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