89 Roe St – tucked into the side of the sprawling St John’s Centre car park and a cosily withdrawn corner of the Royal Court Theatre.
The New Penny Farthing.
A name which instantly evokes arcane loose change and strange bicycles.
Each time as I pass I’m drawn in, yet never enter.
Amazed by the array of ever changing signage, happy hours abound.
It’s a happy house, we’re happy here.
A dark drinking den awaits within, the daytime drinker abides, imbibing.
Stay new.
The dissipated filling, in an Aldi and Tesco sandwich, a flat roofed, concrete and brick sixties shopping development, a precinct.
Small towns typically comprise of several retail developments, of various vintages, chasing diminishing returns, in ever expanding rectangles.
Stalybridge is no exception, once a bustling mill town, it sought salvation in a hedonistic mini-break by the River Tame, party industry.
Stalyvegas.
The bright lights of the society of the spectacle, now extinguished, burnt brightly in Bar Liquid, Club Rififi, H2O and Amber Lounge.
Walking the streets today, a meagre spread of shoppers, hardened daytime drinkers and lost souls.
Bids were made for a Portas Pilot, Mary contrarily resisted.
The Northern Powerhouse hits the buffers.
The Buffet prevails.
Tucked away in an arcade, far from Arcadian – not far from Baz’s Off Licence.
The launderette.
Yet another testament to the partial persistence of industrial technology.
No Longer in Use.
A happy hotch-potch of signs, surfaces and sixties design.
Informal formica, stripped bare strip lighting, wobbly laminate walls.
Watch and wait, whilst the World and your washing whirl.
Ups ‘n’ Downs, it’s had its share of ups and downs.
Quite literally – the former Wellington Inn has an upside facing onto the busy A6 Wellington Road, and a downside opening onto Mersey Square.
Its fortunes similarly something of a rollercoaster ride, from busy town centre pub, to edgy pseudo-club, populated by late night uniformed bus drivers, swaying on the metre square dance floor.
Latterly something of a disco party bus, going nowhere fast.
Known variously as Glitz, Bentley’s and the Bees Knees.
Finally, partial occupation by a forlorn pound shop – defying economic trends by closing.
An architectural curiosity and a blank faced, gap toothed greeting to the Town’s visitors, there is talk of conversion to flats under the council’s stewardship.
It seems like up to me.
Confusion
Fusion
Confusion
Imagine
A single storey brick built street corner boozer, it’s not so hard to do.
It’s Sheffield let’s call it the Whetstone, how appropriate.
Bored?
How about the Moorfoot Tavern?
Sounds classy, that’ll do.
Well it did until it didn’t, somehow it migrates south, then west.
Paris Texas – how about Rome Mexico Yorkshire?
El Paso it is then –
There there are 98 stops on the 192 route, between Manchester and Hazel Grove.
– I know because I walked them all.
Sunday morning roads relatively free of traffic.
Some stops peopled some not.
Zigzagging the A6 to record a consistent sequence.
The bus stops here.
I want it.
Historic England want it.
Hopefully you and the people of Sheffield want it,
– anyway it’s listed.
http://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1393220
“1964 by George S Hay, Chief Architect for CWS, with interior design by Stanley Layland, interior designer for CWS. Reinforced concrete with Blue Pearl granite tiles and veneers, grey granite tiles and veneers, buff granite blocks, glass, and brick.”
The Liberal Democrat Council objected, saying
“It could be a major barrier to regenerating Castlegate.”
There is now the possibility of redevelopment as a creative hub.
It was a Co-op on the grandest of scales.
It has it all, public art, monolithic proportions and finish, bags of detail and scale in abundance. A fascinating building to explore and certainly one that fills my little heart with joy in superabundance
A building of period distinction, it deserves its preservation.
We do not require another patch of steel and wilfully wayward clad nowheresville non- architecture, replete with aspirational retail agogo.
Go see it soon!
On Lower Hillgate, almost next door to where it used to be, there stands The Tudor Café.
Almost where it has almost always stood.
Other businesses have come and gone, happily it prevails.
The cheapest tastiest grub in town.
An interior festooned with tea towels.
Tables polka dotted, teas hot.
Signs inside and out, some of them inside out.
Greetings from Gdansk.
Don’t forget to forget.
Big is not large, not small.
This is a dirty blue, washed-out pale yellow, Alice in Wonderland un-wonderful land.
Time will not stand still – you’re in a spin, oh what a spin that you’re in.
Walk in, wash and wish.
Facing happily out to sea, hard by Hastings promenade, sits Arthur Green’s, former menswear shop of some considerable distinction. Currently operating as an antiques centre, the whole of the perfectly preserved, period interior is now listed by English Heritage.
A mosaic porch and glass lined vestibule, invite you into a palace of dark hardwood fittings, capacious drawers, glass fronted cabinets, and an ornately carved cashiers booth, all topped off and lit by crystal chandeliers.
Few such example still exist intact, their contents usually ripped out, ripped off and reinstalled in chi-chi overpriced, cosmopolitan boutiques – suits you sir?
I think not!
My thanks to the helpful and patient staff who informed and facilitated my mooching.
Take a walk along the front – pop in.
Standing alone in an unattended laundrette can be a chilling experience, a heightened state of awareness abounds, accentuating that all pervasive absence of presence.
The unseen hand, that write the notes, that speak to you in emphatic hurried caps, pinned or taped precisely on the walls.
The ghosts of clothes, still warm, now gone.
A Proust defying amalgam of aromas, that almost fills the air.
Just you and a series of slots, demotic instructions, care worn utilitarian surfaces and time.
Wash Inn get out.
In the heart of Wales, former centre of the flannel industry, stands Llanidloes.
Through civic pride, love and local doggedness, the decorative shopfront prevails unabashed.
The finest selection of carved and moulded wooden filigree, hand painted signs, large open panes, tile work and the odd suspended folk-art sheep, adorn substantial Victorian properties, rich in the market town tradition of controlled opulence. A varied typology, the majority continuing to trade, the odd domestic conversion retaining its retail characteristics, whilst maintaining its modesty, behind tightly drawn net curtains.
Go take a look.
Modern Mooch 