typology

Charlestown Towers

Posted on February 28, 2023 by modernmoocher

We have previously taken a look at Deepdale Court.

I returned last week to look at the remaining blocks.

Cartmel, Rusland and Somerton are all social housing.

Kentmere and Whitebeck have been adapted for senior citizens managed by Northwards Housing.

Freshfields formerly Grisedale is owned by private developers LPC Living and converted into a block of one, two and three bedroom homes.

Now, they boast floor-to-ceiling windows in the living spaces, modern fitted kitchens, and light wood-effect floors. Some also come with balconies.

A penthouse apartment, sold for £135,000 in 2008, even has a wrap-around outdoor terrace.

Manchester Evening News

The circular tiles within Grisedale’s entrance have been covered or removed.

Tower Block – 1987

Tunstall Court and Skelton Court have been demolished.

Let’s take a look back at the building of Victoria Avenue East – seen here in 1922.

The demands of an expanding industrial base and population created the need for new roads and housing.

There was subsequent development of inter-war semi-detached homes.

The urgent post-war need for temporary accommodation – was met by prefabricated structures.

Manchester City Council agreed to use the Phoenix model for their prefab estates.

A total of 43,206 Phoenix prefabs were built across the country, each one designed by the John Laing Group.

The Phoenix, designed by Laing and built by themselves as well as partners McAlpine and Henry Boot, looked much like an AIROH with a central front door. It was a two-bedroom in-situ preform design with steel frame, asbestos clad walls and an innovative roof of tubular steel poles with steel panels attached. Like all designs, it came pre-painted in magnolia, with green highlights on frames and skirting.

Phoenix prefabs cost £1,200 each constructed onsite, while the specially insulated version designed for use on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides cost £2,000.

Wikipedia

The prefabs were eventually demolished and along came the tower blocks – Architect J Austen Bent, whose work we have seen on the Wythenshawe Walk

In the distance Chadderton Power Station – demolished in 1986.

Photographs – Local Image Collection

Here are the blocks prior to and during the current renovation programme.

Kentmere

Cartmel

Somerton

Rusland

Here are the group as of February 2023.

I was thrilled to find that each of the blocks had variants within the typology of handmade tiles.

Kentmere

Somerton

Cartmel

Rusland

There seems to be no record of attribution for these tiles – happily they are still extant.

Go and take a look.

Seaside Shelters – Colwyn Bay

Posted on November 4, 2022November 5, 2022 by modernmoocher

Here I go again – just like Archie Bell minus the Drells.

Here I go again, thinking with my heart

But every time I see ya, I keep running back for more

April and October 2019 walking from Rhos to Colwyn.

Pandemics come and almost go – as do seaside shelters it seems.

The shelters of 1860 are quite literally a thing of the past.

Thye have become host to Niall McDiarmid‘s snaps of local business folk – the project developed when local residents raised concerns about the appearance of the shelters on the promenade.

Cllr Roger Parry said

The shelters are nearing the end of their lifespan and these sections of the prom will be upgraded as part of the waterfront project.

In the meantime, State of Independents will make great use of the shelters; celebrating our hardworking local businesses and hopefully encouraging footfall from the promenade to our high streets.

The last of the Rhos on Sea shelters is a dangerous customer suitably secured.

There remains two exemplars of the typology located at the Colwyn end of the bay.

The second shelter lacks the pierced concrete blocks.

So work progresses on the coastal defences, the promenade is refashioned after a fashion in the fashion of the day.

There is no longer a place for these unique exemplars of Municipal Modernism.

Before the work began, the promenade was a tired, uninviting and underused public space. Poorly lit and often host to anti-social behaviour, the uneven surfacing and crumbling shelters were the results of years of patchwork repairs.

The project has transformed the area into a public space which the local community can take pride in and make use of all year round.

ice.org.uk

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted

On this home by horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore

Is there, is there balm in Gilead?

Tell me, tell me, I implore

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Penrhyn Bay – Fourth time Around

Posted on September 12, 2022September 13, 2022 by modernmoocher

I just can’t stay away – I’m here again.

Lately I have been frequenting bad houses
Places no respectable man would be seen
I hate myself for my weakness
My past sickens me
I tell myself I will not go
Even as I drive there

Big Black

Except that I walk here, the houses are not bad, I’m almost entirely respectable, my past is far from sickening and I tell myself I will go there.

I just happen to like Big Black, but thought that quoting Pleasant Valley Sunday was too obvious.

So here we are again again and again – the national preoccupation with owner occupation incarnate.

Additions, extensions and amendments, the tidy-minded residents abide in a slowly evolving closed system of happy habitation.

BISF Prefabs Wadsworth Lane – Hebden Bridge

Posted on August 4, 2022August 4, 2022 by modernmoocher

Wadsworth Lane Hebden Bridge HX7 8DL

Calderdale is awash with non-traditional housing as can be seen on this site:

Non-traditional housing in Calderdale

The Second World War brought an even greater demand for the rapid construction of new dwellings. In addition to the need to rebuild homes damaged as a result of the war, the Government had other objectives that were set out in a white paper in 1945, to provide a separate dwelling for any family who wanted one and to complete the slum clearance programme started before the war. After the Second World War there was a surplus of steel and aluminium production, and an industry in need of diversification. These factors drove the move towards the use of prefabrication, as a result many new varieties of concrete, timber framed and steel framed systems emerged. Whilst most systems were intended to provide permanent or long-term housing a few were intended only as emergency or temporary solutions.

The homes on Wadsworth Lane are BISF Type A1 – designed by architect Frederick Gibberd and engineer Donovan Lee.

Manufactured by British Iron & Steel Federation and British Steel Homes Ltd.

Over 34,000 three-bedroom semi-detached houses and 1048 terraced houses were erected across England, Scotland and Wales.

Non Standard House

We have encountered the very same houses in Tin Town Wythenshawe

I walked up Wadsworth Lane in 2021.

I walked past again in 2022 – the home appear to be in good health, many improved or extended, yet retaining at least a little of their heritage.

They are lived in and loved.

Tin Town – Wythenshawe

Posted on November 18, 2021 by modernmoocher

Prior to the end of WWII, the British Iron & Steel Federation worked closely with Architect Frederick Gibberd & Engineer Donovan Lee, to develop several steel framed prototype houses and flats, which could be erected quickly and efficiently with limited use of skilled labour.

These prototype were duly named BISF which is a acronym of the originating sponsor, The British Iron & Steel Federation.

However, it was in fact the newly formed company, British Steel Houses Ltd, that went on to develop and manufacturer the BISF houses we see today.

Over 34,000 three-bedroom semi-detached houses and 1048 Terraced Houses were erected across England, Scotland and Wales.

Non Standard House

The final production design incorporated rendered mesh ground floor walls and the now familiar, profiled steel sheeting panels affixed to the upper storey. The preferred roofing material was generally corrugated asbestos cement, or corrugated metal sheeting.

The frame of the prototype ‘B’ house was of the same general design as the type ‘A’ frame, but fabricated from flat light steel sections.

The roof trusses were also of light steel sections and the roof cladding was the same as that used in the type A house.
Both prototypes had been designed to accept a variety of external wall materials, including traditional brick masonry if desired.

The external steel cladding that was affixed to the upper storey of the original BISF house appears visually similar to the external cladding that was used during the production of the unrelated Hawksley BL8 temporary bungalow.

This visual similarity caused many people to wrongly assume that the BISF House was a semi-detached version of the temporary bungalow, despite the fact that the BISF House was built as a permanent dwelling.

The vast majority of BISF houses were built as two-storey semi-detached pairs. A smaller number of terraced houses were also built by replicating the standard semi-detached frame.

A number of variations relating to the layout and materials used in the construction of this house have been noted, but in all cases, the original construction, design & construction of the steel framework, remains largely as described.

The area in Wythenshawe where the BISF houses were built, is known locally and colloquially as Tin Town.

Here are the homes in 1955.

Here are the homes in 1972.

JF Hughes Local Image Collection

In 2012 we visited the home of former Durutti Column drummer Bruce Mitchell.

Bruce in Greater Mancunians.

Owen Hatherley wrote about this White Bus Tour in The Guardian – at the behest of Richard Hector-Jones.

New residents were given the choice of an apple or cherry tree for their back gardens.

Here are the photographs I took in November 2021.

Stoke Launderette

Posted on November 16, 2021November 16, 2021 by modernmoocher

I was walking away from the town centre along London Road, killing time.

It was the day of the Modernist’s Stoke Walk, I was as ever early for my assignment.

So following my pie, chips, peas and gravy at Jay’s Café I took a look along the way.

Arrested by the fascia of the Launderette I took a snap, moved on.

Returning minutes later, having crossed over the road, I went in.

Here’s what I found.

For more wishy-washy fun search launderette right here on Modern Mooch!

BT Hanley Tower

Posted on November 9, 2021January 28, 2022 by modernmoocher

You’re nobody ’til somebody loves you,
You’re nobody ’til somebody cares.
You may be king, you may possess the world and it’s gold,
But gold won’t bring you happiness when you’re growing old.

Hanley GSC represents a major telecommunication facility for BT and is positioned within the City boundaries of Stoke-on-Trent, on a very congested site.

The building fabric was starting to degrade and in need of structural refurbishment.

Works comprised of cleaning down the externals by high pressure water jetting, carrying out concrete repairs, applying an anti-carbonation coating, anti-corrosion treatments, painting the windows and applying sealants to windows and various joints around the structure.

All work was carried out whilst the exchange was fully manned and operational.

Works were carried outover a 26 week period, utilising mast climbers around the structure, with a limited amount of scaffolding on the low level structures.

Contract value £580,000

Makers.

Derided locally as an eyesore, currently the tallest building in town following the demolition of Unity House.

It has an antecedent as an immediate neighbour.

Former telephone exchange and offices – circa 1900.

Brick and terracotta with plain tiled roof. Eclectic style, with main block of three storeys, and three 3 narrow bays with flanking towers, all vertical spaces elongated.

The Potteries

Let’s take a look at the young upstart.

Humberston Fitties 2021

Posted on October 25, 2021October 25, 2021 by modernmoocher

Here we are again.

Having visited in 2008, I returned in April 2021 to wander this magical area and take some more snaps.

Previously on Modern Mooch.

In the interim the ownership of the estate has changed hands, passing from the local authority to private ownership.

Tingdene are now responsible for the site.

Council chiefs remain tight-lipped on how much Northamptonshire-based Tingdene paid for the site but it is estimated to be more than £2 million.

Grimsby Telegraph

Accordingly costs have risen, some tenants are displeased.

During Covid restrictions the demand for coastal property has increased, the gentle gentrification has begun.

New build, restoration and the national pandemic of home improvement are all apparent, changing the nature of the formerly informal architecture.

Take a look

Poet’s Estate – Gateshead

Posted on October 20, 2021 by modernmoocher

I’d seen these homes from the train.

So I walked from Newcastle to take a look.

They turn their backs on Sunderland Road and the Tyne.

A tight cluster of terraced apartments, set in a grassy rolling terrain, linked by paths and short underpasses.

A modern mediaeval, mildly fortified village, rendered in pale brick and white render.

Keats, Kipling, Blake, Byron and Shelley enclosed.

Take a look around #40

Rex Launderette

Posted on October 16, 2021 by modernmoocher

318 Slade Lane Levenshulme Manchester M19 2BY

Following a brief interregnum we’re back in the soapy study world of the local launderette.

One of many Rex operations – including those which I visited in Hull and Hull.

I am of course nationally and internationally renowned as Rex Launderette – author of the multi-ward winning eight laundrettes.

Should you care to search this wishy-washy blog there are also countless other laundry related posts.

Anyway, I jumped the 197, alighting at the junction of Albert Road and Slade Lane.

I popped into my local Rex and chatted with owner Steve, who had operated the business for some years, in addition he and his dad had run the late lamented Kingsway branch.

I hung around a while chatting and snapping – here’s the snaps.

Sea Fishing – North Shore Blackpool

Posted on October 12, 2021 by modernmoocher

I love to walk the long concrete promenade along the North Shore.

In fact I’ve previously written all about it.

One very sunny post lockdown day I walked along again.

I was taken by the strung out procession of anglers casting from the sea wall.

So I took some pictures.

REX Launderette Hull #1

Posted on August 6, 2021August 7, 2021 by modernmoocher

Having made my name as the #1 laundrette snapper in the land with my runaway sell-out publication

eight laundrettes.

I continue to casually record the typology should the occasion arise.

Last Tuesday afternoon returning from Hessle on the 56 bus, I caught sight of the REX.

So I was duty bound to return on the Wednesday to take a good old look around.

This is what I found.

Simply search Laundrette for hours and hours of endless fun!

Telephone Exchange – Stockport

Posted on January 25, 2021 by modernmoocher

Typically, as with timid police officers, telephone exchanges seem to travel in pairs.

An inter-war brick building, of a utilitarian brick Classicism, restrained in nature, along with a post-war concrete construction.

These are pragmatic architectural forms, constrained within a typology, and responding to the nature of the technology contained within.

Here is the building of 1934 – BT Archives

In 1961 – when Exchange Street was but a rough track, the area was also known as Blueshop Yard.

Stockport Image Archive

The concrete cousin constructed in 1971.

So here we are in 2021 taking a close look at these BT beauties, without further ado.

Fred Perry Way – Stockport To Hazel Grove

Posted on August 3, 2020 by modernmoocher

Second time around – having once cycled the whole way in 2009.

I’ll do anything twice or more – so here we are again, this time on foot.

Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start – in the middle, the section from the town centre to Hazel Grove.

Maps are available here for free – we declined the offer, deciding to follow signs instead, many of which were missing or rotated, the better to misinform and redirect – such is life.

We are mostly lost most of the time, whether we like it or know it or not.

We begin at the confluence of the rivers Mersey and Goyt – which no longer seems to be a Way way, the signs having been removed, and proceed down Howard Street, which seems to have become a tip.

The first and last refuge for refuse.

Passing by the kingdom of rust – Patti Smith style.

Passing under the town’s complex internal motorway system by underpass.

Where help is always handily at hand.

Whistling past the graveyard – the site of the former Brunswick Chapel where one and hundred and fifty souls lay lying.

Onward down Carrington Road to Fred’s house.

Through Vernon Park to Woodbank Park – with its heroic erratic.

Almost opposite the entrance to the museum, now set in shrubbery, are the foundations, laid in September 1860, of what was to be a forty metre high Observatory Tower. Despite a series of attempts, funds for the tower could not be raised and the ‘Amalgamated Friendly Societies of Stockport’ eventually had to abandon the idea.

Historic England

Out east and passing alongside the running track.

Lush meadows now occupy the former football field, twixt inter-war semis and the woodland beyond.

Out into the savage streets of Offerton where we find a Buick Skylark, incongruously ensconced in a front garden.

The only too human imperative to laugh in the face of naturalism.

We have crossed over Marple Road and are deep in the suburban jungle of mutually exclusive modified bungalows.

Off now into the wide open spaces of the Offerton Estate – the right to buy refuge of the socially mobile, former social housing owning public.

People living on Offerton Estate have been filmed for a programme entitled ‘Mean Streets’ which aims to highlight anti-social behaviour in local communities.

MEN 2007

The next thing we know we’re in a field, a mixed up melange of the urban, suburban and rural, on the fringes of a Sainsbury’s supermarket filling station.

We cross the A6 in Hazel Grove and here for today our journey ends

Ignoring the sign we went in the opposite direction.

As we reach the edge of Mirrlees Fields – the site of the only Fred Perry laurel leaf logo emblazoned way marker.

The Fields are currently designated as a green space and are not available for residential development. But MAN would like to overturn this designation for over one third of the Fields.

MAN Energy Solutions UK is the original equipment manufacturer of Mirrlees Blackstone diesel engines.

Before the Blackstone MAN came in 1842 – the fields were all fields.

To be continued.

Concrete Garages

Posted on July 8, 2020 by modernmoocher

In casual conversation with Mr Matt Rettalick, at the Manchester Modernist HQ our attention casually turned to the topic of the prefabricated concrete garage.

I thought little more of it until yesterday, I then I resolved to get to the bottom of the matter.

Joseph Monier was a gardener and his idea was to develop permanent planters at a low price. In 1867, he patented different products made of reinforced concrete.

Pre-Cast History

Precast panelled buildings were pioneered in Liverpool 1905. The process was invented by city engineer John Alexander Brodie, a creative genius who also invented the idea of the football goal net. The tram stables at Walton in Liverpool followed in 1906. The idea was not taken up extensively in Britain. However, it was adopted all over the world, particularly in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

Wikipedia

The first concrete kit garages appeared in 1952, manufactured by Marley, earlier models had been constructed from wood, asbestos, corrugated iron or galvanised steel.

The sunrise became a common symbol of inter war optimism.

The increase in car ownership, the growth in the DIY ethic and the lack of an integrated garage, drove the demand for a pre-cast concrete auto-haven at the end of the drive.