architecture – Page 29

Halifax Building Society HQ – Halifax

Posted on March 1, 2016August 25, 2021 by modernmoocher

Why are we here?

The Halifax was formed in 1853 as the Halifax Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society. The idea was thought up in a meeting room situated above the Old Cock Inn close to the original Building Society building. Like all early building societies, the purpose of the society was for the mutual benefit of local working people.

Why are we not here?

In 2006, the HBOS Group Reorganisation Act 2006 was passed. The aim of the Act was to simplify the corporate structure of HBOS. The Act was fully implemented on 17 September 2007 and the assets and liabilities of Halifax plc transferred to Bank of Scotland plc. The Halifax brand name was to be retained as a trading name, but it no longer exists as a legal entity.

What have we here?

The Halifax Building was designed by the architecture firm BDP and constructed in 1968-74, as the headquarters for the Halifax Building Society and built with an unusually high budget. The rapid growth of the society over the twentieth century prompted the requirement for a new headquarters building, and in 1968 the aim of the architects was to design not only a practical building but a bold building for a confident client.

The building was Grade II listed in February 2013

In their report, Historic England comment that:

“Though necessarily large in scale, and centrally located in the town, the design is one of humanity, respecting both the townscape in which it was placed, and the employees it was to house…The high budget was reflected in the building’s finishes inside and out. Externally a limited colour palette and use of York stone cladding gave a homogeneity and showed consideration to the local character of the stone buildings of Halifax. Internally, materials were high quality and colour co-ordinated, with landscaping to both the public ground-floor spaces and the executive fourth floor.”

Ian Nairn thought well of it –

I wandered around amazed by the sheer mass of the main volume of the building, and the thin slithers of sunlight and blue sky which abutted its glass and stone skin.

When approached by a curious security guard, I quickly allayed his initial fears, on production of my Manchester Modernist Society membership card and badge.

However fellow urbanists, take care, for the public is often mutually private and public at one and the same time, don’t step over the line.

Go take a look make of it what you will.

Oxford Road Station – Manchester

Posted on February 26, 2016October 25, 2019 by modernmoocher

Where are you?

Neither here nor there.

Up in the air.

Betwixt and between.

Possibly on the way to somewhere else, stranded at Oxford Road Station.

Tucked in behind Shaw’s Furniture and The Tatler Cinema.

I love every curvy corner, timber frame and canopy, concrete spiral, empty kiosk and precipitous steps – I’m happy to be stranded.

It opened in 1849 and was rebuilt in 1960.

The station was opened as Oxford Road on 20 July 1849 by the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway . The station was the headquarters of the MSJAR from its opening until 1904. It had two platforms and two sidings, with temporary wooden buildings. To allow for extra trains in connection with the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857, extra platforms and sidings were built. In 1874 the station was completely rebuilt providing two bay platforms and three through platforms. Further reconstruction took place during 1903-04. From 1931 it was served by the MSJAR’s 1500V DC electric trains between Altrincham and Manchester Piccadilly.

The station had become dilapidated by the 1950s, and in connection with the electrification and modernisation programme of the Manchester to London line in 1960, the old buildings were replaced by the current structure by architects W.R. Headley and Max Glendinning and structural engineer Hugh Tottenham. It was designed in a distinctive style in concrete and wood with curves bringing to mind the Sydney Opera House.

Use of the station increased from May 1988 when the Windsor Link was inaugurated between Deansgate and Salford Crescent, connecting lines to the north and south of Manchester.

The station is a grade II listed building.

One of the most interesting and innovative buildings of the period, the most ambitious example in this country of timber conoid shell roofing.

Clare Hartwell – Pevsner’s Architectural Guide Manchester.

Further development awaits, widening the viaduct and lengthening platforms as part of the Northern Hub Project.

The defunct Platform 6 and lost awning to the left – Photo: 20 3 1971 Tom Burnham

Altrincham bound 931 Metro-Cammell MSJAR 1500 volt DC EMU – all withdrawn by 1971, when the line was converted to AC.

Screen Wall Water Feature – Manchester

Posted on February 25, 2016May 10, 2019 by modernmoocher

Breakin’ down the walls of heartache,

I’m a carpenter of love and affection.

So sang Johnny Johnson of the Bandwagon.

They were a permanent fixture at the New Century Hall in the late sixties.

Attached to New Century House, the Hall was an integral part of the extensive Cooperative Society property development in Manchester.

Much of that development now faces an ever uncertain future.

None more so than the adjoining screen wall.

Set to the north-east side of the building’s entrance forecourt is a concrete sculptural screen wall by John McCarthy with an abstract relief to the south-west side facing into the forecourt. The wall is aligned at a right angle to the building’s main entrance and has a shallow rectangular pool (now drained) set in front. The wall includes numerous openings from which water originally flowed into the pool, but the system is no longer in working order. The pool also originally incorporated small fountains.

Information from Historic England

At a time when the whole of the centre of the city seems alive with construction, refurbishment, gentrification and more quarters than you could shake a stick at, this forlorn and seemingly unloved gem stands, shrouded in shrubs.

I’m a carpenter of love and affection, who would not care to see, this particular wall:

Broken down.

St Peter in Chains – Doncaster

Posted on February 12, 2016March 20, 2019 by modernmoocher

A church shrouded in history and mystery – and on the day of my visit:

Torrential rain.

How appropriate as:

On the eve of the Reformation came a reputed miracle for Robert Leche and his family who were saved from drowning after invocation of Our Lady of Doncaster.

Its location on the Great North Road seems to have placed it through the years at the centre myth and magic.

On 30 November 1350, licence was granted for alienation in mortmain by, John son of Henry Nicbrothere de Eyoun and Richard le Ewere of Doncastre to the Carmelite Friars who are coming there to dwell in the town of Doncastre, of a messuage and six acres of land there, to build thereon a church in honour of St Mary and houses to dwell in.

A shrine was established to Our Lady of Doncaster.

Time and the Reformation were not kind to the shrine and Our Lady.

She and the church of St Peter came and went over the years until:

A new church was opened by Cardinal Heenan on Palm Sunday 1973, octagonal in shape. John Bentley’s Tabernacle Door, the four reredos panels and the altar designed for the old church are incorporated in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of the new church.

The statue of Our Lady of Doncaster now stands in a circular shrine chapel on the north side of the church. Phyffers’ statue stands in an oak reredos with modern stained glass windows depicting St Joseph, the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Assumption.

A large and striking design by J. H. Langtry-Langton, incorporating important furnishings by J. F. Bentley from the predecessor church, along with good furnishings of the 1970s. The churches houses the modern successor to the medieval shrine of Our Lady of Doncaster.

Ambitious in scale, dotted with vertical detail, the main body of the church has an integrated meeting hall and clerical house. I remain however, more than somewhat unconvinced by its brick monumentality.

On September 23, 1974, the budding Liverpool star married his childhood sweetheart, Jean, at St Peters in Chains Roman Catholic Church in his hometown of Doncaster.

There was no fanfare, no fans, no celebrity guests and certainly no Hello! style deal. Kevin was just 24, his bride a year younger.

Watching them with a tear in their eyes were his proud parents, Joe, a miner, and Doris.

Kevin says: ‘Jean and I hadn’t planned to get married for months, but I had a five-week ban for fighting with Billy Bremner and, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining, so we decided to use the time to get married quietly.’

Back to Beswicks

Posted on February 11, 2016February 11, 2016 by modernmoocher

You’re never more than a thousand yards from a main road, six feet from a rat, or a quarter of a mile from Beswick, one of many Beswicks.

Beswick was once a bustling mixed industrial and residential area of east Manchester, alive with back to back terraced housing, pubs, clubs, shops and people.

Sixties slum clearance swept away most of its past when Fort Beswick was built.

Remember the Alamo?

Forget Fort Beswick.

It’s gone – wind the Bobbin up.

Turn it into a Library

Wind the library up

Build another

Call the Police!

But the Police Station has closed now, and moved further on.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/greater-manchester-police-rake-17m-6273100

There are traces of the past that remain, homes and pubs that have survived the revival.

Where is Beswick now?

On the edges of the Eastland’s dream, on the outside of everything.

Sheik Mansour ensures the construction of a brand new shiny world.

The private provision of an almost public space.

Everyone knows this is nowhere.

But Beswick?

Coverdale Baptist Church – Ardwick

Posted on February 10, 2016November 24, 2020 by modernmoocher

At the eastern end of the broad wide curve of Coverdale Crescent sits a church.

Built in 1970 to accommodate the pious observation of the area’s residents.

The residents of the so-called Fort Ardwick.

The Fort is no more, demolished, the newer Coverdale Estate now covers the area.

The church aka The Well, continues to function as a focus for community and religious activity.

The exterior now seems just a little careworn, though planting and structural maintenance, manage to keep up a modicum of appearances.

Beswick – Manchester

Posted on February 6, 2016September 20, 2022 by modernmoocher

Between Openshaw and Bradford sits Beswick.

Beswick is a small district located on the east side of Manchester bounded by Ashton Old Road, Ashton New Road and Grey Mare Lane and was incorporated into Manchester in 1838. Pronounced Bes-ick the “w” is silent. Before 1066, in Saxon times, the district was called Beaces Hlaw – Hlaw was an old word for a small hill, often used as a burial mound. By the 13th century it had changed to “Beaces Wic” indicating that the area was predominantly farm land. Who or what the Bes element of the placename signified is open to interpretation, though the simplest and most plausible is that it belonged to a person called Bes or Bess.

In the 60s it was, as I remember it, a typically vibrant mixed East Manchester community, industry, housing, retail, entertainment and goodness knows what bumping along together incautiously, down tight streets of Victorian terraced housing. I worked in the area as a Mother’s Pride van lad, hauling bread, cakes and galvanised trays in and out of a plethora of superabundant corner shops.

The year of 1970, approximately, dawns, ushering in a decade of great change, slum clearance and the building of brand new homes – the end, by and large, of the back to back corner shop world.

A process mirrored in my previous post

10 years later, and long gone the years of postwar full employment, and the made round to go round world of the weekly wage.

The early 1980s saw growing unemployment and world-wide recession. The large new estates suffered most. Inner city districts of Manchester saw street riots in 1981, as did many other major cities around Britain. Manchester had suffered badly as a result of the recession. In 1986, over 59% of adult males living in Hulme were unemployed; in Miles Platting the figure was 46%; Cheetham Hill and Moss Side both had an unemployment rate of 44%. The main group of unemployed were young people under the age of 21. Hulme’s youth employment was recorded at 68%, and Cheetham Hill suffered 59%.

Manchester 2002

It is true that the new developments have great advantages in many ways over the terraces they replaced. Tenants who live in houses without baths or indoor sanitation and with no hot water are delighted to move into bright new flats and maisonettes, with indoor plumbing, with baths, and accommodation which has more rooms and far better kitchen facilities and central heating, even though they sometimes grumble at the cost of that central heating.

Gerald Kaufman MP

But although we can build a new housing development, we cannot easily recreate the warm community spirit which has vanished with the terraces which have been demolished. There is the noise from neighbours on the deck above and the deck below. The wind-swept balconies along which tenants have to walk are not as cosy as the streets from which they have come. Those welcoming corner shops, with their bright lights on winter evenings, have gone, and sometimes a new development has no new shops for too long a period. Even when they come, there are not enough of them.

The scale of the buildings is often daunting. I have in mind Fort Beswick and Fort Ardwick in my own constituency. The design is frequently all too forbidding. That is why the two estates are called Forts.

When the tenants of these development have lived in cosy old houses, however inadequate they were in terms of physical provision, they are bitterly disappointed by the shortcomings of new property which they have looked forward to occupying.

Handsard – Multi-Storey Developments 1974

The year of 1990, approximately, dawns, ushering in a decade of great change, multi-storey development clearance and the building of brand new homes – the end, by and large, of the one on top of another topsy-turvy world.

Fort Beswick was subsequently demolished.

The beat goes on as Len Grant records the most recent redevelopment of East Manchester.

And the M.E.N shouts loud and proud from the roof tops, heralding a brand new, privately funded public domain

Picture credits Manchester Image Archive

Coverdale Crescent Estate – Ardwick

Posted on February 5, 2016September 28, 2022 by modernmoocher

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions and as it would subsequently transpire, loosely attached Bison concrete wall-frame system panels.

Wythenshawe apart, the City of Manchester admitted that it had 68,000 houses described as “grossly unfit” by 1959.

Its solution was to demolish 90,000 dwellings between 1954 and 1976 and to erect 71,000 dwellings by way of high rise flats and to move residents out to newly prescribed “overspill” estates – at Heywood and Langley in the north, Hyde in the east and Worsley in the west.

Most of these displaced people, however, found themselves resettled in tall tower blocks, which, no matter how architecturally innovative, or how improved their facilities, proved disastrous in social terms.

Manchester 2002

In Coverdale Crescent Ardwick such an architecturally innovative development was built.

The estate, which became known as Fort Ardwick, was a deck access block of 500 homes. Completed in 1972, it was built with the same Bison concrete wall-frame system that had been used in neighbouring Fort Beswick.

By the mid-1980s it was clearly suffering from structural faults. The council employed a private firm of consultants to survey the estate, which found that water was leaking through roofs, steel fixings were corroded and concrete was breaking away. The council had to spend £60,000 immediately to bolt 1,100 panels back on to the building’s internal skin. The city architect, David Johnson, claimed that the report highlighted the rapid deterioration of Fort Ardwick’s fabric.

They said it was shoddy, thrown up, not enough care taken. The concrete panels weren’t made properly – the holes didn’t quite line up. You know what it’s like – you’re putting a flatpack cupboard together and something’s not in the right place but you just bodge it instead of sending it back, starting again, because you want the cupboard up and you’ve got other shit to do.

They had to get these consultants in, after they’d finished, to rebolt all the panels or something , so the whole thing didn’t fall down. Cost a bloody fortune my nan said, and that’s our taxes. And even then the rain got in. They’d put straw between the concrete, which sounds a bit medieval to me, and no-one wants wet straw walls, right? Cockroaches and rats and mould and that.

My nan remembers when they knocked down the terraces. I remember when they knocked down the fort. And maybe they had a point about it being shoddy, because soon as the diggers got their claws in, the whole thing fell to pieces, like it was made out of cardboard and bits of sellotape, not concrete and glass. A fort one week, a pile of rubble the next. No-one wept for it, they say.

I didn’t cry, but I stood at the end of the street and watched the diggers pawing at the walls, ripping the place to bits, our old kitchen wall gone and the cooker and the cupboards and the crap plastic clock just there for everyone to see. Except there was no-one else looking.

Sarah Butler

Local MP Gerald Kaufman reported to Parliament in 1974 that, during a conversation with residents, one of them had proclaimed that

“If Labour wins the election, it ought to do two things: abolish the House of Lords, and demolish Fort Ardwick.”

The estate was demolished in the 1980s and the new Coverdale Estate was constructed on the site in 1994.

The House of Lords still stands unabashed by the Thames.

Photo credits H Milligan 1971 LIC and MMU Visual Resource

Best Launderette – Brunswick Street Manchester

Posted on February 4, 2016January 27, 2018 by modernmoocher

I was out walking on the corner one day.

I spied some old washing.

In the doorway it lay.

Well there was a doorway, but no door.

There was a door, but not attached to the doorway.

Well there was washing, I had inadvertently found the Best Laundrette.

Unattended, seemingly unloved, washing spinning happily, unobserved.

Guantanamo orange walls, stormy petrol blue sky linoleum floor.

Lit by several stark, bare fluorescent tubes.

I quickly went about my business, made my excuses to myself and left.

Pegwell Bay Hoverport

Posted on January 31, 2016May 25, 2016 by modernmoocher

Once, for a very, very long time indeed there was a shoreline, then sure enough, eventually there was a Hoverport – then there wasn’t.

Opened in 1969 just outside Ramsgate along the Kent coast, Hoverlloyd a Swedish owned company began a cross-channel hovercraft service to Calais.

Along came Prince Philip:

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/prince-philip-opens-hovercraft-at-ramsgate

Can came:

And went:

The passengers’ every need was attended to with alacrity and style.

“As a Stewardess your appearance was paramount, a beautician would come in during training to teach us how to apply make up.”

But it simply wasn’t enough.

The life of Christopher Cockerell’s bold British invention, was short and bumpy.

Genevieve Payne, a former stewardess:

“I remember the summer of 1979 as a year of really bad weather and rough seas.”

“I was working on a craft in a force 8, so on this day we were literally hitting the ceiling, passengers were throwing up everywhere.”

“One lady became hysterical I had to slap her to calm her down.”

By the 1980’s Pegwell and the hovercraft were in terminal terminus decline.

It’s a lot less bother without a hover.

What prevails is the shoreline, a concrete landing skirt and the slow process of reclamation, as nature decides that the council is quite right to decide to create a nature reserve.

Thanks to and for further information http://www.hoverlloyd.org/index.html

Here it is today:

Oldham Street – Manchester 2016

Posted on January 28, 2016 by modernmoocher

Following my previous post of archival images of Oldham Street, I took a walk along its length a week ago, to record what remained of the post war past.

Gone again the blackened façades, exuberant and differentiated signage.

Woolworth’s burnt out long ago, never to return, exit also C&A, don’t forget your coat and hat.

Affleck’s – same name different place.

Yates’s three down none to go, the last all-in is all out.

Three pubs prevail, some serving craft ale to the not so crafty.

Methodist Main Hall is mainly well-used and well, loved.

In low Winter light the upper floors dance in shadow and sun-glow, against a brighter than bright blue sky.

A crazy range of saw-toothed roof tops colliding.

Oldham Street survives.

Oldham Street – Manchester

Posted on January 25, 2016January 23, 2018 by modernmoocher

In the early 18th century, Oldham Street was apparently:

“An ill-kept muddy lane, held in place on one of its sides by wild hedgerows”.

In 1772, a privately owned track which is now known as Oldham Street was given to the public. The road took its name from Adam Oldham rather than from the place name. He was an acquaintance of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, which could account for the Oldham street location of the Methodist Chapel, opened by Wesley in 1781. Central Hall replaced the Chapel in 1885.

The area around Oldham Street became more affluent, with warehouses and shops, many of whose merchants lived within their shop premises. This is described by Isabella Varley, Mrs. Linnaeus Banks, a resident of Oldham Street, in her book The Manchester Man.

One Oldham Street shopowner mentioned by a number of writers is Abel Heywood, who spearheaded the mass distribution of books, supplying the whole country not only with penny novels, but also with educational books and political pamphlets. Heywood went on to become Mayor of Manchester.

The general well to do, mix of hustle and bustle, pubs, warehousing, grand stores, smaller specialist shops and services continued into the 1970’s. Woolworths, C&A, Affleck and Browns, Cantors, Dobbins attracted a steady flow of happy shoppers, I loved the mongrel nature of the mixed use architecture.

The focus if the city centre then slipped away to the newly built Arndale and pedestrianised Market Street.

Oldham Street awaited a new sense of place and purpose.

With thanks to http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history/326/historical_photographs_of_manchester

Market Street – Manchester 2016

Posted on January 25, 2016November 5, 2019 by modernmoocher

Following my previous post on Market Street, using archive material from the 60s and 70s, I was prompted to record the current state of the street.

To the east is the Arndale, I chose to concentrate on the western elevation and the extant facades that chart a story from Victorian to Moderne – with a little rebuild, pastiche and grandiose Classicism in between.

See what you think, the sooty deposits have long been sandblasted away, much of the previous exciting noise and clutter, of above eye level signage ceases to shout, from just below the rooftops.

It’s a cleaner, leaner and possibly meaner world.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchesters-market-street-named-sixth-9421149

It always pays to look up – just don’t inadvertently bump into things.

Market Street – Manchester

Posted on January 13, 2016June 12, 2018 by modernmoocher

City streets are by their nature subject to movement and change, things literally come and go – in milliseconds, days and decades. People and places are shaped by the forces of function and fashion, economics and history.

Before the Arndale, pre-pedestrianisation, Market Street, from the Fifties until the Seventies, was one of Manchester’s key arterial, retail thoroughfares. Mixing mixed traffic, shops, cafés and restaurants, bars, cinemas, offices and administration.

The architectural skyline, had the raggedy silhouette, of a century of build and rebuild.

Lower your eyes, there’s Classical, Gothic, Baroque, local Rococo, Deco, Moderne and Modern – that’s right Madam no two the same, four for a pound, get it while you can.

Lower still, things are still never still, a riot of colour in black and white Vitrolite.

Neon abounds, the names are never changed to protect the innocent.

Local traders are slowly replaced by national and international multinationals.

You have nothing to lose but but your chain-store now.

Henry Cohen came to Manchester around 1880. In 1910 he opened a men’s clothing outlet at the corner of Market Street called the Smart Outfitting Company. Having turned down a chance to join Marks and Spencer, he eventually built his department store in Market Street which opened in 1923. Henry’s Stores was redeveloped in the early 60’s acquiring an extension and a unifying Modernist façade, the site and store was acquired by BHS in the mid 60’s.

Rylands Building is a Grade II listed building in the building was originally built as a warehouse by the Rylands textile company which was founded by John Rylands. The building was designed by the eminent Manchester architects, Fairhursts, in an Art Deco style. It is clad in Portland stone and features a decorative corner tower and eclectic ‘zig zag’ window lintels.

Following a fire, in 1957, which totally destroyed the premises of Paulden’s Department Store, in All Saints, the company acquired the Rylands warehouse building and converted it to a store. This was then a direct rival to the Lewis’s store, on the opposite side of Market Street. In 1973 Debenhams, the owner of Pauldens rebranded the store in their name. Since that time it has remained Debenhams.

Marks and Spencers and Burton’s both undertook extensive Modernist building in the early 60’s on on the Corporation Street site, neither have survived. The Chelsea Girl steel frontage, UCP Restaurant beloved of the Manchester Modernists, Kardomah Café and countless other landmarks are long gone. Lewis’s has become Primark.

The double indignity of the Arndale and a bomb have changed things forever.

Nothing stands still – this is Market Street.

With thanks to http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Liverpool – The New Penny Farthing

Posted on January 5, 2016April 13, 2018 by modernmoocher

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.

Liverpool – Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King

Posted on January 5, 2016September 24, 2017 by modernmoocher

Possibly, probably and inevitably the finest Modernist building in Britain.

It continues to surprise the surprised visitor on each successive visit.

A compelling structure which articulates the ever changing marine light, both inside and out – physically and spiritually.

Dizzy detail waiting to be discovered and rediscovered.

A decorative order of the highest order.

Treat your body and mind to a day out – or simply banish the last traces of Cartesian Dualism and immerse yourself, soon.

http://www.liverpoolmetrocathedral.org.uk

Park Hill – Sheffield

Posted on December 13, 2015January 16, 2018 by modernmoocher

An estate with a chequered career.

Once a beacon of Modernist design, now a listed concrete grid, in arrested decline, an essay in status and stasis, high above the city of Sheffield.

A handful of former residents of the once acclaimed social housing, cling to the western edge.

Phase one of the Urbansplash redevelopment has carefully coloured in a portion of the eastern corner, then exited, their cladding tucked tightly under their arms.

Impasse.

All tinned up with nowhere to go, to walk the walkways, is to enter a ghost town, where no tumbleweeds tumble. Billy the corporation cleaner is happy to work alone, sweeping the empty spaces.

“Some don’t like working up here, I don’t mind my own company. Even if there was just one resident left, we’d still have to keep the place in order. You’d love my house, it’s an Army Barracks in the centre of town. Wife’s the caretaker, been in her family for three generations.”

This is the second of three visits I have made from across the Pennines.

Mark – “Why are all these photographers coming here from Manchester?”

“Been here some time, this is the second flat I’ve had, just missed out on one of the new ones though. Had this one nine years. Bloke threw himself off last week, he had a wife kids, parked up and just jumped.”

Take a look around.

Precinct – Stalybridge

Posted on December 9, 2015March 28, 2018 by modernmoocher

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.

Launderette – Stalybridge

Posted on December 8, 2015June 27, 2018 by modernmoocher

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 – Stockport

Posted on December 7, 2015February 15, 2018 by modernmoocher

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.