The Roman Catholic Church of St Anthony’s, 1959-60 by Adrian Gilbert Scott, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest: the church has a strong composition and imposing presence derived from its bold design and cathedral-like scale, which is enhanced by the use of elegant building materials, including narrow and very pale buff bricks, Portland stone dressings and copper roofs, and a dramatic west end incorporating a giant camel-vaulted arch containing the recessed west entrance.
Architect: it was designed by the notable architect Adrian Gilbert Scott who trained under Temple Moore and specialised in ecclesiastical commissions for the Roman Catholic Church, and it is one of his major works.
Interior design: the elegant interior maintains stylistic continuity with the exterior through its incorporation of Gilbert Scott’s characteristic soaring camel-vaulted arches, which are derived from ancient Persia and are successfully reinterpreted here in a modern form; rendering the arches and treating them as parabolas. The dignified space is also enhanced by a dado of buff-coloured Hornton stone that contrasts with plastered walls above, and tall windows that serve to maximise light.
Interior quality: the interior decoration is kept to a minimum overall to enable the beauty of the building to be fully expressed, but the furnishings are of a high quality, including inset Stations of the Cross, an unusual carved wall pulpit, and an elaborate marble, gilded and mosaicwork baldacchino.
Historic England
Prior to the construction of St Anthony’s RC Church in 1959-60 Mass was celebrated first in two green Nissen huts knocked into one
I got on the 25 bus in Hanley and remained seated on the top deck until I reached Keele.
The chapel was just over the way from the bus stop, behind some trees.
Multi-denominational university chapel. 1964-65 by G.G. Pace. Blue vitrified engineering bricks. Slated pitched roof to eaves. Two copper covered pyramidal roof lights to paired towers and two copper-covered dormers. Rectangular building with paired apses at one end and a gallery along one side, with vestries and entrance below. Main space designed to be flexible, with movable furniture and a hydraulic screen which can be lowered to make two smaller spaces. One of the apses is dedicated to Roman Catholic worship; the other is for Anglicans and Non-conformists.
Exterior is dominated by the paired apses, which rise to form a pair of towers, each with panels of vertical strip windows with square-headed lights of irregular length, separated by brick tracery. Similar windows in irregular patterns to the flanks, which are otherwise unmodelled, and to the asymmetrical gable end. Rectangular leaded lights. Square-headed entrance on flank with concrete beam over. Double timber doors, recessed. Projecting concrete gutter spouts, three to each flank. Interior of exposed pink brick and unpainted board-marked concrete. `Y’ shaped laminated timber uprights and trusses, supporting timber roof, partly with timber rafters with exposed boarding behind, and partly with white acoustic tiles, forming a decorative contrast to the timber panels. Patterned brick screen with exposed, unpainted board-marked concrete frame divides the space at the higher level up to the roof, and a hydraulic screen of rust-stained timber, decorated with a cross motif, can be lowered to complete the division. Two similar, but smaller screens can be lowered to close off the apses.
Below the gallery a brick and concrete wall with groups of vertical windows. Broad, light timber handrail/bookrest, to `chunky’ concrete balustrade. Concrete pulpit of organic form attached to left of the screen wall. Also part of the Pace scheme is the limed timber altar, lectern, priest’s chairs, benches and other furnishings and the altars and furnishings in the semi-circular chapels. Also original are the pendant light fittings in black-painted metal. Floor with panels of parquet and polished concrete flags. Liturgically unusual as a multi-denominational chapel of this period, this impressive building is a fine example of Pace’s work.
Opened on 9th September 1928 with the silent film Lonesome Ladies.
The Carlton Picture Theatre in Anlaby Road was designed by the firm of Blackmore & Sykes and was built by Messrs. Greenwood and Sons.
It was run by Hull Picture Playhouse Ltd.
This was a lavish suburban cinema, with an elaborate green and gold sliding dome utilising Venetian glass and housing hundreds of concealled lights. Roman marble mosaics and painted plaster panels on the walls added to the sense of occasion engendered by a trip to the flicks.
A Fitton & Haley organ was installed, but this was later removed to the more central Cecil Theatre and was destroyed when that theatre was bombed during WW II.
The cinema had two entrances, one in each of the two towers on the front corners of the building. Above the proscenium was the inscription, rather inapt given how soon talkies arrived :
“A Picture is a poem without words”.
There was a single balcony and, for its date, a surprisingly large car park.
It continued unaltered, save for minor war damage, until its closure in April 1967, after which it was simply converted to bingo usage which continued as a Mecca Bingo Club until 2008.
This is an immense and noble building, a once great single screen cinema.
Unluckily closed for some thirteen years, now looking neglected and forlorn.
Tinned up and awaiting an uncertain future, planning was applied for conversion to apartments, it was refused.
It is unlisted and unloved in need of friends and funds, who could operate a cinema and theatre in the manner of The Plaza in my hometown of Stockport.
The number of cinemas in Hull peaked at thirty six in 1938.
British film making flourished during the war years and cinema attendances were much higher, but by the end of the Second World War there were only twenty five – several had been bombed.
In 1964 competition from radio and television, and latterly bingo, reduced the number of cinemas to ten.
Located twixt Bull Bay and Cemaes Bay, accessed whilst walking the Anglesey Coastal Path.
The area is rich in Quartzite, central to the production of Silica Bricks, which are resistant to high temperatures, much in demand at the height of the Industrial Revolution for lining steel furnaces.
The ore on the headland was first mined around 1850, with the ore being hewn out the living rock by hand.
A little railway brought the ore to the cliff above the brick works, then lowered by gravity to the works below, where the rocks would be pummelled and rendered to a size that could be further processed.
Mining by manual endeavour lasted from around 1850 to 1914, the hazardous harbour and alleged poor quality products hastening the enterprises’s demise.
Porth Wen brickworks was designated as a scheduled monument by Cadw in 1986 and classified as a post-medieval industrial brickworks.
A forgotten part of Warrington town centre could be turned into plush new affordable flats.
Developers are looking to put an eight-storey apartment block off Wilson Patten Street close to the former BT telephone exchange building – described in the planning application as an:
ugly concrete monolith
It would be home to a mix of forty one, two and three bed flats on the spare land which is currently used as a car park.
Typically the architecture of Twentieth Century infrastructure is reviled and ridiculed – simply swept away by contemporary, anonymous design and construction.
At least in this instance the developers intend to retain the ugly concrete monolith.
For me it is an essay in confident construction and decoration, the marriage of 1955’s brick utilitarianism, with a later concrete structure.
Poised on massive grey piloti, rising elegantly above the town.
When Hull City Council founded KCOM back in 1904, as Hull Telephone Department, it was one of several local authorities across the country granted a licence to run its own phone network.
Gradually, over time other authorities gave up control of their networks to the Post Office which wanted to create a single national service, but Hull City Council decided to keep its network and continue to go it alone.
While the Post Office network eventually became BT, Hull’s network, like the city itself, remained fiercely independent. That’s why today Hull has its own distinct cream phone boxes in contrast to the red ones you’ll find elsewhere.
1952 Call Father Christmas service was introduced.
Having heard of a recorded message service in Scandinavia, Hull Councillor J M Stamper suggested the idea of putting Father Christmas on the telephone. The Call Father Christmas service was introduced shortly afterwards, the first of its kind in the UK. By dialling a Hull Central number children could hear recordings of a Christmas story and carol singing.
The stories were written and performed by Hull Telephone employees.
The first story attracted 20,000 callers, with 35,000 customers the following year with calls and media interest received nationally and internationally.
The success of the Father Christmas service led to the creation of other recorded information lines, such as Bedtime Stories, Teledisc and Telechef.
This recipe line was introduced in 1950s and was still going strong until the 1990’s, with 50s recipes such as meat loaf and corned beef with cabbages being replaced by dishes such as Italian Chicken Bake.1964Celebrating our Diamond Jubilee with the official opening of the new Central Exchange and Head Office – Telephone House in Carr Lane Hull.
The work of City Architect A Rankine OBE RIBA2007 New company name as Hull City Council sell remaining stake.
The shareholders of Kingston Communications HULL PLC voted to change the company name to KCOM Group PLC to more accurately reflect the changing shape and geographic reach of the company.
Hull City Council sell remaining stake-holding in the business.
This is a fine building of brick, concrete, stone and steel, a restrained palette and commanding volumes, which asserts itself within the framework of the surrounding post-war architecture.
Well worth a walk around – let’s circumnavigate right now!
Good night all, sweet dreams and don’t forget to call Santa – hope that you all enjoyed your corned beef and cabbage.
The rising cost of repairs, combined with ‘a desire to progress’ with the regeneration of Droylsden town centre and the inaccessibility of the library’s T shape, three-floor configuration means that a ‘solution for the future of the library’ is now needed, according to the town hall.
Stockport Viaduct, carries the West Coast Main Line across the valley of the River Mersey in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. It is one of the largest brick structures in the United Kingdom, as well as a major pioneering structure of the early railway age.
Stockport Viaduct was designed by George Watson Buck for the Manchester and Birmingham Railway. Work began in 1839 and was completed in 1840. Roughly 11 million bricks were used in its construction; at the time of its completion, it was the world’s largest viaduct and a major feat of engineering. The viaduct is 33.85 metres high.Stockport Viaduct is a Grade II* listed structure and remains one of the world’s biggest brick structures.
In the late 1880s, the viaduct was widened to accommodate four tracks instead of two. In the 1960s, overhead catenary lines were installed by British Rail for the West Coast Main Line electrification scheme. In the second half of the twentieth century, the M60 motorway was built, passing through two arches of the viaduct.
The structure is central to the visual landscape of the town – it has been the subject of both literature and art, most notably in the work of LS Lowry.
I believe that this composite composition of a northern landscape, is firmly embedded in the psyche of Stopfordians.
A notion that we are able to apprehend the whole of the structure in one panoramic sweep.
Our present perceptions are inextricably linked to past experience, possibly an illusory past.
My photograph below, was taken before access was prohibited.
Though has this uncluttered view ever actually existed?
The area has been a constantly evolving jumble of buildings, in, under and around the viaduct.
This raises the question – when did you last see your viaduct?
I live moments away on Didsbury Road – so why not take a look, circumnavigating the site in search of an answer?
From the recently constructed pedestrian and cycleway a view south across multiple roadways.
Approaching the arches from the west.
Looking east from Wellington Road North and the newly constructed A5154 link road.
Looking along the M60.
Looking along Heaton Lane, to the left Regent House.
Looking along the River Mersey
The Lowry Steps.
The view over the soon to be redeveloped Bus Station.
The view along Daw Bank.
One of the most complete perspectives along Swaine Street.
Swaine Street and Astley Street junction.
Crossing the new bridge to Heaton Lane.
Looking back towards the Crown Inn.
The view over Kwik Fit.
Looking east along the River Mersey, beside the rear of Weir Mill.
The view between the Stagecoach Bus Depots.
Looking east along Daw Bank.
Another clear perspective along Viaduct Street.
Beside Weir Mill.
Beneath the M60.
Looking east along Travis Brow.
This is one cold day in Covid February, the traffic a little lighter, few folk on foot.
Another day would produce another series of views, the light shifts, leaves appear on trees, the regeneration of Stockport sees the built environment shift and shimmy with an alarming regularity.
The landscape formed by the second Ice Age, gouging out a glacial valley and subsequently a conjoined river, is all part of a passing parade; it is acted out over millennia, you yourself are party to but one small part, make the most of it, get out and about take a look.
All this life is but a play, be thou the joyful player.
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.
The BT Hunters – They came in search of paradise and found BT.
Many thanks to my partner in victimless crime – Mr Ryan Lloyd.
This is an atypical single storey building, with a raised central hall and butterfly roof, quite something.
Lots of utilitarian detail, mixing brick, glass and concrete, with pragmatic infrastructure grills and grids.
The upper glazed area an extended asymmetric, external delight.
To set the pulse racing a series of gorgeous Rose Carmine panels.
The angular porch displayed the BT Logo of 1991:
On 2 April 1991, the company unveiled a new trading name: BT accompanied by a new corporate identity designed by Wolff Olins and organisational structure focused on specific market sectors, reflecting the needs of different customers – the individual, the small business or the multinational corporation. The reorganisation was named ‘Project Sovereign’ to reflect the company’s commitment to meetings customers’ needs – ‘The Customer Is King’. Together with a succession of strategic alliances with telecommunications companies worldwide, these changes gave BT the ability to expand overseas.
Which prompted a brief yet uninformed discussion concerning the history of Telecom’s Corporate Identity.
So here’s a brief rundown logo lovers:
Previously the GPO was the umbrella grouping for both telephone and mail.
Sketch for the redesign of the GPO logo by MacDonald Gill in 1934 . The first approved version had two concentric circles but this was soon reduced to one. The annotations also mentions the typeface used as “Gill Sans” which had been created by MacDonald Gills’ brother Eric.
There comes a time in very life when you finally go where you have never been before – even though you have walked by that very same place almost every day.
It is bounded by the former Burton’s store, the long gone BHS now home to Poundland, a later extension to the precinct and a Nineteenth century building. Illustrating the mongrel nature of many English towns, the result of world wars, speculative development and town planning.
It’s a self contained world of loading, unloading unloved and overused.
Home to the pirate parker, carelessly avoiding the imposition of the municipal surcharges.
Shops and goods come and go part of the merry retail gavotte.
The trams once clang, clang, clanged along and the Picture House opened 2nd June 1913, later The Palladium, finally closing in 1956 – now occupied by a huge Charity Shop – Highway Hope.
The Merseyway construction is a modern amalgam of mosaic, brick and cast concrete.
The older brick building now almost rendered and coated in off white exterior emulsion.
There are signs of life and former lives.
This is a nether world that never really was a world at all.
The place where the sun almost doesn’t shine.
And the blue sky seems like an unwelcome intrusion.
So as the retail sector contracts and the virus remains viral – wither Serveway Five?
The Council purchased the development at no cost to taxpayers via the current income stream. The rationale for purchase was to create a sustainable future for the centre via a series of targeted redevelopments. Key aspirations for the centre will be to fully integrate it into the town centre. We also want it to complement our exciting ownerships such as Debenhams, Redrock and Market Place and Underbanks.
The investment will seek to change perceptions of not only the retail offer but also Stockport as a whole. It will ultimately create a town centre that will benefit the local business community and Stockport residents.
There comes a time in everyone’s life, when one simply must go to Rotherham, at least once – so I did.
To keep company with my personal town guide, Sheffield Modernist and local resident, Helen Angell.
I arrived early at Rotherham Central, so went for a solo wander.
The station was originally named Rotherham, becoming Rotherham and Masborough in January 1889 and finally Rotherham Central on 25 September 1950.
The newish Rotherham Central station was opened to passengers on 11 May 1987, the present iteration on Friday 24 February 2012, as part of the Rotherham Renaissance plans for the regeneration of the town.
Opened 22 December 1934 as the Regal Cinema with Leslie Howard in Girls Please. Sandy Powell, the famous comedian attended opening night this 1,825 seat. It was designed by the Hull based architectural firm Messrs Blackmore & Sykes for local exhibitor Thomas Wade and was leased to the Lou Morris chain.
By 1937 it was operated by the London & Southern Super Cinemas Ltd. chain. The Regal Cinema was leased to the Odeon circuit in 1946 and was re-named Odeon. It was sold by the Rank Organisation to an independent operator in 1975 and renamed Scala Cinema, by 1981 using the circle only.
Closed 23rd September 1983 with the film Porky’s.
Became a bingo hall initially named Ritz but now Mecca. On 20th February 2020 the building was put up for sale by auction at an asking price of £600,000+, but failed to sell, with the maximum reached £590,000. Mecca bingo continues in the building.
Main contractors J. Finnegan it’s thirteen storeys high – housing forty eight dwellings.
Interwar Technical College – Howard Building
From the 1930s, it provided technical-orientated education from the Howard Building on Eastwood Lane, Rotherham. In 1981, three neighbouring colleges of arts, technology and adult education were merged into one. As a result, the college became known as Rotherham College of Arts and Technology.
Revised plans to convert the historic Howard Building in Rotherham town centre into self-contained studios and apartments have been approved by the planning board at Rotherham Council.
The prominent former college building was sold prior to going to auction last September after it was advertised as a development opportunity and given a guide price of £250,000 by local auctioneers, Mark Jenkinson & son.
A group of rogue property directors with links to a prominent derelict building in Rotherham have been banned for a total of 54 years. The six, of Absolute Living Developments, were found to have misled more than 300 people to invest at least £12 million in residential properties.
The firm was linked through a lender to Avro Developments, which had plans passed in 2015 to renovate former college block the Howard Building in Rotherham town centre.
With a strident high tech canopy, very recently added – though Rotherham’s history stems back 800 years when it is thought that the original royal market charter was granted by King John in the year 1207.
There are traces of the 1970’s rebuild.
Bunker-like The Trades former music venue/pub, which replaced the former riverside Trades Club.
The PA now silenced.
This was an amazing event. The bands were really good and the drinks offers, while limited, were good. The ceiling in the ladies toilets had fallen through and was dripping, presumably there had been a leak from all the rain, but this didn’t lessen the awesome experience.
The cooling towers and flats are long gone – the coal-fired power station operated from 1923 until October 1978.
The Prince of Wales Power Station in Rotherham was located on Rawmarsh Road and was opened by the Prince of Wales – the future King Edward VIII.
The former Grattans catalogue offices can be seen to the left.
Renamed Bailey House and still in use by the local authority, its days it seems are numbered.
The building is named after Rotherham-born engineer Sir Donald Bailey whose ingenious bridge designs played a key role in shortening World War II, the house in which Bailey was born, 24 Albany Street is still standing.
Sadly no longer home to the Harlem Shuffle
No big names – just big sounds.
There are some surviving power station buildings.
Along with electrical infrastructure.
Up the road next, to the former fire station, which now houses J E James Cycles.
It is surrounded by typically atypical inter war housing.
I could make the wild assumption, that these flat roofed maisonettes were originally homes fit for firefighters.
With a final notable note regarding Rotherham’s hand painted council commissioned signage – I’d like to think that they have a sign writer in their employ.
Many thanks to my learned companion Helen – thanks for a fine day out, so much to see and do!
They are all built in his distinctive manner, brick and concrete, steel, wood and glass. Often working within tight budgets, respectful of the Christian Church’s early heritage, expressing mass and volume with simple geometry.
The exterior skin pierced by multiple rectangular windows, the interior revealing an elegant calm space with attendant simple decorative elements and fittings.
The body of the church has two asymmetric orthogonal outriders and a tall bell tower.
The transept chapel
The chancel and apse has a raised roof with a glazed face.
Let’s literally take an anti-clockwise look around the outside.
I was warmly welcomed by The Revd David D’Silva, Curate-in-Charge and kindly given free access to the church’s interior.
The wooden framed roof supported by huge parabolic arches of laminated timber.
There are retrieved pews, temporarily reordered to accommodate Covid requirements.
Pugin statuary.
Pace’s own detailed design work in the altar screen and crucifix.
A Mediaeval font.
Light enters from several sources on three elevations.
And through the glazed area of the raised gable.
A delightful morning’s work visiting this well used and cared for church.
