We have been here before – before the wrecking ball.
Subsequently, the tills have long since ceased to ring.
The road to redevelopment is paved with good intentions, and so far a profound lack or realisation.
The local folk objected to the planned luxury offices.
Tomorrow Manchester City Council’s Executive is set to approve the development framework for the former Central Retail Park that will see it turned into a zero carbon office district. But, according to a public consultation carried out by grassroots campaigners, an overwhelming majority of locals want public spaces on the 10.5 acre site in Ancoats rather than luxury offices.
As of April 2022 Trees Not Cars have sought the views of local representatives following the decision not to go ahead with the building of a multi-storey car park
What we need are councillors who will stand up for us and push for as much green space as possible at Central Retail Park development.
It’s council owned, it would link in well with Cotton Field Park and will give the capacity for locals to enjoy the outdoors – without driving, once New Islington Green has been developed into offices.
There is a perennial plea for affordable homes and green space, along with perennial structural and institutional barriers to their financing and building.
On the day of HM Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee I cycled around Ashton under Lyne.
Recording and commenting upon the material changes which had occurred, during her reign of some sixty years. In turn many of these things have in themselves disappeared from view.
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow.
Let reality be reality.
Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
Lao Tzu
Celebrating the gradual decline in spelling – Gill Scot Heron meets Tameside, everyone’s a winner.
Celebrating the proliferation of California Screen Blocks, hanging baskets and vertical blinds.
Celebrating the Pound Shop a profusion of road markings and pedestrian safety barriers.
Celebrating High Visibilty Workwear and the proliferation of the logotype
Celebrating advances in Information Technology and the decline of the retail sector.
Celebrating advances in fly-posting, street skating, youth culture and musical diversity.
Celebrating the re-use of redundant banks, sun beds, tattooing and t-shirts.
Celebrating advances in charity chop furniture pricing and the proliferation of leather sofas.
Celebrating the proliferation of the shuttered window, babies and home made retail signage.
Celebrating niche marketing in the child-based, haircare market and developments in digitally originated vinyl signage.
Celebrating street art and British popular music and modern cuisine.
Celebrating Punk Rock, wheel clamping and British can-do!
Celebrating the introduction of decimal coinage, raffle tickets, cheap biros, affordable imitation Tupperware, raffles and the Union Flag
Celebrating the huge importance of Association Football, hazard tape, shuttered doors and the ubiquity of the traffic cone.
Celebrating the ever growing popularity of Fancy Dress.
Celebrating pub tiles, the smoking ban, the use of plywood as an acceptable window replacement material and the current confusion regarding Britishness and Englishness.
Celebrating satellite telly, faux Victoriana and the development of the one way traffic system.
Celebrating plastics in the service of the modern citizen.
Celebrating laser-cut vinyl, adhesive lettering, regional cuisine and the imaginative minds of those who name our modern retail outlets.
Celebrating the welcome Americanisation of our youngster’s diet – Slush you couldn’t make it up!
Celebrating the welcome Americanisation of our youngster’s diet – Slush you couldn’t make it up!
Celebrating the return of the £1 pint, here at Oliver’s Bar, formerly The Cavern, a superbly appointed Bass Charrington owned, underground pub.
My thanks to Emma Noonan for kindly appearing in the doorway.
Celebrating our ever widening range of ethnic cuisine and the use of the ingenious A4 laser-written poster montage.
Celebrating the wide variety of vernacular tribute bands – Reet Hot Chilli Peppers?
Celebrating the ever popular art of colouring-in and the wide availability of the felt tip pen.
Welcome, at the Kardomah Cafe we have a long history of excellent service, great food and wonderful coffee. We are an independent, established, family run business of nearly 50 years. Traditional values are important to us and have helped us create a warm and friendly atmosphere, which is seen by many of our customers as an important part of their lives, a place to meet their friends, whilst enjoying quality food and drink.
The company that created the Kardomah brand began in Pudsey Street, Liverpool in 1844 as the Vey Brothers teadealers and grocers. In 1868 the business was acquired by the newly created Liverpool China and India Tea Company, and a series of brand names was created beginning with Mikado. The Kardomah brand of tea was first served at the Liverpool colonial exhibition of 1887, and the brand was later applied to a range of teas, coffees and coffee houses. The parent company was renamed Kardomah Limited in 1938. The brand was acquired by the Forte Group in 1962, sold to Cadbury Schweppes Typhoo in 1971, and became part of Premier Brands some time between 1980 and 1997. The brand still exists, selling items such as instant coffee and coffee whitener.
The Kardomah Cafés in London and Manchester were designed by Sir Misha Black between 1936 and 1950.
ManchesterLondon – Ribapix
The original Swansea branch was at 232 High St, and known as ‘The Kardomah Exhibition Cafe & Tea Rooms’, moving to the Castle Street in 1908.
Castle Street
The Castle Street cafe was the meeting place of The Kardomah Gang, which included Dylan Thomas, and was built on the site of the former Congregational Chapel where Thomas’s parents were married in 1903. The cafe was bombed during WW2 and was later replaced by the present Kardomah Coffee Shop Restaurant in Portland Street.
I’d never had the pleasure of visiting a Kardomah before, imagine my delight when I was directed there by local artist, activist and archivist Catrin Saran James, during our delightful Swansea Moderne tour!
Following an extensive walk from one end of town to the other, I returned there for a late midday bite to eat and a sit down – it looked a little like this:
Many thanks to the staff and customers for putting up with me wandering around for a while with my camera, whilst they worked and ate.
The launderette was empty and offered an oasis of oddity in an otherwise predictable day.
There is always a mild sense of trepidation, entering a space devoid of folk, slowly placing footsteps tentatively, over those of the lost souls, that have trodden the worn floor coverings in times past.
Just look over your shoulder – I’ll be there.
Once inside the daylight fades, replaced by tremulous fluorescent tubes, illuminating the discoloured coloured surfaces.
Blown vinyl, damp carpet, dulled stainless steel, tired laminate and pine panels.
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.
A local company which designed, manufactured and retailed furnishings around the North West.
Oldham Street ManchesterRochdale Road HarpurheyWythenshawe
The office building is a highlight of my Stockport Walks – it has a lightness of touch incorporating a partial podium, slab block and lower rise extensions.
There is a sensitive mix of glass, stone, concrete and brick across a variety of scales and volumes.
May 2020 – plans are submitted to remodel the exterior of Hilton House
The remodelling of the building include reparations and repainting brickwork, render and cladding as part of wider plans to rejuvenate Hilton House to rebrand as a more attractive and contemporary office location in Stockport town centre.
Studio KMA have proposed conversion to apartments.
Conversion of existing 1970s office building to apartments.
A combination of one-bed, two-bed and three-bed units ensure a new sustainable use in Stockport town centre.
The proposal incorporates the use of coloured glass panels to create a modern, fresh aesthetic.
Formerly the Scarbough to Whitby Railway – the line opened in 1885 and closed in 1965 as part of the Beeching Axe.
Yet again I chance upon a delightful post-war home.
I parted company with the track dropping down to the Esk Valley from the Larpool Viaduct.
Construction began in October 1882 and was complete by October 1884.
Two men fell from the piers during construction, but recovered.
I found myself in Ruswarp, home to this enchanting bus shelter.
I bombed along the main road to Sleights.
There then followed a hesitant ascent, descent, ascent along a badly signed bridleway, fearing that I had climbed the hill in error I retraced, then retraced.
A difficult push ensued, a precipitous path, rough and untended, rising ever higher and higher.
Finally arriving at Aislaby, more than somewhat exhausted – the village is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Asuluesbi.
Pausing to catch my breath I took the wildly undulating road to Egton – along the way I was alerted to the presence of a tea stop by two touring cyclists from Nottingham.
The curious name Fryup probably derives from the Old English reconstruction Frige-hop: Frige was an Anglo-Saxon goddess equated with the Old Norse Frigg; hop denoted a small valley.
An old woman at Fryup was well known locally for keeping the Mark’s e’en watch – 24 April, as she lived alongside a corpse road known as Old Hell Road.
The practice involved a village seer holding vigil between 11pm and 1am to watch for the wraiths of those who would die in the following 12 months.
Castleton Moor ghost.
In the village I was given further directions by two elderly gents, who had been engaged in a discussion concerning their long term mapping of acid rain levels in the area.
One was wearing a Marshall Jefferson t-shirt.
I climbed Langburn Bank onto the flatish open moorland.
Taking a brief break to snap this concrete shelter.
There then followed a hair stirring series of hairpin descents to the coast at Saltburn.
Built in 1928, this church was designed with some care and is an attractive, if fairly modest, Lombard Romanesque-style essay in brick. The use of a semi-circular apse, narrow brickwork and use of tile for decorative effect give it a pleasing appearance, typical of restrained but elegant work between the wars.
I arrived and took a look around, first time in town, here’s what I found.
We awoke, we dawdled around Deal, prior to our delightful breakfast.
Though the pier appeared to be closed.
Extending elegantly over a still, still sea.
The present pier, designed by Sir W. Halcrow & Partners, was opened on 19 November 1957 by the Duke of Edinburgh. Constructed predominantly from concrete-clad steel, it is 1,026 ft in length – a notice announces that it is the same length as the RMS Titanic, but that ship was just 882 feet, and ends in a three-tiered pier-head, featuring a cafe, bar, lounge, and fishing decks.
The lowest of the three tiers is underwater at all but the lowest part of the tidal range, and has become disused.
Pausing in Ramsgate to admire Edward Welby Pugin’s Grade II Listed – Granville Hotel.
The Granville development, so named after George Leverson Gower, second Earl Granville (1815-1891), was a venture undertaken by Edward Welby Pugin, together with investors Robert Sankey, George Burgess and John Barnet Hodgson on land acquired from the Mount Albion Estate in 1867. The scheme was to be an important new building in the eastward expansion of the town and the emergence of a fashionable new suburb. At the outset, the intention was to build a relatively restrained speculative terrace of large townhouses with some additional facilities. However, as the scheme progressed and it became apparent that buyers could not be secured, revised plans for an enlarged hotel complex were adopted in 1868 and brought to completion in 1869. These plans, which added a series of grand rooms including a banqueting hall, receptions rooms and an entrance hall in addition to a tunnel to connect to the railway line on the seafront, gardens, a complex of Turkish baths and a vast landmark tower (originally 170ft high, although truncated at a relatively early date), were remarkably ambitious. Ultimately, as it would transpire, the scheme was rather too ambitious on Pugin’s part; with his increasing reliance on loans eventually culminating in bankruptcy in October 1872, an event which precipitated his demise as an architect, tragically followed by his death just three years later.
Overlooking the sea, the ornamental gardens were laid out and presented to the Borough of Ramsgate by Dame Janet Stancomb-Wills in 1920 and opened to the public in June 1923 by the Mayor of Ramsgate Alderman A. W. Larkin. They are maintained by Thanet District Council and were Grade II listed on 4 February 1988.
The gardens were designed by the architects Sir John Burnet & Partners, and constructed by Pulham and Son. The main feature of the gardens, is a semi-circular shaped colonnade carved into the pulhamite recess.
On the upper terrace, approached by broad flights of steps, the gardens proper are reached. In the centre, and immediately over the shelter, is a circular pool enclosed on the north side by a semi-circular Roman seat.
On leaving the town we encounter this engaging flint church – Holy Trinity
Erected 1829-1830. David Barnes Architect, extended 1925.
Built of flint and rubble.
One of the first visitors to this church was Charles Dickens who offered a very unflattering description in his work, Our English Watering Place:
We have a church, by the bye, of course – a hideous temple of flint, like a petrified haystack. Our chief clerical dignitary, who, to his honour, has done much for education, and has established excellent schools, is a sound, healthy gentleman, who has got into little local difficulties with the neighbouring farms, but has the pestilent trick of being right.
In Margate the tidal pools are full of waveless sea water and kiddy fun.
The former crazy golf course is undergoing an ongoing programme of involuntary rewilding.
Time now for tea and a welcome plate of chish and fips at the Beano Cafe.
I miss my haddock and chips from Beano in Margate, brought to you with a smile and he remembers everyone.
Great customer service and friendly staff, see you soon.
The food is awful and the customer service is even worse: when we complained about the food the staff argued with us and wouldn’t do anything to change the food or refund, avoid at all costs!
The stadium opened on July 24th 1926 – 7.30 prompt.
In 1925, Charles A. Munn, an American businessman, made a deal with Smith and Sawyer for the rights to promote the greyhound racing in Britain.
Smith and Sawyer met Brigadier-General Alfred Critchley, who in turn introduced them to Sir William Gentle JP. Between them they raised £22,000 and formed the Greyhound Racing Association Ltd. When deciding where to situate their new stadium, Manchester was considered to be the ideal place because of its sporting and gambling links. Close to the city centre, the consortium erected the first custom-built greyhound stadium and called it Belle Vue. The name of the stadium came from the nearby Belle Vue Zoological Gardens that had been built in 1836 and the land on which the stadium was to stand had been an area of farmland known as Higher Catsknowl and Lower Catsknowl.
By June 1927, the stadium was attracting almost 70,000 visitors a week.
1958
In October 2019 GRA Acquisition sold the lease to the Arena Racing Company and just two months later on 19 December housing planning permission was passed resulting in a probable closure in 2020.
The imminent closure came following an announcement on 1 August 2020, with the last race being run on 6 June, won by Rockmount Buster – trained by Gary Griffiths.
Going to the dogs was an institution for many, whole families enjoying the spectacle, possibly having a bet, bite and a pint.
Time changes everything social habits, views on animal welfare and gambling.
Diners enjoying their meal at Belle Vue Greyhound stadium while punters line trails outside waiting for the next race, 23rd September 1976.
The hare no longer courses electronically around the oval track, the traps no longer flap and the Tote has taken the last of your change, for the very last time.
Drink up and go home.
The new £30,000 stand that has just been completed 29th April 1960.The track’s Assistant General Manager Colin Delaney with the plans for the new stadium complex. 1989.
Speedway was first held at the stadium during 1928 but was not held again until 1 April 1988, when the Belle Vue Aces returned to the stadium. The team departed Kirkmanshulme Lane at the end of the 2015 season, prior to moving to the new National Speedway Stadium for the 2016 campaign.
The shale speedway track was 285 metres in length.
I was a regular of a Monday evening cheering on The Aces.
When I cycled by in 2015 the stadium was already looking tired – the dramatic concrete cantilevered gull-wing turnstiles a neglected storage area.
Last week I had to dodge behind the hoardings to take some snaps.The site is secured and demolition imminent.The stadium will soon be gone – as a footnote I have at home a 50s sign, appropriated on a work’s night out and later gifted to me by my dear departed pal – Dave Ballans.
I’ll always treasure the perspex shark’s fin, Dave’s memory and going to the dogs.
So what of the future?
Belle Vue Place – the name lingers on long after the fun has gone.
Countryside are proud to showcase our stunning collection of 114 new homes at Belle Vue Place, featuring a choice of stunning 3 & 4 bedroom homes all designed and finished to the highest standard.
And very handy for the speedway just up the road on Kirky Lane!
Not unusually, whilst on my way somewhere else, quite by chance, I came upon The Clean Scene.
Sadly soon to be CLOSSING DOWN.
Pleas such as: Are you open Christmas Eve I need the dryers
– will from hereon in remained unanswered.
Having almost abandoned the wet and dry world of the laundrette, following the publication of the era-defining, runaway success of my eight laundrettes, I almost walked on by.
For just one brief moment I hesitated, then walked right on in.
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.
I passed by almost every day, cycling back and to, to work.
One day I stopped, popped in, asked to chat and snap – Tony obliged.
Cypriot George in the city centre had already give me salon time.
These photographs were taken in March 2104 – Tony’s still there, cutting hair.
Since 1971, presiding over his empire of mainly masculine ephemera, rival football clubs fight it out for space on the crowded walls. Motorcycles race around the dado rail, stood stock still, gathering another dusting of dust. A slow accretion of memories and memorabilia, tracing a lengthy short back and sides life, of short back and sides, as stylists’ style snaps come in and out of style and back again.
