typography – Page 3 – Modern Mooch

Launderette – Hull

Posted on January 28, 2020January 28, 2020 by modernmoocher

Whilst walking down Beverley Road I caught sight of of you out of the corner of my eye – my left eye.

My beautiful laundrette:

In this damn country, which we hate and love, you can get anything you want, it’s all spread out and available.

That’s why I believe in England.

Set back slightly from the road and the rest of the world.

Queens Road a street with an incident packed street view.

Without hesitation I entered the world of washing, soap and suds, signs and surfaces.

Dirty linen has never been so public.

Neaverson’s – Huddersfield

Posted on January 16, 2020March 20, 2020 by modernmoocher

Kirkgate Buildings Byram Street

Commercial building with ground-floor retail units and offices to the upper floors, c1883, by W H Crossland with sculptural work by C E Fucigna. Sandstone ashlar, slate roof, substantial ashlar ridge stacks. C19 Queen Anne style with French influences and classical Greek sculpture. One of the ground-floor shop units was remodelled in 1935 by Sharp and Law of Bradford with Moderne shopfronts and interior fittings.

The cultural and visual collision is immediate – the pairing of Huddersfield’s grand Victorian manner with the latest of European Moderne.

Neaverson’s – purveyors of pottery and glass began life in 1893 in premises on Cross Church Street, before moving to the Grade I-listed Byram Street building in 1935.

Set to the ground floor of bay 4 is a 1935 Moderne shopfront by Sharp and Law of Bradford. The shopfront is of grey and pink/beige marble with unmoulded windows that are curved to eliminate reflection, and has a glazed door set within a recessed porch. Set below the top of the shopfront is a ribbon window with dark tinted glazing and slender vertical and horizontal muntin bars arranged in a geometric pattern. The original metal signage in stylised sans-serif relief lettering reads ‘NEAVERSONS’, ‘pottery’ and ‘four’.

Thought to echo Susie Cooper’s London shop and unswervingly now – the fascia must have been something of a shock to the taciturn Tykes.

Neaversons glass and china shop closed in 2007.

Gerry’s Tea Rooms occupied the building for less than two years.

There is not a day goes by when I don’t see some of my customers asking what went wrong. They think I was a failure and that is so not the truth.

Along came a restaurant:

The Grade II 1930’s interior has been refurbished by the new owners and exudes understated sophistication.

“Wow, I feel like I’m in London,” said Trish as she stepped into the newly-opened Neaversons restaurant, having just arrived on the train from the capital.

It closed not long after.

Currently home to the Zephyr Bar and Kitchen

A prohibition stylised venue offering a selection of drinks, food and an environment that really sets us apart from the crowd.

The listed frontage has survived intact – let’s take a look.

The Wash Tub Levenshulme – Manchester

Posted on May 15, 2019May 15, 2019 by modernmoocher

When is a washtub not a washtub – self evidently when it doesn’t wash.

This is the land of the decommissioned washer – cash box removed, unrepurposed, demure and decorative yet sadly redundant.

This is a dry only facility its surfaces inert, frozen in time, its sign declaiming pointless imperatives to nobody in particular.

Worn lino, prosaic mosaic, strip lighting, wood-grained Formica, black wooden benches backed up against the warmth of the warm drier – time becomes elastic, limitless.

Enter at your own peril, Persil in hand prepare to be disappointed.

WH Smiths – Colwyn Bay

Posted on March 6, 2019March 6, 2019 by modernmoocher

I have been here before.

I’ve been there too – Newton Powys home to the WH Smiths Museum

Now here I am in Colwyn Bay generally minding my own and everybody else’s business, when all of a sudden I noticed a cast iron glazed awning.

Proudly announcing the proprietors – sadly supported by a distressing modern addition – now I’m not one to decry and debunk the rising tide of modernity, I’m all in favour of unisex clothing and central heating.

But the unchecked encroachment of vacuous vinyl really is the limit.

Businesses displayed a degree of dignified permanence unknown to the current high street trader. So here it is writ larger than life in stained glass and Carter’s Tiles.

Loud and proud.

And as an addendum here are the delightful tiles from the Llandudno branch, snapped two years previously.

Three Lost Pubs – Sheffield

Posted on November 6, 2018November 6, 2018 by modernmoocher

A city once awash with industry and ale – a myriad of pubs slaking the thirst of the thirsty steel workers.

A liquid equilibrium flowing and flowering for over a century.

The Lower Don Valley once home to a wealth of boozers, tells a different tale today.

A fall in production produced a proportionate reduction in consumption.

The clatter of clogs on cobbles, metal on metal is but a distant memory, along with the sound of pints pulled and hastily glugged.

The architecture of ale still prevails – now purveying pleasures and delights of a different stripe, whatever takes your fancy, as long as it’s not too fancy.

And doesn’t involve taking a drink.

The Gower Arms – 47 Gower Street Burngreave Sheffield S4 7JW

I drink down there – top pubs methinks. They are old fashioned pubs with some real characters. Will be there Friday night in the Staff first, Royal Oak, Gower, Grapes and back to the Staff till I drop.

Blade Bloke 2007

From top pub to closed corner supermarket in two shakes of a monkey’s tale.

The Norfolk Arms Hotel – 195/199 Carlisle Street Sheffield S4 7LJ

From a Gilmour’s tap, Tetley tavern to a temple of trendy funk.

Club Xes is a nightclub in Sheffield described as a vibrant and thrilling, and full of Sheffield’s young and trendy crowd. The DJs are renowned for providing the newest funkiest records.

Premises Type – This place does not serve real ale.

Premises Description – Gay nightclub.

The Corner Pin – 231-233 Carlisle Street East Sheffield S4 7QN

First licensed to sell beer in 1840. One of 26 public houses serving the steel industry along a three- quarter mile stretch of Carlisle Street. It is said to have a ghost who likes to turn the lights on in the middle of the night and footfalls can be heard.

The Corner Pin was the last of the Steelmakers pubs in Sheffield and was one of my favourite places to visit for a real good pint! I would come over from Melbourne once or twice a year, still do, and meet up with Chris Payling and many others still left over from the days of Sheffield Steel, but now all gone.

They even took away your window frames, along with your dignity once a pale green shadow of yourself, stripped back to brick.

Stop dreaming of a foaming pint right now – you’re an office.

Not a pub.

All B&W photographs copyright Picture Sheffield

Gates and Doors – Sheffield

Posted on November 3, 2018 by modernmoocher

Early one morning – just as the sun was rising.

I took to the sunny Sunday October streets of Sheffield, bound I knew not where.

In search of something and nothing, which I possibly never ever found.

Following secret signs, symbols and words, doors and gates shut in my face.

Before I knew it I was back where I started.

Clark Brothers – Thomas Street Manchester

Posted on October 3, 2018October 3, 2018 by modernmoocher

Who you gonna call?

0161 834 5880 · 34-36 Thomas Street M4 1ER Manchester – Clark Brothers.

There’s nowhere quite like it – a wonderland of wares from who knows where?

Well mostly from upstairs where they hand print the signs.

They have everything that you never ever knew that you really wanted.

At prices you just can’t resist.

The finest selection of candy striped bags.

Things which twinkle and shimmer like no other things could ever do.

Transform your home into a 380 degree 365 24/7 winter landscape or tropical retreat.

Just to wander the wobbly floorboards, is to enter a palace of variety that fills the senses with pure unadulterated delight.

Step inside love and lose yourself in a garden of artifice, happiness and joy!

The Beefeater Grill – Halifax

Posted on September 27, 2018October 8, 2025 by modernmoocher

1 George Street, Halifax, West Yorkshire, HX1 1HA

The Beefeater Grill and Griddle is a long established family run grill and coffee house located at George Square Halifax. The place has an old fashioned feel to it and serves typical English cafe food which seems to make it popular amongst its local regulars.

Long may it do so.

Strangers to the town we wandered the streets in search of sustenance.

Bewitched bothered and bewildered – seduced by the tiles and signage, it was love at first sight.

The ability and will to resist the broad brush of regeneration and reinvention is all too rare, the traditional café is constantly under threat – the Beefeater has prevailed.

A stunning tiled exterior, a multi level interior and a menu to match, it’s win, win, win, win all the way.

We went inside and ate.

These tiles were originally designed by Kenneth Clarke, subsequently redesigned as the cheaper Turinese range by James Rushton and Leonard Gladstone King for Malkin Tiles, 1960 – 68.

Variety and Vitality in Ceramic Tiles – March 1960 issue of ‘Design’ magazine.

Rob McCrorie – Flickr

These tiles decorate the fascia of Fusciardis in Eastbourne.

And in addition the former C&A in Hanley.

Type Travel – Manchester

Posted on September 20, 2018February 5, 2024 by modernmoocher

This is a journey through time and space by bicycle, around the rugged, ragged streets of East Manchester.

Undertaken on Sunday September 2nd 2018.

This is type travel – the search for words and their meanings in an ever changing world.

Hyde Road

The Star Inn – former Wilsons pub

Devonshire Street North

Former Ardwick Cemetery

Great Universal Stores former mail order giant

Palmerston Street

The River Inn abandoned pub

Every Street

All Souls Church – listed yet unloved

Pollard Street East

The Bank Of England abandoned pub

Ancoats Works former engineering company

Cambrian Street

The Lunchbox Café Holt Town

Upper Helena Street

The last remnants of industrial activity

Bradford Road

Brunswick Mill

The little that remains of Raffles Mill

Old Mill Street

Ancoats Dispensary loved listed and still awaiting resuscitation

New life New Islington

Redhill Street

Former industrial powerhouse currently contemporary living space

Henry Street

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth passed by in 1942

Jersey Street

Former School the stone plaque applied to a newer building

Gun Street

The last of the few Blossom Motors

Addington Street

Former fruit merchants – refurbished and home to the SLG creative agency

Marshall Street and Goulden Street area

The last remnants of the rag trade

Former bed spring manufacturer – latterly became the County Archive.

Sudell Street

All that’s left of Alexandra Place

Entrance to the former Goods Yard

Back St Georges Road

Sharp Street

Simpson Street

Where once the CWS loomed large

Charter Street

Ragged but right

Aspin Lane

Angel Meadow

Corporation Street

Harbour Bar – Scarborough

Posted on July 27, 2018July 27, 2018 by modernmoocher

1-3 Sandside, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, YO11 1PE.

Do you remember the first time?

Sometime around 2011, I fell in love with the Harbour Bar Scarborough.

A family business serving home made ice cream since 1945.

It’s a magical world of mirrors, melamine, signs and ice creams.

Since then I’ve been back for a banana split and take the opportunity to take a few more snaps, I never leave anything less than overwhelmingly happy and full.

Linda’s Pantry – Manchester

Posted on July 10, 2018 by modernmoocher

Turn off London Road and into Ducie Street, it’s just around the corner from Piccadilly Station.

Enter a world of warehouses, homes and industry.

Return some fifty years later and you’ll find a café on the corner.

Return last Saturday you’ll find that it’s gone.

No more of this.

Top class scran at prices to suit all pockets.

Linda and her crew have packed up the pans and scrammed.

Read all about it – Manchester Evening News

The face of the city changes, as one by one faces and places disappear, new build and mass tourism making ever new demands on space.

The rag trade is in tatters and the tatters are long gone.

It would seem that there is no place for the traditional café or its customers.

So thank you and goodnight, the last pie, chips and gravy has left the counter.

Shut the door and turn out the lights.

John Lewis Mosaics – Milton Keynes

Posted on June 17, 2018June 21, 2018 by modernmoocher

I was lured here, siren like, by an un-purchased eBay postcard – which precipitated a virtual four colour process printed journey around the shopping precincts of the UK.

It only seemed appropriate to finally arrive at MK Central in real life, by train from Stockport – walking at last wide-eyed and expectant, along the whole length and width of Midsummer Boulevard to centre:mk

The Milton Keynes Development Corporation began work on the Shopping Building in 1973. It was to be the largest building of Central Milton Keynes. It had a total length of over one kilometre and a maximum width of one hundred and sixteen metres . It was built at the highest point in the New City. The architects were Derek Walker, Stuart Mosscrop, and Christopher Woodward, who had been significant architects at the MK Development Corporation; and the engineers were Felix Samuely and Partners. The shopping area was opened on 25th September 1979 by Margaret Thatcher. The building’s sleek envelope accommodated one hundred and thirty shops and six department stores, arranged along two parallel day-lit arcades, each eight hundred meters long and planted with sub-tropical and temperate trees.

A big bad Miesian box of glass and steel that goes on forever and forever.

At the very far end of forever is the John Lewis store, to the right of the entrance there are a series of tiled panels – these are possibly the work of Lucienne and Robin Day

Way back when, when brown was the new brown, brown still is the new brown.

Fresh and crisp and even.

Bobbing up and down precipitously on low marble walls, from amongst the sub-tropical and temperate trees, I bring you these thirteen tiled panels.

Working so close up and personal at altitude, photographing such large pieces in confined spaces, it’s not until you arrive home that you discover that together they spell:

What a delightful surprise!

Long Lane Post Office – Heald Green

Posted on May 30, 2018May 31, 2018 by modernmoocher

190 Wilmslow Rd, Heald Green, Cheadle SK8 3BH

The original Long Lane Post Office is still there but not here:

However – I digress.

One fine day, some time ago there popped into my consciousness a Sixties retail mosaic in the Heald Green area – I tracked down its precise whereabouts online, in the modern manner.

Thinks – one fine day, just you wait and see I’ll pay a visit to the Heald Green area.

So today I did, it started off fine and finished up less so.

Jumped the 368 from Stockport Bus Station alighted at The Griffin.

Walked aways up the road and there it was, almost intact – it’s original name obliterated with lilac exterior emulsion – did it once read healds?

Why of course it did – the local dairy and retailers were the shop’s original owners.

A few tesserae are missing otherwise the piece is as was – a wobbly jumble of text, shape and colour.

Self service – at your service.

Macclesfield Railway Station

Posted on May 28, 2018 by modernmoocher

Where the Victorians modelled their stations on cathedrals, temples and palaces.

Modern Man models his on shopping centre and office blocks.

Richards and MacKenzie – The Railway Station

Though it seems to me that Macclesfield Station, in its earlier and current states, refuses to dovetail neatly into either of these sloppy binary paradigms.

The former – single storey buildings, fitting unostentatiously into the topographic and practical constraints of the site. A neat, tightly packed rhythm of brick arches with a compact and bijou porch welcoming the expectant traveller.

The latter a functionalist block, fully utilitarian crossings with lift access columns, embodying a particularly industrial demeanour.

From the golden age of steam to the moribund years of diesel, Macclesfield sits comfortably somewhere, betwixt and between ugly duckling and fully fledged swan.

Nestled in the lea of the East Cheshire Highlands, offering practical everyday transport solutions to the beleaguered commuter.

No frills, no thrills.

The London and North Western Railway opened the line between Manchester and Macclesfield on 19 June 1849 – Macclesfield Central was born. Later it would become a key station on the Stafford branch of the West Coast Main Line, remodelled in 1960 and rebranded as the much snappier Macclesfield Station.

Which it proudly announces topically and typographically to the world.

Welcome to Macclesfield a town that is clearly going places, and so are you.

The station won the Best Kept Station in Cheshire Award for 2007, but was reported in summer 2011 to be distinctly shabby, with peeling paintwork.

And yet there is something in the constituent Platonic steel, glass and concrete forms that never ceases to amuse and amaze me, this is Brutalism on a human and provincial scale.

The raw concrete softened with three or four shades of grey, as a concession to the delicate suburban sensibilities of this once silk-fuelled town.

Take a trip with me – join the Cheshire train set.

Indoor Market Preston – Epilogue

Posted on March 27, 2018 by modernmoocher

I’ve been here, before recording the prelude to the epilogue, here at Preston’s Indoor Market.

So on my return this February, I find that the inevitable end, is indeed now past nigh.

Boarded and shuttered awaiting demolition – Waiting for The Light to shine:

Preston City Council has granted planning permission to Muse Developments’ £50m cinema-led leisure scheme in the city centre.

Muse is working in partnership with the council on the plans, made up of an 11-screen cinema operated by The Light, seven family restaurants, a 593-space multi-storey car park and public realm improvements.

The project forms part of the wider regeneration of the Markets Quarter which includes the full refurbishment and redecoration of the grade two-listed market canopies and the construction of a glazed Market Hall.

Preston to their credit have become an exemplar for inward urban regeneration, and the work undertaken so far in the market area is bringing new life and trade to the area.

That said, it is always saddening to see the architecture of the Sixties swept aside.

So come take one last wander through the concrete warren of ramps, underpasses and tunnels of the unwanted indoor market.

Eastford Square Collyhurst – Slight Return

Posted on February 13, 2018February 13, 2018 by modernmoocher

I’ve been here before and after.

After now seems further away, forever awaiting redevelopment – waiting.

No more Flower Pot Café and a warm welcome from Lee and the lads.

Nearly nine years on – the shutters are down and nobody is home, save for the Lalley Centre – offering food, support and care to the community.

Though Sister Rita Lee has now move on to pastures new.

The homes and shops remain resolutely shut, un-lived in and unloved, though the City plans to re-site the resident sculpture, the residents remain absent without leaving.

Strangeways Manchester #2

Posted on February 13, 2018February 13, 2018 by modernmoocher

Way back in the Twentieth Century – Cheetwood Industrial Estate was built.

The future was functionalist flat-roofed, concrete, steel and brick boxes.

Adorned with the flowing scripts and signage of the multi-nationals, nationals and local companies, intent upon rendering corporeal the post-war optimism, attendant full-employment and the buoyant business of business.

Fast forward to the future – the roofs have been pitched up, the windows bricked up or shuttered or both, walls encased in sad cladding.

The semi-permanent signage replaced with terminally temporary vinyl.

Joe Sunlight’s neo-classical pediments have been painted a funny colour.

Post Box – Chesterfield

Posted on August 19, 2017August 19, 2017 by modernmoocher

Time’s definitely running out:

But the post office has been stolen and the mailbox is locked.

The age of elegant modernist street furniture, has been and almost gone, the previous centuries are under threat.

But does anyone want this neglected postal self-service technology?

Stamp dispensing is being dispensed with, insert 5p and wait forever.

We have our own disabused facility in Stockport, I pass it almost every day.

And have posted two previous postal posts – here and there.

This new discovery, with thanks to Sean Madner, is situated on the wall of the sorting office in Chesterfield. A faded Festival of Britain charm along with a delightful terrazzo surround, has done little to arrest its slow decline into redundancy and subsequent neglect.

Still in situ, take a walk, take a look – wait for the coin to drop.

Ghost Signs – Scarborough

Posted on May 8, 2017May 12, 2017 by modernmoocher

All towns have ghosts, none more so than Scarborough.

High atop a castle topped, wind whipped promontory, lies Anne Bronte, overlooking the harbour below, wayward Whitby whalers wail, lost fisher folk seek solace.

Its walls ache with traders past, scissors that no longer snip, click-less shutters, unlettered rock and loaves that no longer rise.

Layers of sun baked, peeling paint on brick, rendered almost illegible.

As Alan Resnais would say Scarborough, mon amour!

San Remo Coffee Bar – Rochdale

Posted on April 15, 2017April 17, 2017 by modernmoocher

Sanremo or San Remo is a city on the Mediterranean coast of western Liguria in north-western Italy. Founded in Roman times, it has a population of 57,000, and is known as a tourist destination on the Italian Riviera. It hosts numerous cultural events, such as the Sanremo Music Festival and the Milan–San Remo cycling classic.

Rochdale is a market town in Greater Manchester, England, positioned at the foothills of the South Pennines on the River Roch, 5.3 miles north-northwest of Oldham, and 9.8 miles north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, population 211,699. Rochdale is the largest settlement and administrative centre, with a total population of 107,926. Home to the Cooperative Movement, Rochdale AFC and a redundant cotton industry.

The two towns come together at 27 Drake Street, Rochdale, Lancashire OL161RX, home to a fine café and Italian born Tony and family. It has a well preserved menu that reflects industrial Lancastrian tastes rather than flavours of Liguria. It has an internal decorative order that is pure mid century a la mode – Pennine Style. Several more than several signs leave you in no doubt as to the availability of pies, pies with chips/potatoes, peas, gravy, veg – pies of all varieties, pies.

So pie, chips, peas and gravy it was, with a mug of tea – it always is.

Pop in say Buongiorno!