Victorian & Georgian architecture appreciation thread

[chris p bacon]

10 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Mrs iD is a great fan of Grand Designs (I enjoy it as well), but whenever the presenter - Kevin McCloud - starts talking about "innovative", "ground breaking" and "exciting" - you can tell without glancing at the TV screen that the house in question will be a big box, with lots of glass, steel and concrete, a flat roof and open plan everything (cynical? Moi?)

 

And there's always a pregnancy....

[monkeysarefun]

Just now, chris p bacon said:

 

And there's always a pregnancy....

And in the more trouble-prone  ones, a separation/divorce.

[melmerby]

12 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

 

Mrs iD is a great fan of Grand Designs (I enjoy it as well), but whenever the presenter - Kevin McCloud - starts talking about "innovative", "ground breaking" and "exciting" - you can tell without glancing at the TV screen that the house in question will be a big box, with lots of glass, steel and concrete, a flat roof and open plan everything (cynical? Moi?)

Some of the properties have features which I'm sure don't meet building regulations.

e.g. there was a property which was completely open plan downstairs with a 3/4 floor upper section with the bedrooms/facilities etc.

The staircase up had no tread backs and no banister/handrail. Maybe it's alright when you live in it but it can't be sold on for occupancy like that.

 

One episode I liked (some years back) was "Huff House" which was an very upmarket pre-fab, made to order in Germany and just bolted together on side.

Some houses are just plain awful.

[phil_sutters]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

Better than just chucking your rubbish out of the window into the street

 

(I believe this is still the accepted way in some "sink" estates)

It certainly was in the 1960s. As part of my Welfare Department training, I had an eight week placement in the social work office of a block of about a hundred short stay flats for previously homeless families. There had to be a dedicated cleaning team visiting the block a couple of times a day, to sweep the courtyard. On Monday mornings, before they had got to work, to get to the office, one had to pick one's way through bust TVs, soiled mattresses, carrier bags with almost anything in them, smashed furniture, tins and broken glass and in the process dodge milk bottles filled with urine lobbed by the delightful kids on the upper floors. Of course in those days the milk bottles were glass. That block is now replaced by a park for the benefit of the current locals. It had been a great improvement on the very literally Dickensian slums of the Borough area of Southwark.

Edited August 6, 2020 by phil_sutters

[simontaylor484]

There was a game made up involving drinking alcohol when certain things were said\happened.

Mr McCloud found out and wrote an episode that got players absolutely wasted out of devilment .

 

 

[simontaylor484]

3 hours ago, melmerby said:

Better than just chucking your rubbish out of the window into the street

 

(I believe this is still the accepted way in some "sink" estates)

Having worked until recently for a council cleansing department can say that this is true. For some words cannot describe the state's that some people exist in. I have cleaned up gypsy sites that are cleaner than some streets. But on the other hand some of the gardens looked like they could do well at Chelsea flower show

[Reorte]

Some Victorian buildings certainly don't inspire confidence. Keswick Hospital has "So Help Us God" right over the main door!

 

[melmerby]

12 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

It certainly was in the 1960s. As part of my Welfare Department training, I had an eight week placement in the social work office of a block of about a hundred short stay flats for previously homeless families. There had to be a dedicated cleaning team visiting the block a couple of times a day, to sweep the courtyard. On Monday mornings, before they had got to work, to get to the office, one had to pick one's way through bust TVs, soiled mattresses, carrier bags with almost anything in them, smashed furniture, tins and broken glass and in the process dodge milk bottles filled with urine lobbed by the delightful kids on the upper floors. Of course in those days the milk bottles were glass. That block is now replaced by a park for the benefit of the current locals. It had been a great improvement on the very literally Dickensian slums of the Borough area of Southwark.

My wife and several of my family & friends have worked for Birmingham City Council in various roles from Caretakers to cleaners and SWMBO was a draughtswoman but occasionally went on site with others in the team.

TVs & mattresses thrown out of the windows of multi-storey flats weren't a one off and piles of indescribable and unhygienic rubbish were not uncommon. (where did it come from?)

 

[Bernard Lamb]

Listing can be a help or a hindrance in respect of a building surviving and having a meaningful purpose. This block was derelict for many years until a developer wanted to demolish the lot and build several blocks of modern flats. A local campaign attempted to get the buildings listed. When the inspector arrived for his visit the inhabitants, a large number of pigeons, reacted as they usually do to any disturbance. The inspector, rather splattered, beat a hasty retreat and the buildings remained unlisted. Not unloved however as the campaign to save them continued and eventually they were renovated and a group of interested people were found who were willing to move in. The details are the work of a surveyor rather than an architect and the style is, I would say, after or inspired by some of the old smaller squares in Stepney. Some purists might not like the result but if they had been listed and restored to the original plans I doubt if as many people would have wanted to live there. The location is near the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

Bernard

[phil_sutters]

There are all sorts of reasons for listing. Part of our churchyard wall is listed, but it seems very similar to many flint walls in our area. It is listed separately from the church,

Edited August 7, 2020 by phil_sutters

[phil_sutters]

Georgian proportions can appear in all manner of materials. This mix of grey and red brick appears here and in larger quantities in Lewes. Quite often it is in areas where flint is also used, as here.

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by phil_sutters
Badly edited photo

[Oldddudders]

https://images.app.goo.gl/RWhsqu6J16oV5DYQ9

 

This was my last home in England. Let me quickly point out that it is three dwellings - Nos 1-3 New Cottages. 1887, designed by Melvyn McCartney, later Sir Melvyn. He went on to do work on, inter alia, St Paul's cathedral. 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Oldddudders

[chris p bacon]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

Let me quickly point out that it is three dwellings

Were the other 2 for staff 

[Bernard Lamb]

4 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

https://images.app.goo.gl/RWhsqu6J16oV5DYQ9

 

This was my last home in England. Let me quickly point out that it is three dwellings - Nos 1-3 New Cottages. 1887, designed by Melvyn McCartney, later Sir Melvyn. He went on to do work on, inter alia, St Paul's cathedral. 

 

....and this was my first.

Well just a tiny bit of it as it was a maternity hospital at the time. Danbury Palace, Essex.

I belong to a group of people who were born here during the war and we have recently had a barney with the listing people re having a plaque put up to commemorate our arrival into the world. They did not like the idea at all, even objecting to a plaque on the new walls or gate posts. Fortunately the County Council own part of the garden and they were most helpful.

The house has fairly recently been renovated and extended and the developers were very keen to get some of the people who were born here involved in recording the history of the building and its inhabitants.

Bernard

[The Johnster]

7 hours ago, melmerby said:

My wife and several of my family & friends have worked for Birmingham City Council in various roles from Caretakers to cleaners and SWMBO was a draughtswoman but occasionally went on site with others in the team.

TVs & mattresses thrown out of the windows of multi-storey flats weren't a one off and piles of indescribable and unhygienic rubbish were not uncommon. (where did it come from?)

 

I'm not for a second excusing it, but if you were an elderly resident high up in a tower block and needed to get rid of a mattress, or just a bag of kitchen waste, would you a) brave the junkies in the stairwells because the lift isn't working, or it is and has been commandeered by junkies, and carry it down to the bin store where there are probably more junkies, or b) open a window and hope to hit some junkies with it.  Before you answer, bear in mind that you have a deep and abiding hatred for the council, who are the people who put you in this third world hell hole to begin with and didn't turn up to collect your mattress when you phoned them.

 

Oh. and it's blowing a gale and lashing it down as well.

 

TVs are more likely to be the result of domestic violence, another wonderful fun part of tower block life; he chucks it at her, she ducks or steps aside, and out the window it goes, usually but not always enough to bring them to their senses temporarily, but sometimes she follows it...

[C126]

Perhaps a few from my albums might be of interest, I hope.  First some good Sussex buildings, a 'before and after' on Brighton's Queen's Road (it is at times like these one dislikes trees!), and one of Mrs. Dudeney's residences in Lewes:

 

 

 

 

 

I never did get a decent photograph of the derelict master-piece on the Queen's Road opposite, 'The Temple', before it was demolished.  The loss of this beautiful building has a lot to answer for my subsequent devotion to 'old ruins'...

 

[C126]

Bexhill and Eastbourne.  I would include Worthing cinema, but it is rather well known.  I thought I had more of Bexhill, but they must be on another 'drive'...

 

 

 

[C126]

A couple from London and Bournemouth; the F.C.O. is well known, and it seems impossible to capture its grandeur, but I bodged an attempt at an elevation of the Durbar Hall.

 

 

 

 

Not the best shot of the Royal Bath Hotel, Bournemouth, but it captures the wonderful roof-line...

 

 

 

 

And the wonderful Russell-Cotes Museum:

 

 

 

[C126]

A few more, of Bradford (including an exquisite industrial building) and Cardiff:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[C126]

Lastly, three from Glasgow.  In view of this city's loathing of its older architecture, I expect they have been demolished by now as well.  The first two share the 'corner' plot.

 

 

 

 

 

I think the latter might be a 'Greek' Thomson.

[C126]

May I sneak in another pair of Glasgow buildings?  Too good to omit, I hope you will agree, and again, sadly, not something built to-day:

 

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

One of the mixed joys of driving country Australia is coming upon small towns, usually now sadly in decline but with architecture from a much more prosperous periord, when income from wool and gold flooded in.  Often long shuttered, even minor buildings could have exuberant details, like the dutch gable on the  Oddfellows hall in Grenfell,

 

 

 

or (from a later period than this thread covers admittedly), the Art deco features on this small Cafe in Yenda.

 

 

[C126]

Waiting at my beloved Lewes station in the Indian temperatures a few days ago, I remembered this 'thread' and snapped this detail:

 

 

It is not St Pancras, but to me it epitomises the carefully crafted beauty of this era (by Mowlem's, I believe).  Who, now, is using brick so beautifully and laid so well?  It is a surprise to see anything modern other than stretcher bond now anywhere.  Sorry I did not have time to pop out and photograph a few flint and brick-edged buildings as well.

 

Edit: Many thanks to Nick Holliday: it was Jas. Longley's who built Lewes station (not Mowlem's).

Edited August 17, 2020 by C126
Error corrected by member; added to captions.

[Reorte]

21 hours ago, C126 said:

It is not St Pancras, but to me it epitomises the carefully crafted beauty of this era (by Mowlem's, I believe).  Who, now, is using brick so beautifully and laid so well?  It is a surprise to see anything modern other than stretcher bond now anywhere.  Sorry I did not have time to pop out and photograph a few flint and brick-edged buildings as well.

 

Possibly because stretcher bond gives on layer of brick that can have a cavity behind it. You could always create the impression of others with half bricks though.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Reorte

[Nick Holliday]

On 14 August 2020 at 15:35, C126 said:

Waiting at my beloved Lewes station in the Indian temperatures a few days ago, I remembered this 'thread' and snapped this detail:

 

 

It is not St Pancras, but to me it epitomises the carefully crafted beauty of this era (by Mowlem's, I believe).  Who, now, is using brick so beautifully and laid so well?  It is a surprise to see anything modern other than stretcher bond now anywhere.  Sorry I did not have time to pop out and photograph a few flint and brick-edged buildings as well.

Having spent twenty years working for Mowlem, sadly I have to admit that this lovely piece of brickwork was the work of James Langley , one of our rivals. Both companies, regrettably, are now ensconced in that great trade directory in the sky!