I took an early ramble this morning, away past the London Road Pond - with a magnificent heron hiding in the trees - but instead following the track, I turned off onto Barnby Gate.
Barnby Gate is a long drag, leading from the very edge of town on its eastern side, right to the very centre. Predominantly it consists of Victorian terraces, built for the workers of the railways, the breweries, and the makers of bearings and boilers. They are uniform and yet characterful, the views of them in their long lines heading downhill from London Road, through Barnby Gate and down to the railway line, is a fabulous sight from a clear vantage point.
Occasionally butting in along the walk are the modern housing developments, erected on the graves of demolished schools and factories; horrendous, boxy and jaundiced. This town, as does so many, needs affordable housing, but the hideous cop-out modernity of these new homes. In the year 2015, we should be doing better and providing modern designs that are cheap to buy or rent, efficient to run, and look like someting actually of this century.
Then, as you get nearer town, you leave Victoriana behind, and find yourself in Georgia. Tall, symmetrical, houses with the occasional bricked in window for 18th century tax reasons. The most impressive Georgian buildings in town are of course on London Road, or Millgate, but at least you can see the change in style.
In the Market Square of course, you are in real mixed territory. Victorian, Georgian, with the addition of Tudor and even Plantaganet in fragments. But none of the fancy stuff on Barnby Gate.
It's a working street, for working people!
Si
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| Barnby Gate, leading to the church |
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| Victoriana down the hill |
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| Ghost signs on a ghost pub |
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| The hideous shock of the new |
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| Three storey here |
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| And now, we go Georgian |
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| The church grounds and its impressive house at the corner |
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