The Piper in the Rain

Never mind "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" today, no-one could possibly have seen it. It has been battleship grey at best today, with the rain falling constantly in varying degrees of heaviness.

The bagpiper was giving his rather squelchy sounding all in the entrance of the Art Deco home of what was Mark and Spencers, soon to be shat on by being turned into a Poundland type establishment.

Nearby are other art deco buildings in the town centre - the old cinema and the old Burtons - and very fine they are too, although they are now a building society and health food store.

None of them looked at their best today though.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 14.08.19

It's Gone for a Burton

Having been a staple of Newark life for 80 odd years, our Burton's store here has finally closed.

Apparently this is related to the BHS collapse in some way due to the ownership chain - Burton's is also struggling these days - but I really have no idea. I think it tends to suffer for being neither seen as high quality nor budget in this day and age, and it never seemed to get any high profile campaigns going like M and S did.

I always remember that at school to be seen wearing Burton's gear was something to be ashamed of; a geek thing, a nerd thing, something you wouldn't want to be seen in on a non-uniform day. If my folks ever got me any casual clothes from there I was always nervous about wearing it out for fear of being taunted by the hip kids.

As I got older, I just cared less and less.

It's a landmark building in this town, surely Grade 1 listed as a wonderful example of Art Deco design in a town that has a fair bit of it kicking around. I can only hope it finds a worthy new occupier.

Chances are, we will end up with an Art Deco nailbar.

Si

Of Ghost Signs and Enduring Literature

I've been collecting more of Newark's ghost signs; seeing new ones and filling in the gaps concerning ones that I thought were there and I missed. Lo and behold! I looked again and they had re-appeared, reclaimed from titanium pigment death amid the pink clay.

One of them was a favourite. On my initial ghost sign reconnaissance I walked past it several times, failing to locate it on every occasion as if it were enclosed inside one of writer Douglas Adams' "Someone Else's Problem" fields. Then a few weeks later I walked on by, and it was there, its white letters surely laughing at me.

Letters. Man of letters. I suppose that's what I strive to be. Every so often I read about proper writers, and I get that synaesthetic metal taste in my mouth when I read about serious literature. I think its my brain imagining the taste of the inky hot metal that once upon a day would be used to print books.

I've been re-reading Clive James talking about his literary lunches with Ian McEwan and Christopher Hitchins, drooling over the covers of Ian Hamilton's "Review" magazine, elegantly outlining the poetic and critical content within. Which is hilarious, as I am not poetic and don't do poeting.

I just love the idea of being one I guess, or being a serious Grub Street lit critic.

This probably creates the impression that I worry that this blogging I do is somehow inconsequential. I don't think it is, because if it inspires the odd person to take even the faintest interest in the environment around them, then it is doing its job. If my readers like it or learn something new, so much the better. I wish it was good enough to be one of those blogs that the British Library are preserving forever in some server laden cave somewhere. But we will see.

In the meantime, I shall write some longer essays on a variety of subjects, and home that in some way my words might persist as long as these Newark ghost signs.

Si

Just love this, on Pelham Street

An old pub sign, Kirkgate

Another old pub sign, this one maintained by local heritage department, also Kirkgate

Oddity on Banrbygate

An old bakery, just across from the last one

Change of tack, more Burton's Art Deco...

...with its own "Ghost Brick" to mark it inception!

Newark's Art Deco Heritage

I've had a busy morning, getting what's sort of left of my hair cut and buying new running shoes, but I still managed to fit in a project I've been meaning to for a little while.

Not the ghost signs, that requires more work as they are far more spread out around town and I wasn't planning walking any further away from the town centre than lunch. What I was able to do was actually collate Newark's art deco heritage in one place, on a swift walk around the perimeter of the centre, and bring them to you here.

Art Deco, christened as such by the famous architect Le Corbusier after a 1925 Paris expo showing off  "Arts Decoratifs" is something you've almost certainly seen without perhaps realising it. Characterised by geometric polygon forms, chevrons and starbursts, the world's most famous example is probably the Chrysler Building in New York, completed in 1930. Ocean liners of the time were inspired by its forms. French art deco  "Swallow Clocks" turn up on antiques programmes all the time, nestled amongst the endless Clarice Cliff pottery.

The form in the UK is quite uncommon however, the Daily Express building in Manchester being perhaps the best known example, although I would much rather watch retro aircraft taking off from Shoreham Airport near Brighton for my personal dose of the style.

Newark then, is relatively blessed in having a few surviving examples of the style, preserved due to the heritage status of the town centre. You can walk around the best examples in less than ten minutes.

First up is the Ladbrokes betting shop at one corner. Formerly this was the town job centre but originally was one of the two Burton's shops in the town. As you will see, they have previous in this department.

Leaving the town centre heading North, you pass this absolute dream of a  jewellers shop (psst, not Art Deco but stunning)...

...and arrive at the theoretically not terribly promising frontage of, er, Pound Stretchers. I'm no expert - what, you mean you hadn't realised? - but I wonder if this is an art deco inspired pseudo-column design.

Middlegate boasts probably the town's most stunning example, the glass tower of the old Odeon cinema. We have a new Odeon cinema in Newark that tries to ape the deco style - in fact I can see it out of the library window behind me - but it is nowhere near so attractive. Note one of the UK's last surviving Wimpy bars, an icon of another time period.

Just around the corner there is Marks and Spencer, showing off the classical form of the style. I always find that style of window an absolute deco giveaway.

And then to finish off, the other Burton's in town. I'm told that this design is typical of their stores from the period; apparently the one in Brighton is very similar. I love the window, which reminds me of the "oyster" ice cream wafers much beloved of my grandmother in Scotland.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that little trip through the style heritage of Newark's town centre, with your inexpert guide. Keep looking up, you never know what you might see.

Si