Art Deco in Cumberland

My only visit to the Cumberland town of Whitehaven was on a railway trip in 1979, taking scant interest in the local bus scene. I was therefore unaware of the splendid art deco 1932-built bus station situated on New Road. Closed under Stagecoach, it's future use is uncertain with the site being used for housing being a possibility, although there is a local desire to retain the frontage.

This picture, from a negative in my collection, dates from around 1955, the crew of one of the 1951 all-Leyland PD2s apparently in heated discussion before departure.

Happy Birthday Brent Cross!

Brent Cross Shopping Centre was opened forty years ago today, on 2 March 1976, amid some speculation that it would remain a 'white elephant' and that no-one would want to shop in such an environment. It was the first of it's kind in London, although pre-dated by those in Birmingham (1964) and Leicester (1973), and of course went on to be a great success.

Built on former allotment and waste ground in the London Borough of Barnet, rather than developed from an existing site, this Dixon's commercial postcard shows the centre when quite new with London Transport RML/DMS/SMS types on service in the adjoining bus station.

The Highlanders' Institute

This organisation was formed after the First War as a meeting place for young men and women from the Highlands and Islands to meet and socialize in Glasgow. The original premises in Elmbank Street was too small by the 1950s which resulted in the building that opened at 34 Berkeley Street on 19 October, 1961.

The site was earlier a United Presbyterian church, demolished in the 1930s and a dance hall built on the site, the Institute being a rebuilding of this.

Looking very much a product of it's time, the architect was William Hamilton Sanders (c.1914-2014) and was completed for £75,000. 

By 1979 it had become a casino, being demolished in 2004, making way for flats.

This rather creased leaflet was issued for the opening ceremony; I must admit to finding the building quite striking, although perhaps poor construction hastened it's demise.

Housing war-workers

This scheme for housing for war-workers was designed by Geoffrey Jellico F.I.R.B.A. in 1942 and drawn by Margaret Whittington for The Englishmans's Castle, by John Gloag, published in 1945. Gloag was very critical of modernist housing, describing such buildings as what the architects thought the people ought to want, rather than what they would actually like. He disliked Art Deco, which has since developed an enthusiastic following, seeing such concrete boxes as bleak and comfortless. What did he subsequently make of 1960s brutalism, I wonder?!