Blog – Page 6 – Where is Phil now?

Brutalist Brunel University

Saturday 06 April 2024 – Uxbridge, west London.

Uxbridge station was a surprise modernist bonus; and what a lovely station; so much better than the old, grimy and grim station at Leytonstone where I live. It would be fun to have 30 mins here without passengers wandering past wondering why five people were pointing cameras.

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Uxbridge was really busy, lots of shops and seemingly well frequented by shoppers and pedestrians, it’s too suburban and not my sort of place, but it was good to see a busy shopping area. We popped round the corner from the station to catch a bus for the 10 minute ride out to Brunel University. There nice building over the road from the bus stop was an additional treat to be had while we waited for the bus.

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The main reason for coming all the way out west was to have a look at the university’s lecture centre which is a proper brutalist masterpiece. Designed by John Heywood, the centre opened in 1971. Apparently it has had been undergoing maintenance recently so we timed it well, avoiding any lingering scaffold or hoardings. It really is a beauty; small yet perfectly formed. It, along with a couple of other Brunel buildings, particularly Tower D, feature in Stanley Kubrick’s ultra-violent dystopian ‘A Clockwork Orange’ film.

I quite liked this sculpture by Philip Whitten to celebrate the Shoreditch College’s golden jubilee in 1969.

After cooing over some lovely concrete and resting with a refreshing coffee and snack from a conveniently open student café we walked around the rest of the small campus and took a few photos of some of the other 1960s constructed buildings, including Tower D. There was a lot more of interest than we expected, which made for some very happy photographers of 60s and 70s concrete. Probably worth a proper Brutal Day Out and some stage.

Next, back to Uxbridge and carparks…

Brutalist Harrow

Saturday 06 April 2024 – Harrow, west London.

It’s been quite a while since I schlepped out to far west London, it’s definitely not been in the last five years at least and to be fair I’d no need to go there, until today. It wasn’t really a need either, I wanted to get out of the house, and visiting Uxbridge to take photographs of the John Heywood designed lecture theatre at Brunel University that features, among other Brunel buildings, in Kubrick’s dystopian masterpiece ‘A Clockwork Orange’ seemed like a good thing to do. I popped a question on the brutalist architecture Instagram group I belong to to see if anyone was interested in coming along as well and five of us took the hour long journey out west. There will be more on Brunel in the next post as I ended up taking too many photos to fit nicely into one.

As we were travelling all that way out we decided to take in the Harrow Civic Centre and a ‘nice’ concrete underpass in Harrow-on-the-Hill, both of which make up the photos in this post.

Disappointingly, and unknown to us when we left London, Harrow Civic Centre is being demolished to make way for some new developments and the downsize of the council’s office space. The entire building was surrounded by slightly too high to photograph over hoardings. Opened in 1973 the imposing concrete building apparently has a ceramic mural on the first floor comprising of 1000 photos of Harrow. I imagine it would have been really impressive and it hope it doesn’t get destroyed when the building is knocked down.

Most of the photos I took are of the top half of the building and I had a slight obsession with the security cameras.

I understand why some of these ‘older’ buildings need to be replaced, I imagine they are costly to retrofit to modern needs, are not cheap to maintain or heat and cool, but I can bet the main reason it’s coming down is people think it’s ugly. I suspect what ever gets built to replace will be even uglier.

Moving on from the centre of Harrow we walked to nearby Harrow-on-the-Hill to get the train to Uxbridge; and to take a few photos of an underpass. I suspect people think we’re odd. We stopped to take some photos on the way… Architecturally this part of west London is very different to the part of east London I live in. There are similarities of course, both are quite clearly suburban England, but to the local they look and I suspect, feel, quite different.

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We also had the unexpected bonus of a carpark behind the shopping centre with a really fine orbital ramp, one that was very different to the carpark we visit in Uxbridge later in the day.

We stopped for the obligatory group photo in the underpass before walking to the station. I don’t know much about the underpass, or even what the road system is that passes overhead, but it’s quite nice is seemingly well patrolled as there was none of that commingled stench of weed and piss that you would imagine for such a place.

The band

Beer

Monday 25 March – Beer, Devon.

It’s been almost a year since I’ve driven a car and God knows how many since I last drove a manual gear shift. I have to say I didn’t particularly enjoy the time on the road over last two days, though at least the rental car was easy to drive and comfortable and the journey to and back from Devon was without incident.

Gill, Eleanor’s only sibling and older sister moved to America with her now late and ex husband, Jack, in the mid-eighties. Jack passed away at the end of last year and the family wanted to bring his ashes back to the UK to be scattered in the sea off Devon. Gill, her three adult children and Jack’s new wife and some friends had come to the UK from all over the US to gather together for a Sunday evening meal with Jack’s English family in a pub in Beer; a small fishing village miles from nowhere in rural coastal Devon, not far from where Jack grew up. Dinner was followed by a brief ash scattering ceremony on the beach below the pub.

Holding the event in Beer meant I had to drive as Eleanor has never learned and public transport was going to be difficult if not impossible on a Sunday. We also took Eleanor’s son and their partner as they also don’t drive.

I collected the rental car on Saturday afternoon and we left for Devon at 10:00 on Sunday morning. Living in North East London and heading south west meant traversing the city. The M25 London orbital motorway was partly closed for road works, annoyingly in the direction we wanted to travel, so we had to resort to using the A406, the infamous London North Circular; my least favourite road in London. Naturally there was an accident somewhere and the sat nav sent us and loads of other cars down a string of now jammed residential side streets. This is why I hate driving. It took 90 minutes to clear London and finally get on the open road. At least it wasn’t raining.

To be fair it wasn’t a terrible drive, there was expected traffic as we passed Stonehenge, but I’m never going to complain about driving slowly past such a remarkable place. We arrived in Beer just before 3, in time to check into our room in the pub where the meal was being held and get a quick stroll on the beach before the 4 o’clock gathering.

Beer is small, but bigger than I recalled from the last time I passed through here in 2012; to be fair to me at the time I was over halfway through the 56km coastal run I did for my 50 birthday and wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the shape and size of each town I passed through.

We were staying in the Anchor Inn, right on the sea front and had a room overlooking the sea which was fabulous; the view, the room was average.

We ditched out bags and nipped out for a stroll on the beach before meeting Eleanor’s family. Like Hastings, Beer is a working fishing beach, though significantly smaller than Hastings, which has the largest beach launched fishing fleet in Europe; I think, its definitely the largest in England!

After the walk and a sneaky Devon ice cream in the sun we joined the large family group in the bar of the hotel for an early meal and some beer, t would be rude not to drink beer in Beer. I enjoyed meeting and spending some time with Eleanor’s wider family who we don’t see often at all. Maybe a trip to America in the near future is on the cards?

Fed and watered (beered in my case) we all went down to the beach as the evening descended to toast Jack’s life and for the family to scatter his ashes into the sea. I didn’t know Jack, so after raising a glass to his memory I stood back and let his family and friends say their farewell.

As predicted the wind increased in the middle of the night and with it came the rain. The bed was quite small and with the noisy weather battering the sea front window on the other side of the room I had a relatively sleepless night.

It was still raining when we left in the morning and the rain stayed with us for the first hour of driving. It wasn’t fun, but at least we didn’t hit any real traffic on the way back to London and made it back in reasonable time.

I’m not going to rush to drive again, but will have to rent a car to head back to the south west for a tiny music festival I’m attending in Glastonbury in July; but not ‘that’ music festival.

Caledonian Sleeper to Glasgow

Saturday 20 January 2024 – Glasgow, Scotland.

‘We’re Mogwai, from Glasgow, Scotland’ is the first thing that pops into my head whenever I think about Scotland’s second city. Mogwai have been a favourite band for many years and I’m fairly certain that Stuart Braithwaite, the band ‘leader’, says this at every gig. I’ve not visited Glasgow before and I’ve not been on the Caledonian Sleeper train either, so when it was announced there would be a heavy January discount on London Euston to Scotland journeys I booked us a cabin.

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With so much disruption with Sunday trains and with Eleanor not working on a Friday we’ve mostly taken to moving our weekend forward a day and travelling out after work on a Thursday and back on Saturday. Not having to contemplate Sunday trains is relieves a little bit of stress.

The sleeper train leaves Euston at 23:45 though you can access your cabin from 22:30, so we boarded soon after arriving at the station, had a quick nosey around our tiny cabin then popped out for a glass of wine in one of the lounge carriages until we were well under way. It’s a most civilised way to travel.

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We sat in the lounge for an hour or so as we slowly moved through north London, before speeding up as we left the capital. We headed to bed soon after, not expecting much sleep; and little sleep is what we had. I had forgotten the noise and motion on a sleeper train. The bed was small, but not uncomfortable and my night, while largely sleepless wasn’t too bad. I enjoyed the experience of journeying as I ‘slept’ and arriving in a new city is always exciting.

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We had an alarm set for 6:45 but it wasn’t needed, and though we had a shower in our cabin we chose to not chance get everything wet and went and had breakfast and coffee in the lounge instead; it was included in the price and it was better than OK; this was a train after all and were not travelling first class.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Glasgow. The view from the outside, especially from as far as New Zealand was never rosy; grime, crime, the collapse of industry, the Gorballs; and other housing estates, heroin, poverty, alcoholism, domestic and gang violence. You get the picture, and it wasn’t a pretty one. Things changed significantly over the last few years after massive investment in the city and improvement to housing, job opportunities and the types of jobs on offer. However, we’re in the midst of a cost of living crisis and fringe cities that are recovering often see the first stages of decline. I hadn’t fully formed expectations when we arrived.

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It was raining when we stepped out of the station into the dark of 7:20 am winter Scotland. I wasn’t surprised, and almost welcomed the gloom, though the rain was heavier than expected or I wanted. We stopped for coffee in a Café Nero directly opposite the station exit and waited until the worst of the rain had passed before walking the 20 minutes to our hotel. here was an unexpected hill. I don’t know why, but I had I thought Glasgow was flat. There was a light covering of ice covered snow on the ground in some places which made walking up the short but steep hill a bit tentative.

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I don’t often shout out to businesses, that isn’t the purpose of this blog, but there are always exceptions and it’s my blog so I can do what I want. We arrived at Hotel Dakota about 8am, seven hours before check in, but our room was ready and available so they invited us to check in and make use of the room, which we very gratefully accepted. In my experience this is rare, usually you can dump a bag in a storage room and be sent off until check-in time. We got to have a wee nap and a very hot shower in before heading out later in the morning; when things were actually open.

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We walked about 17 kilometres today, from one side of the city centre to the other starting with a walk down a fairly non-descript main road in, at times. quite heavy windblown rain to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, fortunately the rain didn’t last long and the rest of the day was reasonably dry.

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Kelvingrove Gallery and Museum

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The gallery and museum were OK, I don’t think we were really in the mood for a lot of history, though we did read a little about the architectural and design history of the city and were inspired to go to the Willow Tea Room later in the day. The park was really nice, especially with the pre-grey slush remains of a light dusting of snow.

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The tea room was designed by renown Glaswegian architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh and is his last surviving tea room. It originally opened in 1903 and has recently been returned to its former glory. It’s lovely inside, though sadly, none of my photos worked. We stopped in for a glass of wine and the largest of scones and just enjoyed being somewhere so nice. The section of Sauchiehall Street where the tea room resides is pretty grim mind.

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Sauchiehall Street stretches from the large and tidy houses of Kelvingrove; a lot were funded by those involved in the slave trade, through to the centre of the city and a newish John Lewis dominated shopping mall. Both ends of the street are quite nice, but the middle is a bit faded and jaded if you know what I mean. The Sauchiehall Street highlight for me was the beautiful Beresford Tower, absolutely gorgeous.

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I had to pass through George Square because Mogwai have a track called ‘George Square Thatcher Death Party’ named after hundreds of Glaswegians partied in the square on the news of the death of UK ex prime minister Margaret Thatcher. I can’t possibly comment on the appropriateness of celebrating Thatcher’s death in such an exuberant way, and then writing a song to celebrate the celebration.

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In front of the museum of modern art is a statue of the Duke of Wellington that is internationally known for pretty much always having a traffic cone, or two or three, on his head, this has been the case since the 1980s and apparently it inspired Banksy. It’s a work of modern art.

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We were flagging by the time we got into the gallery, so had a quick meander round a couple of floors before deciding we’d had enough and took a slow walk back to the hotel. We particularly liked that the museum had the same Ikea chairs that I have in my flat.

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We had dinner at a really nice vegetarian restaurant back in Kelvingrove and after a wee dram in the hotel bar collapsed into bed for a well deserved sleep, as I said earlier we’d walked 17kms today.

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Saturday morning was wet and cold and we had a lunch time train back to London. We took a late, leisurely and ludicrously expensive breakfast in the hotel before leaving. Thankfully it was nice. We walked back to the station via the River Clyde, something we failed to do yesterday, given how massively important the river is to Glasgow’s history. We also passed the only brutalist building I’ve seen in Glasgow, and it was surrounded by fences so this was a close I got.

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The train journey back to London was OK, it’s five hours and it wasn’t the sleeper so it wasn’t as ‘luxurious’ as the journey north. I enjoyed the trip, the sleeper was something I’ve wanted to do for a while and I’m glad I’ve knocked it off the list, and it was a good experience too.

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Brutal Day Out #7 – Bloomsbury

Sunday 14 January 2024 – Bloomsbury, London.

I’m going to claim all the credit for this most excellent Brutal Day Out photography walk. I posted on the group Instagram chat that I was going to go to Bloomsbury in central London to photograph the University College London’s two brutalist buildings; the School of Oriental and African Studies library and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. I said that if people wanted to join me that would be great, the group organisers then turned into an ‘official’ walk and it was given the number 7. This is not a paid group or walk so I wasn’t put out by this at all, though they did drop the Royal College of Physicians from my list to add three other buildings that made more geographic sense. This was no bad thing as I wouldn’t have visited the Standard and it was great.

However, I chose to do a side trip to the Royal College of Physicians before we met at Kings Cross station as it was only a 20 minute walk away on the edge of Regents Park. I’m glad I did as it’s quite a cool building.

A quick note for anyone stumbling across this post looking for useful information on the buildings I photographed. There isn’t any; useful information that is, there are photos though.

Royal College of Physicians, opened in 1964, designed by Denys Lasdun.

I’ve been meaning to come here to photograph this building for a while and visited it briefly a couple of evenings ago before meeting friends for a drink nearby. I rarely come to this part of London. On that visit I was hoping for some interesting external lighting, but it was too dark and the rain was heavy and the light was poor so a daytime visit seemed like the right thing to do, so I just went to the pub.

Back at Kings Cross I grabbed a coffee and met the rest of the 13 strong group, surprisingly most were on time and we didn’t have to wait long for the last straggler to turn up. Having people join from all over the shop, including two from Manchester, and with increasingly unreliable public transport, means patience is sometimes required.

Our first building was almost directly over the road, the lovely ex-Camden Council head office building, now the Standard Hotel. I really like this building, though have to actually go inside. If I did I would want to be able to use the lift.

The Standard Hotel, originally built in 1974 for Camden Council, fully remodelled as a hotel, opening again in 2019.

The Brunswick Centre, opened in 1972.

Mixed use residential and retail this estate was supposed to be bigger than it is but the developers couldn’t get all the land they wanted, which (familiar story) means they had to change the original plan of building a private estate and bring the council (Camden at the time) in to help out. It was subsequently opened as part private and part council housing, and remains that way now, which I think is a good thing, though it needs a lot of money spending on it by the look of it.

I was very lucky to be invited into the residential block by a resident who saw me walking around with my camera and told me there was a great view of London from the top floor. There was, but I was more interested in the lovely concrete angles.

Some of my walk mates got invited in to look at someone’s flat which I remain a bit jealous of, though apparently it wasn’t that interesting. I have visions of residents maintaining a flat like a museum of 1970s interiors, though of course reality isn’t like that. I’m going to back one quiet Sunday morning and take some photos of the street level window boxes outside some of the flats.

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Imperial Hotel, under renovation.
I found some fabulous old phones in the carpark. Always check the carpark is my policy.

University College London.
These buildings were quite difficult to photograph, or at least I found them to be. I took a few images but wasn’t really happy with the most of them. The buildings are big, and there isn’t a vast amount of space to get a decent angle to shoot that doesn’t end up making the building look really weird, and fixing in Lightroom wouldn’t really work either.

Charles Clore House, (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies), Denys Lasdun, 1976.

The Philips Building (SOAS Library), Denys Lasdun, 1973.

Denys Lasdun featured a lot today, amongst other things he also designed the fabulous brutalist parts of the University of East Anglia in Norwich and the National Theatre on London’s Southbank. He is my favourite of the English based ‘brutalist’ architects.

It was starting to get a bit cold and we had been on our feet for 4 half hours so it was time to nip to the pub for a refreshing pint or two. It was another very enjoyable day out. One of the photographers who has been on all the walks had brought along a child’s camera, which uses till receipt thermal paper for instant black and white printing. I subsequently bought this one for next time and I’m really looking forward to trying it out on some lovely concrete.

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The Barbican

Saturday 6 January 2024 – Barbican, London

Happy New Year!

Another year has ended and a fresh one has begun; maybe this one will be better than the last, or maybe it will be worse, who knows? Not me. There’s an extra day this year so that could be the impetus for something positive happening; like an election in May for instance, and after 14 years we can have a more caring government in the UK.

Anyway, to be more positive; I’ve booked or planned quite a few activities for 2024 and already had two booked for January (A brutal day out and a first visit to Glasgow) before I last minute booked a two hour guided tour of the Barbican for Eleanor and I. I love the Barbican. It’s close to, if not the, top of the list of my favourite places in London. I love the architecture, the design and the build of the theatre and art centre, that its clean and tidy, that the cafes and bars are decent, albeit not cheap, and that there is no hassle from security for photographers. The last point being the most important.

The tour started at 3:00pm and there were about a dozen ‘tourists’, our guide was the best I’ve ever experienced. Knowledgeable, interesting and engaging; but not over the top, if you know what I mean. I really enjoyed the walk and learned a few things, most of which I’ve already forgotten. To be fair this isn’t supposed to be an architecture blog, though I guess it must feel like that sometimes; and yes the next post is also going to be loaded with photos of buildings made of concrete. I seem to have turned into a city-scape photographer. Roll on more travel in 2024.

We started the tour with a brief history of the estate and an introduction to the architects who designed the complex, a lot more of its interesting history was shared as we walked and the guide had some great photos from the past. The most interesting part of the introduction was the choice of materials used to surface the buildings. The original design called for white marble tiles, but the architects managed to dissuade the council who own the estate that concrete was the way to go; in polluted rainy 1950/60s London marble was not going to stay white and unstained for very long.

In a short passage behind a locked door was a concrete ‘sample board’; a long wall of different styles of concrete panels. This was used to influence the chosen ‘skin’ for all the buildings. We also learned that the concrete panels were cast on site then hand battered and drilled to provide the textured surface we see today. It was horrifically expensive in man hours and extremely damaging to the health of the men that did the battering and drilling.

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As the tour was quite late in the day, and it’s winter in London, daylight disappeared quite soon after we started. I took a few photos as we went, but ended up shooting so slowly it was hard to retain any focus. Having said that I have taken loads of photos here in the past, and am sure I will do so again so I wasn’t too concerned. I would quite like to come back for a night shoot, but suspect those friendly security folk will take a different view if tripods were involved. I’m going to add it to the list of possible shoots to do with my brutalist photography buddies.

So here are a small number of Barbican photos. The first camera outing of the year; there will be a few I hope. I’m planning on replacing my camera this year as I’m sick of lugging an old Canon 5d around with me. I love it as a camera, but it’s heavy and big and it’s time to downsize.

Horizon 22

Sunday 19 November 2023 – London.

Horizon 22 is the viewing area on the 58^th floor of 22 Bishopsgate, a 61 storey commercial tower in the heart of the City of London. Construction of the tower finished in 2020, though Horizon 22 only opened to the public at the end of September 2023. It is the highest public viewing platform in Europe, it’s magnificent, and it’s free; though you have to book tickets online.

The whole experience is very well managed, access is controlled, but there are loads of friendly staff herding the cat-like visitors and the viewing floor is vast and a work of architectural art in itself. The lift takes 40 seconds, is very quiet and mostly smooth.

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I could have been quite happy just taking photos of the viewing area. That is the top of The Shard, London’s tallest building poking up in the middle of the windows. I very much appreciated that this huge viewing area is not overloaded with visitors, so you can choose the view you want.

The viewing area has views over three-quarters of London, sadly the view out to the north east where we live is the bit that is missing. The views are stunning.

We were lucky that we had a clearish day, apparently the day before all you could see was cloud, and we did get some lovely light.

My feet are not this big; definitely a trick of the camera.

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Horizon 22 is a hard recommend for anyone, local or visitor. Book your free ticket, it’s worth it.

Brutal Day Out – Bethnal Green

Saturday 25 November 2023 – Bethnal Green, London.

One month until Christmas, wow, where has this year gone? I’m sure I’ve said it on numerous occasions in the past but the older I get the quicker the years go by. Sadly the same can’t be said for working days and weeks, they drag interminably. It’s now Christmas Eve eve, Eleanor is at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium watching Spurs beat Everton 2-1 and I’m home in the warmth drinking a large gin and tonic, listening to The Stooges and finalising this post. A win-win for both of us.

This was the fourth Brutal Day Out walk I’ve attended and it was the biggest yet, with 13 walkers, which made the group too big. Organising photographers is like herding cats and I liked it best when there was only half a dozen of us. It’s cool that the original group still come as I like all of them (a rare thing), and there are always good folk in the extended group, but it does make it slow going.

These walks are a good opportunity to see parts of London that most would not normally visit; housing estates for instance; and these were the focus of the walk today. There are a lot of 1960/70 estates in east London. We ended up being invited inside two tower blocks and made our way into a third by following someone in. All three we visited had the most incredible staircases, these buildings may look a bit drab and square and concrete on the outside, but the interiors are quite beautiful, as beautiful as concrete and basic function can get anyway. The first block we entered we were invited by an elderly resident who saw us outside with our cameras and phones and said we had to come in and look at the stairs, and they were pretty cool.

We met outside Mile End tube station, it’s a lovely clear day but very cold, and there is a biting wind, I’m glad I wrapped up warm. The light is a little harsh for architecture photography, or at least my type of architecture photography, but it’s nice to be outside under a a clear sky, it feels like it’s been a long time. Once the group had assembled we crossed the road and walked to our first destination, the Lakeview Estate, opposite Victoria Park. I was surprised to find it was so close to Mile End station; it’s good to be reminded that walking is the best way to learn how a city hangs together.

None of the buildings we visited today were brutalist masterpieces, at least that was the case from the outside and the Lakeview Building typified that. These buildings see the birth of the age of modernism in building construction. Designed in 1958 by the pioneering modernist architect, Berthold Lubetkin, for the then Bethnal Green Council it is an early example of how simple design and construction can be made into something aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes you need to look past the ‘bit ugly tower block’ and look for the details. Lubetkin’s work features a lot on this walk today.

I particularly liked the way the sun came though the open passages between the stairwell and the flats; I may have been moaning about the harsh sun earlier, but the way it caught the steam rising from a gas boiler vent was a highlight for me.

Our next stop was the nearby Cranbrook Estate, another Lubetkin design, though this was a much large estate than Lakeview, comprising of six low rise towers and a series of small blocks making up 529 homes. It opened in 1963.

After walking around taking photos of exteriors we were regrouping outside Modling House when one of the residents arrived home.

She asked what we were doing and once we told her we were interested in architecture she invited us into the building to look at the stairs, ‘because they’re lovely’. They were, though I’m not happy with the photos I managed to get of them.

13 photographers milling about in a small space does make it difficult. I was also conscious that this place is home for lots of people and just because we were welcomed in by one resident didn’t make us welcome by all. We took up a lot of space in the lobby, which in itself was photo-worthy. I like the clean lines and uniformity of the lobby which are verging on ‘Wes Anderson’-ish. Lovely.

The next two stops were quick, single towers, fenced off, similar in style and both designed by Denys Landon. The first is Trevelyan House.

The second is Keeling House; very similar in design to Trevelyn House, but with added scaffold.

Sivill House on Columbia Rd was my favourite building of the day, it wasn’t overly interesting to look at from the side we arrived on, with just a 19 storey brick cliff face with windows, though the other side of the building with its curved stairwell exposed was much more interesting. Completed in 1962 it’s another fine Lubetkin designed construction.

As with Modeling House earlier in the day we were invited inside to have a look at the stairs by one of the residents, though the stairwell is completely different; a 19 storey tightly wound circular staircase that would make anyone dizzy running down.

At the behest of the resident we took the lift to the 19^th floor to take a look down the lift shaft and to take in the amazing view from the top. I would have liked to explore this building a bit more, it looks fun.

Our last stop was the least inspiring for me, or at least the exterior was. However, James Bryne had the maddest staircase I’ve ever seen. I tried to take a photo of it from below but it didn’t work very well, there seemed to be loads of interconnecting short stair cases crisscrossing all over the show. It looked very confusing from underneath. I just took a photo of the entrance instead. It was way less mind boggling. The architects really were into curvy concrete stairs in the 50 and 60s, and I like that a lot.

From James Byrne house most of us went to a pub near Liverpool Street Station, I had a swift pint and then caught the tube back home. It was a good day out and I took an awful lot of photos!

Clifton Cathedral

Sunday 12 November 2023 – Bristol.

Eleanor’s youngest son and his partner moved from London to Bristol at the end of summer, his partner had recently joined me as a civil servant, but in another government department, and in Cardiff. They had been thinking about moving there for a while, it’s a city they know well and life there is much cheaper than London. It’s a city I feel fondly about too. This was to be our first visit to their lovely, slightly mad flat in the very nice suburb of Totterdown, near one of the steepest residential streets in England. It is certainly very steep!

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We caught the train down after work on Friday and came back early Sunday afternoon. In what seems to be the norm these days the Sunday journey was the least enjoyable due to cancelled and delayed trains causing our train to be over busy. We were lucky and managed to get seats for both journeys.

After a leisurely breakfast on Saturday morning we visited Bristol’s most visited area, Clifton; and not for of its famous bridge, nor for the loads of small independent shops, though we did do both of those as well. We went because I wanted to take some photos of Clifton Cathedral; Bristol’s Brutalist masterpiece.

Consecrated in 1973, Clifton Cathedral is a magnificent construction with one of the most unusual and beautiful spires I’ve seen. Between 1962 and 1965 the Second Vatican Council met in Rome to discuss the place of the church in the modern world. It was decided that the church needed to be closer to the people it served and this decision played a key part in the brave design of this building with the 1000 strong congregation much closer to the high altar. Sadly the doors were locked and I was unable to look inside.

Built in the ‘brutalist’ style out of precast concrete the building is all harsh angles and sheer walls. Many assume the word ‘brutalist’ has its root in the English word ‘brutal’, and in many cases there is clear argument that some brutalist buildings are quite brutal. However, the origins of ‘brutalist’ goes back to 1950s, to the French architect le Corbusier and the phrase ‘beton brut’, which translates to ‘raw concrete’. The cathedral is certainly that. It was also really hard to photograph, especially in the savage light that morning.

After stopping for a much needed coffee in a Clifton arcade that was extremely busy we walked up to the famous swing bridge. I’ve been here on numerous occasions before and always like visiting, it’s a marvellous structure; and it looks lovely backed with the autumnal trees.

As the evening dark descended we walked down from the heights of Totterdown to Bristol waterfront to find somewhere to eat. I was really surprised at how busy it was, everywhere was packed and we even found it hard to find a bar with a free table.

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Though I was wrapped up, I wasn’t wrapped up well enough and was quite cold all night, definitely not wanting to be sitting outside over a drink. We wandered around town a bit eventually finding a small Chinese noodle house where we had one of the best Chinese meals I’ve had in a long time, and with the restaurant not being licensed it was cheap to.

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The next day we had a late breakfast at a local ‘greasy spoon’ café and then schlepped back to London on an overcrowded train. We’re looking forward to going back to see more of Bristol, and I’m keen to visit Stokes Croft and St Pauls and the places I stayed in when my daughter lived here 10 years ago.

Florence to Pisa to London

Saturday 21 October 2023 – London.

Our last day in Florence and our last day in Italy, for this trip at least. I’m very keen on coming back as this has been a fantastic break and I’ve loved exploring Pisa and Florence. In some ways it was good we awoke to the forecasted heavy rain. I suspect if it had been gloriously sunny leaving would have been so much harder.

With a downpour going on outside and an evening flight back to London we took the morning slow; a lie in, followed by a big slow breakfast in the hotel, before checking out as close to tossing out time as possible. Departing the hotel fortunately coincided with a break in the rain. I loved the hotel, it was comfy and stylish and served lovely wine at a very nice price and the staff were lovely, I can see why Clive Myrie stayed here when filming in Florence. We chose to walk to the station as it was only 20 minutes away and we didn’t want a repeat of the bus related drama we had when we arrived. We made it to the station in time to get coffee and and a short wait for a train back to Pisa.

We had some loose good weather plans for the day, but they were immediately scrapped when we arrived in Pisa as it was absolutely hammering down, possibly the heaviest rain I’ve experienced in years. We had chosen to come back to Pisa earlier than needed as there is a left luggage office at the station, what we weren’t expecting was a 30 minute queue, luckily with seven rainy hours to kill we weren’t in any rush.

As we’d only been here a few days ago we knew there was a burger restaurant opposite the Keith Haring mural and that both the restaurant and mural were only 100 yards or so from the station. We waited in the very crowded station concourse for the worst of the downpour to stop before making a dash through a sadly washed out food and wine festival to get inside the restaurant before the rain came again.

We managed to draw out eating, what was a very nice burger, and drinking a glass of wine long enough for the heavy clouds to pass and some clear sky to appear. We were a bit damp, but so were most of the other customers who had also made a wet dash to the front door.

We walked across the River Arno and into the old town and walked around listlessly for while. We’re not good with killing time when we know there is a flight or an important train journey coming up; though there weren’t earlier flights with BA to book so it was what it was.

The rain appeared again, not so heavily this time, but we had had enough by then, so we crossed back across the river and walked up the main shopping street. This time I found a shop that sold corduroy trousers I liked, that actually fitted and weren’t way outside my budget. I bought a pair (and unlike some other holiday purchases I still like them now, almost two months later).

After killing a bit more time over a glass of wine in a small bar we collected our bags from left luggage and caught the tram to the airport. We were mega early, but once checked in settled for a couple of large slabs of pizza and more wine in the extremely over-crowded departure lounge. I was fortunate to spot a couple leaving one of the bar tables and manage to grab it before anyone else, so we actually had somewhere to sit, though stupidly I left my coat on the seat when we left to get on the plane. It did give me an excuse to buy a new one a few weeks later.

It was an absolutely lovely holiday. I know I always say this and I always fall in love with every town we stay in, but Florence is something special. If only I could do this all the time!