Well spent
Small things matter. A gents in a city centre, for example. Designed with some care, as if to suggest pride in a civic amenity, rather than shame at bodily functions. Somebody in Worcester made an effort.
So what have we got? A winning mixture of the showy and the practical. Glazed bricks cover the lower portion of the wall (just visible in the photograph above) with a careful curve at the doorway, as if to be kind to stumble-bums who make contact with the masonry while entering in haste. A mixture of red bricks and buff dressings, with their suggestion of richness, articulate the upper area of the wall. Mullioned windows and a decorated parapet are testimony to that blend of influences often found in buildings of the years on either side of 1900. Above the doorway, there’s another mixture – a keystone topped, and trumped, by lettering in a raised panel headed with a curving moulding. The lettering is big, but not too big, ornate, but not too fancy – the curved side of the A and the generous loop of the R seeming to give a hint of a memory of Art Nouveau. Civic pride is reinforced by the coat of arms further along the wall, in its panel that sets it off from the parapet and raises it slightly above.
Modernity, in the shape of a poorly positioned down pipe and hopper head and two little square signs, intrudes, but not too much. This small building is still an ornament to the street. Worcester’s pennies were not so badly spent.
Brilliant use of architecture! Spending a penny is often a humiliating and degrading experience, even in some towns that are otherwise quite decorous. It is difficult for staff to keep badly-built afterthoughts, with no windows, clean and sweet, although some valiant heroes and heroines do try! Also, some conveniences are inconveniently difficult to find, because they have no architectural presence. But my favourites are still the halftimbered loo on Clifton Down and the one next to the Clifton Suspension Bridge, both in Bristol. It is necessary for all towns, big and small, to have loos: why not regard that necessity as an aesthetic opportunity? Or am I just a dreamer?
ReplyDeleteBlimey, two words together you don't get much of these days 'Gentlemen's' and 'Lavatory'. And a superb pic.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Peter. The first time we passed this loo, we both stood back in admiration – both at the design and the fact that they included the apostrophe too!
ReplyDeleteJoseph: Thanks also. I agree: it would be good to see more and better public lavatories. I'm glad to be reminded about the half-timbered one on Clifton Down, which I'd forgotten about. Will have to visit next time I pass through Bristol. This is a subject that I'm sure will repay further investigation...
ReplyDeleteI'd recommend going to the Edwardian council toilet outside the Junction pub in Harborne, Birmingham, it's all in ironwork, and is listed.
ReplyDeleteI think the Junction was always a pub so I guess it was to reduce outside business.
If you're there it's also worth going to the Bear in Bearwood to see the bears poking their heads out the cupula