Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Tiles revealed

As a pendant to my previous post about my favourite Art Nouveau shop front in Cirencester, here’s a detail from another shop in the same town that I noticed recently. The tiles were revealed to me when I looked at this frontage closely for the first time. Again, the style of the tiles seems influenced by the Art Nouveau movement – the curvy forms, drawing on leaves, stalks, and perhaps flowers or sepals are typical of the period just after the year 1900.They form a lovely touch, probably not noticed by many, but they add a welcome a splash of colour and pattern to an already quite ornate frontage.

As you can see, even from my photograph of this small detail, the shop front has some elaborate woodwork – that carved pendant inside an openwork box resting on a scroll console, top right, is especially ornate. The window frame, too, features some impressive carpentry, including the curved and moulded glazing bars in the top part of the window, just visible in the upper left area of the photograph. More winning details on a little-noticed facade at the end of a busy shopping street. And the reflection in the window doubles the decoration – here’s to added value!