This first photo is of the magnificent Spirella Building which was created between 1912 and 1920 as the UK manufacturing base of the famous Spirella Corset Company. It was once known as Castle Corset! From 1939-45 war interfered with production and Spirella manufactured parachutes and decoding machinery instead. In 1994 Letchworth Garden City Corporation purchased the Spirella Building and a few years later work on the £11m restoration of the building started. Today the Grade II Listed Building is a multi-tenanted business complex with fitness club, ballroom and cafe. This photo is of only a small section of the building which occupies a prominent place near the town centre.
The former Town Hall with it's clock tower for some reason reminds me of the town hall in 'Back to the Future'.
When the garden city was created in the early 1900's there was, most unusual for a British town, a ban on selling alcohol in public premises. This ban was lifted after a referendum in 1958, but to this day the town centre has less than half-a-dozen pubs including The Hogs Head photographed below which was previously the old Eastern Electric showrooms. The metal sculpture things in front of the pub have been installed recently as part of a controversial town centre improvement initiative
The 1930s Broadway Cinema is now a multi screen cinema.
The Nexus Building is a 1960s office development, formerly used by ICL, who left during the 80's. After several years being loaned to various branches of the council, or left empty a large bulldozer turned up and ripped a lot of it down, all the windows were taken out and the whole thing gutted. The refurbished building is now occupied by various companies.
This final sign displaying the name of a small second hand shop made me chuckle.
1 comment:
What lovely urban photos Karen. I have never been to Letchworth - it looks a nice place. I love the junk & disorderly sign too!
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