I have been inside this building once. Not that I was accused of anything – I was called for jury duty. And there’s a curious tale there.

The details of the charge were read out (I forget now what it was – a minor drugs offence, perhaps) before the jurors were chosen. After the ballot, the successful/unlucky ones were asked if there was any reason why they could not try the case.

One woman stood up and said she couldn’t. On being asked why not she said, “I saw the accused … emmm ….” but did not finish her sentence, though her implication was clearly that she had seen the accused act in a criminal way.

The sheriff did not question her about it but merely told her she could go and another juror was chosen. It obviously had not occurred to him that her reason may not have been valid and that she may just have been trying to avoid jury service.

But a more important thought struck me. Hadn’t what she said possibly prejudiced the jury against the accused?

I don’t know if it did since I didn’t see the outcome of the case as the sheriff immediately then dismissed the other potential jurors. I had not been chosen so I left for home.

The Sheriff Court has a nice setting off the same square as Kirkcaldy Town House.

However, a less cropped picture shows the extension (built in the 1970s?)

What on Earth were they thinking? The two parts do not match at all.

Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court also used to feature in the BBC Scotland comedy series Chewin’ the Fat, though in name only as it was filmed in any likely location.

Here’s one of the clips.

Another extract (less suitable for work) is here. It features a Victorian building which isn’t, though, Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court.

There are typical strong horizontals accentuated by the painting scheme. The thin white lines are a nice touch. Pity the replacement windows don’t follow Art Deco style.

Just a gap site away is this minor deco pair of shops.

Two more photos of Home Connections are on my flickr.

I first saw this and was struck by it as a young teenager. I took the opportnity to photograph it when I was at Cliftonhill a few weeks ago. (It’s not far from Coatbridge.) The modern additions (to the right above) spoil it a bit.

This is a zoom on the central part.

I tried motoring round the estate but it was fenced off with signs and stuff. There was a road up the left hand side, though, so I got this:-

I really wanted to get closer to the entrance block round the front. The guys at the gatehouse told me you needed permission for photos from the grounds so I didn’t pudh it.

There is, however, such a photo on flickr – taken by someone who likes to have their dog in the picture. I wonder if he/she had permission?

There was a minor deco factory building further round the estate, MET Fabrications.

Strong verticals and horizontals here and typical 30s windows. I like the offset stairwell.

Here’s another Art Deco building I found.

Then there was this blocky Odeon Cinema.

Its brick built nature reminded me of the former Embassy Cinema in Braintree.

The window above the entrance is striking. The frieze above that seems to have lost its surrounding (and Fanatical its F.)

Down the lane past the entrance was a square with a market. In one corner was the deco-ish Old Fire Station.

It was obviously being gutted/refurbished – the insides were all gone and turned into a building site; as witnessed by the crane. It looked even better from the corner!

I have since discovered it’s the New Bodleian Library.

More conventional deco was to be found in the shopping areas.

This is the New Theatre.

The facade extends along the street.

There was this set of shops

I wasn’t quite sure whether the Job Centre was deco or not. It has a nice doorway whatever.

You can overdose on mediævality there but you can’t go to Oxford and not photograph this if you see it. (The van does kind of ruin it though.)

On a wall in High Street, Oxford, I noticed this plaque.

It commemorates Robert Hooke, he of the eponymous law on elasticity, and Robert Boyle who formulated the Gas Law and was the first to use the word cell in connection with living things.

I didn’t stumble on Oxford’s War Memorial but there was some stunning Art Deco (to come in a later post.)

I have found another picture of the building at Panoramio.

This site shows some of the detailing.

Also check out here which shows a few of the internal features.

The good lady thinks it’s a scandal that it’s all to go. So do I.

Gloucester was further well served in an Art Deco sense by a full-on Deco Debenham’s. It’s on a corner with a long frontage down the side street. Impossible to get in one shot. (Or a decent stitch.)

We also found a Marks & Spencer (again I couldn’t get far enough back for anything but a side shot)

and a Halifax – very minor deco, and those wires in the way!

Four Art Deco buildings, one an absolute belter, one a particularly sad sight, and we were only there for an hour!

This is Monsoon. Originally a Burton’s. The link has some good pictures of the detailing.

Now Poundland. Goodness knows what it was to begin with.

Starbucks. Ditto.

Art Deco houses on Evesham Road. Amazingly the original glazing seems to still be in place. (They look like Critall windows to me.) Compare and contrast with Silver End.

The upward curve on the wall at the side is nice on that first one. Three of this collection of 5 buildings are set in a little crescent off the main road:-

The last two semis of the five:-

Cheek by jowl with the previous semi. Glazing replaced. (Eyes poked out):-

The next house along has suffered a similar fate.

Not a bad haul of deco in Cheltenham, then, for a three hour visit.

Stratford-upon-Avon is only about ten minutes by car from Alcester. Apart from being Shakespeare’s birthplace I knew that the Royal Shakespeare Company building was erected in the 1930s adjacent to the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (see right, picture from Wiki) which had been destroyed in a fire.

The building has had a recent refurbishment though so it now has some modern features. Below is the view from a nearby bridge across the Avon.

The brickwork and windows on the river side are still deco as is the blocky bit in the middle of the building.

A closer view of the river side of the building:-

From the south side some deco fetaures are still apparent but the rounded bit – is it a survivor of the original Memorial Theatre or a homage to it? – looks like a cathedral’s Chapter House.

From the green on the south side you can see two chimneys with deco styling:-

I’m not sure about the modern tower on the right here but the deco-ness of the brickwork and the windows in the main part here is obvious:-

We had menat to go go to a play but I didn’t get organised for it early enough. Maybe next time.

In the town itself I saw one deco building.

Some more pictures of the RSC building are on my flickr.

I’ve heard of the Vale of Evesham but we didn’t really notice it as such until our last day and had a climb up a steepish hill on our way to Oxford and could see back where we’d come from. There were some apple trees in bloom but nowhere to stop to photograph them.

Evesham itself is a bit down-at-heel but with some quaint old buildings.

Evesham Central Market had a deco flourish on its roofline, though.

Inside there were the usual sort of wee shops found in an indoor market, but only a few of them, plus a set of rooms housing a “junky” kind of antique dealer’s. A bit further up there were two rather less “junky” antique shops side-by-side just off the other side of the main street.

At one end of the street there was this building which doen’t really look very deco apart from the chimney and the decoration between the windows and the roof line.