From Grantham we moved on to Stamford, which is apparently where the BBC TV series Cranford was filmed. The town seemed more prosperous tha Grantham had looked.

The approach was olde worlde but the High Street was a bit more modern. I might have expected Deco like this at the western end of the High Street:-

However on Broad street was a fine example of the style:-

It has a lovely rounded facade and original style glazing. Pity about not being able to get a photo with no street furniture in the way. That lamp post!

Central looks like it was once a cinema but now it’s a nightclub. At least it’s getting used.

I noticed it just after photographing the War Memorial, which is on the other side of Broad Street, set into the wall of quite an imposing building.

A couple more photos of Stamford are on my flickr.

Lincoln’s most striking architectural feature is of course its cathedral.

The cathedral can be widely seen from miles off. When we got to the city it was obvious why. It’s at the top of a very steep hill up from the main street. Once through the gateway it’s too close to get the full facade in one shot. This is a stitch of two photos.

Also on the hill’s summit is Lincoln Castle. The picture below was taken by turning 180 degrees from the first shot of the cathedral.

On the way up the hill we stopped into an antique shop. From its window I noticed the building across the street. More particularly its name.

It’s now host to a second-hand book shop. You can just about see the steps up to the main floor level through the doorway. On the fronts of two treads it says BOOKS, NEW & SECONDHAND.

The next house down has a similar startling title (to modern eyes.)

This is no doubt a true reflection of mediæval Lincoln. In those times, Jews were not present in England to a great extent and were restricted by law to a very few occupations – specifically money lending (which was forbidden to non-Jews.) They would also have been required to live close together to avoid mixing too much with their Christian neighbours.

Thank goodness we’re more enlightened, open and friendly nowadays to people who may be different from us. Or even just foreign. (Oh! Hang on.)

We were in England last week visiting places we’d never been before (and one where we’d had a house.)

Our first main stop was in Lincoln. Quite a lot to see but I happened on a street where there were three – Three! – Art Deco buildings within fifty yards of each other.

This was Claskergate (if I am reading Google Maps correctly.) I saw this one first. It’s on the corner with Butchery Court.

Before I’d even taken the above photo I noticed this directly across the street.

The white rectangle is actually a display screen which didn’t come out well. You can see it better on Google Maps.

Just along the street was this.

I couldn’t get far enough back to get a central view.

This is the former Ritz cinema on High Street.

It’s now a Wetherspoons pub.

You can see the nice diamondoid brickwork and the Deco glazing on the above and below which also shows off the curved portico on the High Street frontage

Quite a contrast with the mediæval Cathedral and Castle higher up the town.

During the summer we were in South Queensferry in order to take the boat out to Inchcolm Island.

While there I took a few photos. I hadn’t expected to see a building with Deco styling but this was on the main street.

There was also St Mary’s Church, one of the oldest in Scotland.

(I remember remarking about buildings in Haworth, Yorkshire and Inchcolm Abbey that, unusually, they had stone roofs. St Mary’s also has stone roofing, shown to best advantage in the above photo.)

The War Memorial is fixed halfway up the wall of another building – the Jubilee Clock Tower – on the main street.

A couple more photos of South Queensferry are on my flickr.

There were some architecturally interesting buildings at Dollar Academy.

The first was a nice 1930s pavilion. This was taken from the approach road.

On our recent trip I seem to have passed through, or close to, a fair few towns in England that have or had teams in the Football League, which gave me some idea of their geographic proximity. Starting with Sheffield, we went on through Derby, bypassed Mansfield, then headed back up to Chesterfield where I photographed the famous crooked spire which lends the nickname Spireites to the local side.

Cheterfield had a large street market on the go the morning we were there. It made the place seem thriving though whether it truly is or not I have no idea.

After that it was up north through Huddersfield and Halifax on our way to Haworth again.

Yet in all these travels I caught sight of not one single football stadium – though I had seen a road sign for Brammall Lane in Sheffield.

The reason for going to Haworth this time was we hadn’t seen as much of it as we would have liked when we were there before.

This certainly wasn’t there in the Brontë’s time. It’s now a stop on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway – one of those preservation railways which reflect the British love of nostalgia but are an important reminder of our industrial heritage.

We didn’t do the Brontë Parsonage this time but explored the old street more. There were more shops open this time including the old style sweetie shop where we bought something called Yorkshire Tablet – as sweet as Orkney Fudge but a bit softer – and had a browse round two second hand bookshops we don’t recall from two years ago. The good lady bought three books and I got a hardback of Tricia Sullivan’s Lethe; goodness knows when I’ll get round to reading it.

In our trip down south we stopped in Sheffield for the night but only had a small wander around the city centre. It was enough to spot this Art Deco beauty which is the Central Library and Graves Art Gallery.

Here’s the doorway:-

And this shows the windows above it:-

More pictures of Art Deco buildings in Sheffield – including a close up of the frieze on the side of building above are on this site.

In the town centre there’s a lovely civic space – called the Peace Gardens, I think – with several water features like this fountain:-

I couldn’t not photograph the Crucible Theatre. My sons were great snooker fans when they were young.

While our main purpose in travelling to Derbyshire was to go round Chatsworth House, it’s only a few miles from Bakewell and I couldn’t resist the urge to visit there.

It’s a lovely small town with a beautiful tree-lined river, the Wye, and made nicer for most of the buildings being constructed from stone rather than, as is mostly the case in England, brick.

This is a view from very close to the town centre. Plenty of geese as you can see, but there were also ducks and swans.

There was a second hand book shop at the edge of the town centre but it wasn’t up to much. The antiques centre off a square had prices which were off-putting.

However, you cannot go to Bakewell without being reminded of its contribution to the culinary world.

I present the Original Bakewell Pudding shop.

I had to cross the road to get the whole shop in.

On the left is a crop of the above photo to show the lettering.

The puddings themselves were displayed in the window on the left of the shop but that’s obscured by the blue car. It has to be said they looked a bit misshapen and amateurish.

That may be to enhance their “home-baked” charm.

But in Bakewell you are spoiled for choice. Trawling further round the town centre I came upon this.

That doesn’t claim to be the original pudding shop.

But just across the street from it is this:-

The first and only original Bakewell Pudding Shop.

Well! Someone’s telling porkies. (Which reminds me. Must get to Melton Mowbray sometime.)

The do all share a green colour scheme though, for some reason.

In the end we didn’t sample a pudding from any of those three.

The Bakewell deli features this placard in its window. Spot the huge meringues on the right of the photo.

Are you a pudding or a tart person?

We opted for a slice each of pudding from here.

Be warned. That stuff is calorific.

So that means photographs.

And Art Deco.

This was a Deco house just off the A6 as you enter Derby from the direction of Matlock. Frustratingly, the closest I could get was the main road.

You get exactly the same view if you type 404 Duffield Road, Derby into Google Maps and do the zoom-in and a 180 degree turn, where you can see the porthole window I got in this next one. That’s also the closest Google Maps gets.

As far as I could/can tell the house is up a side road called The Close but it’s barred by a high security gate behind which are some scary dogs.

We didn’t actually stop in Derby except to take these pictures.

The next day we travelled up to Chesterfield and this was the closest thing to Art Deco in the town centre. In Cavendish Street, it’s now a night club called Escapade.

I don’t know how I missed this before, I suppose I was so used to it I never looked properly. The picture is a stitch of two to get it all in. I took them after the game against the Shire last Sunday. We took a turn along the High Street and I gazed up at the Co-Op building and noticed its date; DECS 1938. This building was where the linen, drapery, furniture and clothing depts were. It had those pnuematic pipes for sending your cash off to the central office where all the money was dealt with. The food department was (and still is) a bit further along the High Street. Strangely, there the money was handled at the till by the assistants.

(For anyone who doesn’t know, DECS stands for Dumbarton Equitable Co-Operative Society and the elephant is on Dumbarton’s town crest.)

I’ve got one more photo of the Co-Op on flickr.

I can still remember my mother’s Co-Op dividend number…..