After Corbridge we headed back up the East coast and took a look in at Alnwick.

The first thing that strikes you on the way in from the south is a huge memorial surmounted by a lion with a long straight tail. Just below, at the road junction, is the war memorial.

A crop showing the war memorial is left. I much prefer these dignified ones to those with angels all over them. Once again many more names from The Great War than from WW2.

The photo (right) is of the tower on the hill crest.

This was apparently erected by grateful tenants after The Duke of Northumberland reduced their rents.

That, on seeing how much they could afford by way of a monument to him, he immediately put up the rents again is seemingly only a rumour. We walked up to it and it is undeniably impressive. Here’s the inscription:-

The base also has lions; at its four corners.

The two memorials are across the road from what used to be Alnwick railway station. The building now houses what claims to be “Britain’s biggest second hand bookshop” Barter Books.

It’s packed with books, to be sure.

In keeping with its setting in the old station there are train sets running around above your head in the middle part of the shop. You can see the “Keep Calm And Carry On” poster from World War 2 in the next photo. I think this is the shop where it was rediscovered.

Had it claimed to be Britain’s most expensive second hand bookshop I’d have been more sure of its right to the title. Old 1960s paperbacks were priced well over £2 and I didn’t see any hardbacks below £9.60. They did have a computerised “search the stock” service if you were looking for a particular book though.

There’s a lovely old entrance arch to the main part of the town just like in York etc.

And what do you know? Just behind where I took the above photo lies an Art Deco cinema.

Its complete with glass bricks! (See close up of the nicely rounded entranceway: right.)

The cinema also doubles as a theatre. The forthcoming productions were advertised on the windows further along past the entrance.

The bulbous bit halfway along the building – just where the van is parked in the photo – has a nice deco frieze running along it.

Since I posted about Kinghorn this week it seemed like a good idea to punt this building up the Fife’s Art Deco Heritage list a bit because the former cinema at Kinghorn has Art Deco features.

The towery bits are hexagonal and have deco steps at the top. The fenestration is modern and “eyes poked out” to my mind.

It’s a pity about the lamp-post in this second photo but it does show off the balcony better.

The cinema is of course no longer showing films. It’s a pub/function place known as “The Carousel” now.

I’ve been out and about in Dunfermline with the camera again.

This is an Art Deco building in commercial use fronting onto the street known as the East Port.

A lawyer’s at the moment. Lots of horizontals and verticals.

The side of the building is almost as characterful. You can just see the metal balustrade on the roof towards the rear.

From the side. The extractor fans and fire escape spoil the appearance a bit. The metal balustrade on the roof is more obvious from here. I like the overlaps of the roof edges.

The sticky-out bit at the back. Pity about the fire escape gubbins. Typical rectangular chimney.

The picture below is of the building directly across the East Port. It is the former cinema known in its heyday as the Orient Express. It’s a stitch of two photos. I couldn’t get far enough back to get the whole thing in one shot.

The cinema was built in 1913, before the Deco era, but has some styling to the frontage so I thought I’d post it here. It was converted to a night club in 2004 but that has since closed.

I took several photos in Perth last week. The first two are of the Playhouse Cinema.

The street seems to double as a bus station so there’s a bus in this first one.
The bus had moved on by the time I took the second.

Typical Deco styling here, lots of vertical/horizontal interplay. It’s a strange mixture, though, of brickwork and white rendering. Both the Chester cinemas I featured a while back have features in common with this.

Here’s a picture of The Playhouse on flickr. And another.

This is just down from Perth Museum And Art Gallery (which is worth a visit by the way.) It was probably originally a mill building. It runs along Mill Street, anyway. This side is clearly Deco.

As is this side as far as the third windows along. Note the flagpole.

No idea what this last one, on South Street, used to be. It’s a Co-operative Travel shop now, obviously.

The last thing I expected to find in Chester on our trip was Art Deco buildings, but it was riddled with them.

Just outside the city wall, right where the clock is, lies this former Burton’s.

Almost opposite Burton’s was an Art Deco (former?) Marks & Spencer which was so tall and wide I couldn’t photograph it. I also can’t find a picture of it on the web.

Further along the same road was what is now a night club or something (called Brannigan’s and Lot 76) but looks as if it was once a cinema.

Most strikingly, and inside the city wall, was the now disused Odeon Cinema. A great example of Art Deco in the fascist tendency. On Flickr I found these pictures from when it was still open. I particularly like the trianguloid columns.

Here’s a very minor example of Art Deco just opposite Lot 76.

Proof that the word Raith has/had a wider use than just for the name of the local football team.
This was the Raith cinema and is now some sort of church. It’s situated in Links Street in what is known as Linktown, which maybe once was a separate entity from The Lang Toun but now there is no gap between them and it’s just another part of Kirkcaldy.

The curly flourishes on the entrance are about all that makes this Art Deco, but their Eastern influence is one of the hallmarks of Deco styling (cf the Hoover Factory and India of Inchinnan.) Those apart it’s a pretty bog standard barn of a cinema building.
I’ve no idea what it looks like inside or if there were any Art Deco detailings in the interior.

Do you suppose that when folk exited the cinema after watching a musical they were dancing in the streets of Raith?

See a similar photo at the Scottish cinemas website.

Curiously just along the same street from the former Raith there is another unusual religious building; for Scotland that is. A Coptic church. You can occasionally see the priest in Kirkcaldy High Street, in his full beard, ecclesiastical hat and black robes.

This is a sad one as it’s now in a depressing state. I caught a glimpse of it one day when driving past and the next time I was nearby and on foot I made sure to take a photograph.

Upstairs used to be the cinema’s cafe. The windows there are just amazing.

This is what it looked like when it was still operating as a cinema.

There are some photos of the closing night also on the Scottish cinemas website.

Two more photos of the cinema in its heyday are on this site.

It’s a shame that a building like this has fallen into disuse.

I finally got over to Glasgow and took some (not very good) photos.

 

This is a former cinema now very sympathetically converted to flats.

The Art Deco/modernist styling of the conversion can also be seen in this second photo.

A better picture than either of mine is on Flickr. It helps that that one was taken in sunshine!
 

You can read about The Ascot’s history as a cinema at the Scottish cinemas and theatres project website. There are some nice pictures there of the building lit up at night. The historical photos there show that the orange pillars are a relatively new embellishment! They are effective, though. The foyer looks great in the black and white photos.

More information is available at The Glasgow Story where the original configuration of the roof line can be seen.

There is another good picture of the update at Cala Finance.