Musselburgh has at least three Art Deco buildings.

This is the David Macbeth Moir pub on Bridge Street, a Wetherspoon’s. (David Macbeth Moir is a historical local worthy.)

The building was formerly the Hayweights cinema. Its detailing and lettering is now after Charles Rennie Mackintosh – Mockintosh, then.

Further up Bridge Street is The Royal Bank of Scotland building. That window covered with wooden board is a bit worrying!

On High Street, almost opposite the War Memorial, can be found Poundland. The High Street was busy – difficult to get a photo without traffic.

More of my Musselburgh photos are on my flickr.

Whitehaven appeared a bit more prosperous than Maryport or Workington, less industrial certainly, and with a lot of sailing yachts in the harbour.

But more Art Deco, not just the Bus Station.

Only separated from the old Bus Station by one building is this pub, the Bransty Arch, now a Wetherspoons.

Here’s the frontage in more detail. Good stuff on the roofline and the Arch motif.

Here’s the side view looking back towards the old Bus Station.

Further into the town I found a Burton’s.

This is typical of 30s Burton’s style. Pity about the wires and other guff in the way in this other view in which I also seem inadvertently to have photographed a gull on the roof!

We found a large second-hand book shop in the town, very nook and cranny-like. Sadly none of the books grabbed my interest sufficiently to buy any. Ones I might have bought I already had! The good lady managed one purchase, though, and also browsed one she had been thinking of buying from the internet but decided she wouldn’t like it.

Why Braintree?

Well: the good lady and myself used to live there when I worked as a Research Chemist. We thought we’d see how it had changed in thirty years so made it one of the last stops on our recent trip down south.

I well remembered the cinema. The Embassy as was. The building is very deco indeed but is now a Wetherspoons pub called the Picture Palace.

Surprisingly the inside has not been mucked about with much. On either side of where the screen was situated – the screen itself appears still to be present behind the bar area – are some original panels one of which I tried to photograph (see left above) but the light level was very low so the result is grainy. Two photographs of the original interior are in a frame on the wall of the foyer (right, above.) The windows are not original but have been replaced very sympathetically. You can just about make them out here.

We astonished the waiter by saying we had actually seen films in it. (By the way, a true life incident – not to do with the film itself – from watching the first Star Trek movie there made it into my novel A Son Of The Rock in somewhat disguised form. It was too good not to use.)

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.

Edited to add. Looking at it in retrospect could this once have been a Woolworths?

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.