This is in Commercial Road, Leven. It’s an estate agent’s now.

Poundland. I can remember when this was a Woolworths.

This one is on the promenade. It may have been a toilet block. I don’t know what it’s used for now. You can just see New Bayview, East Fife’s ground, in the background over the River Leven. You wouldn’t have been able to see it when Methil Power Station stood in between.

We hadn’t intended visiting Ely but when we discovered it was only twelve miles from Cambridge we thought we might as well.

Its most striking feature is of course the Cathedral (see left.)

Almost the first house we encountered was in a highly traditional style. We had been forewarned by signs in the car park – and the streets up from it – to “Oliver Cromwell’s House.” This surprised me as I’d always thought Cromwell was a farmer from Huntingdon till the Civil Wars dragged him from hearth and home to military fame – not to mention notoriety – regicide and the Lord Protectorship. Anyway the tacky figures outside put us off entering.

I had expected the town would contain mostly traditional architecture. There was nothing extremely modern but I was pleasantly surprised to find not one, nor two, nor even three, but four buildings showing deco styling.

The first had “Coronation Building” and a crown inscribed on it. I suspect this would have been the 1937 Coronation (George VI) rather than that of 1953.

The second now hosts WH Smith’s – I had to stitch two photos as the street wasn’t wide enough to allow me to frame the whole thing in one shot.

The third looked as if it had once been a Woolworths.

The fourth was on another street (Lynn Road?) just off the main one.

The War Memorial was unostentatious, restrained and dignified, set into a niche in the wall that backs onto the cathedral.

There was also a street market which looked pretty thriving. Whether it’s there everyday or merely Wednesdays I don’t know.

I took these a month or so ago.

This is the former Gaumont (later Odeon, Classic and De Luxe) Cinema, Mill Street, Alloa.
According to the Scottish cinemas website it was the last Gaumont to be built pre-war, and the only purpose built Gaumont in Scotland.

Below is a photo of the upper level of a building on Primrose Street, now sadly unoccupied.

At the junction of Shillinghill and Mill Street you can see this:-

Perhaps not really deco but the bits that resemble chimneys have the look.

As part of my quest to photograph old Woolworths premises here is the Alloa variety. It’s right next to the former cinema and has been taken over by Poundland. Not deco, it looks of 1960s or 70s vintage to me.

A couple more pictures of these buildings are on my flickr site.

Dunoon is a seaside town so it’s not surprising to find some Art Deco but I didn’t expect quite so much. (I knew previously there was at least one typically flat roofed house.)

This is McColl’s Hotel:-

Here’s a close up on the entrance. The fenestration has obviously been updated.

This photo of the rear was taken from beside the Lamont memorial.

On the main street was Home Hardware, surely a former Woolies.

This is the La Scala cinema (as was) – opened in 1936, closed in the 1970s, now a shop.

There is a frontal image of this at the Scottish Cinemas website.

This is the house – in Mary Street – I mentioned above. It has been reroofed. Originally its windows were much more deco. I’ve seen a photo of this where it resembles the face of a robot.

Finally is Selborne Hotel which is up (down) a side street and difficult to photograph in its entirety.

On the way back up from Alnwick we stopped at Berwick to get something to eat. We’d have settled for a chippy but there wasn’t one on the main street or the ones leading off it.

On the way in to the town I had spotted this Art Deco garage but I took the photo from the opposite side of the River Tweed. On the way out I had to recross the river first and discovered it was built in 1937.

The old bridge over the Tweed has nice arches. There were lots of swans on the river.

I took this of the newer road bridge, and the railway bridge behind it, from the old one.

The town itself was down at heel and shabby looking even allowing for the fact that it was latish (after closing time.) This must surely once have been a Woolworths.

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This was another building that looks a bit deco.

Newcastle’s Northumberland Street does still have a couple of deco frontages. This is a Peacock’s now. Was it once a Woolies? Again the photo is a stitch.

I had thought this one might have been a Burton’s:-

I think now, due to the clock, it was once a Marks and Spencer but it may have been something else. In any case I searched flickr and the picture below is what came up for Burton’s. It looked like one of the art deco buildings I had seen in the book of old Newcastle (see first link in this post):-:-

I saw no sign of this building on present day Northumberland Street. The Marks and Spencer’s shop is now located in the Eldon Square shopping centre. We went in and browsed but there was nothing worth buying.

The photograph below (from flickr via a postcard) was exactly the same as the other art deco building I had seen in the book of old Newcastle:-

I did notice a newer Bhs further along Northumberland Street. The building in the postcard was apparently demolished to make Monument Mall. I doubt that’s as aesthetically pleasing as the former Bhs was.

Right at the end of Northumberland Street we came upon the very tall monument I have pictured floating right.*

It was erected in memory of the dead of the “South African War” as the inscription has it. This is more often known as the Boer War but more accurately was the Second Boer War.

There are quite a few such memorials around. One is on the parapet of Edinburgh’s North Bridge. I have a piece of crested china which is a reproduction of the memorial in Hull to the dead of the same war and I have seen another similarly patterned piece with a different town’s crest. The next day (in Durham) we encountered another tall memorial to the South African War.

On the way back to the car we passed Newcastle’s civic centre. It’s a much more modern building with a tower surmounted by a circular top with horses’ heads and a finial showing the three castle symbol that also appears on silver objects assayed in Newcastle when the city still had an assay office.

The castle motif also appeared on the railings surrounding the civic centre.

*Edited to add:- for some idea of the memorial’s scale see this link. Its surroundings have changed somewhat since the postcard photos in the link were taken.

Last week the good lady and I took another stroll along the Water of Leith.

No herons this time, and we didn’t tarry by Dean Village, the Dene Bridge nor St Bernards Well but since the last time we were there, there have been a few additions to the water in the shape of Antony Gormley sculptures. This is the one nearest Stockbridge.

Gormley is most famous for the Angel Of The North but has also placed figures on Crosby Beach near Liverpool and on roofs in New York and London.

The Water of Leith seems an appropriate location for these new emplacements as it flows past the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, albeit out of sight in a valley.

We had a look around Stockbridge, the good lady loading up on books from the charity shops and a great second-hand book shop that we hadn’t gone into before.

I liked the look of this one as the facade is Decoish:-

I suspect the projecting frontage may have started life as a bank.

There is some nice detailing on the door surround too.

On its left as you look at it in the photo stands the former Woolworths shop (which wasn’t ever Art Deco) and is now a Scotmid.

On the way back I photographed the bridge which carries Belford Road over the river.

I’ve no idea whether this is one of Thomas Telford’s (as the Dene Bridge is) but it looks of an age to me.

This is the detail up on the right in close up:-

I believe it depicts the Arms of Edinburgh.

I’ve already featured the former Woolies buildings in Kirkcaldy, Dumbarton, Morecambe and Dundee.

Here’s a couple more Art Deco former Woolies premises located in Fife.

The first is in St Andrews, photographed still in its Woolies livery. Nice detailing above the windows and on the roof line. (It has been converted to a Nisa shop since the photo was taken.)

The second is in Cowdenbeath. Not so much ornamentation on this one; just the roof detail really. As you can see, it’s a Poundstretcher now. (I took the picture before Saturday’s game.)

Well, not that one anyway.

The Woolies store in Kirkcaldy was L-shaped. The back part was the first to be taken over: by clothes retailer Peacocks – now looking like they’re in administration themselves what with the 70% off signs for their January sales. They moved in a few months ago.

Relatively recently the other part of the Woolies shop – which had originally been a Tesco’s before they took over William Low’s and moved their operation to the Low’s site in the Postings shopping area – morphed into something called Home Bargains, which is best described as Woolies with added food.

The half-price sale sign on the right edge of the picture is actually for a JJB Sports shop which is up some stairs and in which I’ve not set foot.

The Mercat is an indoor mall, hence the darkness of the photos, taken as they were around 5pm on a winter’s evening.

Edited to add:- Peacock’s isn’t in administration, just having a sale.

I took these when I was over in May for the Elgin game. That now seems long ago and oh so far away.

They are all in the High Street or corner onto it.

This is Woolies. Note the similarities with the Dundee former Woolies I posted a while back.

Burton’s. Firmly in the house style.

Former Claude Alexander’s clothing store. Just across Quay Street from Burton’s.

Former City Bakeries building. The windows used to be lovely but they’ve been messed about.