After Stratford we travelled down to Cheltenham the next day.

Imagine my surprise on suddenly seeing a very big and modern Art Deco building just off a roundabout. I turned into the road and found it was opposite a (previously unsignposted) Park and Ride.

The building is the headquarters of UCAS, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.

Note the rounded portico and balcony plus the stepping. In this it’s reminiscent of the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea and also of the Rothesay Pavilion. (More so of the latter since the Rothesay Pavilion isn’t rendered in white.)

Below is the block by the entrance gate. It has nice, strong, white verticals set off by the crosses top and bottom.

This good view of the entrance is from geograph. Note the rounded gatehouse.

On coming back to the Park and Ride much later in the day I took this close up.

Edited to add:- I tried to find out from the net when the building was designed and constructed and who the architect was but kept getting information on Higher Education courses instead.

I found a view of the UCAS building from above.

From a bit nearer in to Cheltenham, down Evesham Road, I took this photo of another modern building with deco styling.

This one was nearer to the UCAS building and just off Evesham Road. I think it’s called Cleeve House.

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.

Evesham in Worcestershire was about 10 or so miles from where we were staying.

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.

Home of Albion Rovers FC.

The “Wee Rovers” heyday is long gone, being just after the First World War when they reached the Scottish Cup final and had a run in the First Division. They also achieved promotion in 1934 and mostly remained in Division 1 till the Second War. Thereafter they have been mostly in the lower divisions. For a fuller account see link.

Below is a view of the Stand and entrance gates of Cliftonhill from Main Street, Coatbridge (the A 89.)

The stand and its immediate surroundings is the only area where spectators congregate.

The Stadium is unaffectionately called the “Stadio San Giro” by its detractors.

It’s fair to say the ground has seen better days but any disparagement is out of place. It’s very homely and has a friendly atmosphere.

This is the west end. Standing may once have been allowed here but not for a long time, I think.

The east end is similar, only a mound of earth.

The North Terracing (below) is now, I believe, closed to spectators for safety reasons but it was from here that I saw Kenny Jenkins deflect with the neatest of touches with his head a Charlie Gallagher free kick to score in a 1-0 win in 1972, vital to the championship win that year.

Astronomy Picture of the Day for 12/4/12, this is a view of Moscow by night from the International Space Station, one of whose solar panels takes up a large part of the frame.

It’s the city of Moscow here that took my eye, though. The radial pattern of the street lighting and the outlying suburbs along with the long tail part leading down the centre of the photo reminded me of a nerve cell.

Lindisfarne‘s finest hour. (As a single, anyway.)

Lindisfarne: Lady Eleanor

On our trip south we next stopped near the small the small town of Alcester, in Warwickshire, England. It had a nice wee museum containing lots of Roman artefacts. The town’s origins lie in Roman times.

The town has several Tudor style pubs and houses and a prominent church tower. The clock on the tower is unusually angled on a corner meaning it can be seen easily from the main street. The War Memorial is in the Church yard by the tree you can see in the photo of the church.

There was one possibly Deco building but it’s more likely Georgian. Horizontals and verticals are a feature of both styles.

The roundabout has a globe at its centre. A woman in the museum told us there used to be a pub called the Globe here. When it was pulled down the roundabout still got called by that name so the local council decided to mark it with a globe.

On the Wednesday evening we had a nice meal in the Swan Hotel. We were the only patrons in the dining room. (Photo from Information Britain.)

When we left, the air outside was bitterly cold! I couldn’t stop chittering till we got back to our room (a few minutes by car.) Mind you we missed any snow in Kirkcaldy that may have fallen that week.

Alcester is a lovely wee place. We may go back sometime.

The BSFA Awards for fiction this year coincided with my views.

Chris Priest’s The Islanders won the best novel.

And Paul Cornell’s The Copenhagen Interpretation the short story award.

John Meaney’s compering of the awards has attracted some criticism.

the guardian* reported only on the novel award, unsurprisingly focusing on Chris Priest’s Clarke Award comments.

*I hate that lower case!

This was, I think, the other deco building I spotted in Morecambe but didn’t have time to photograph 3 years ago. It’s on the seafront, heading northwards from the Midland Hotel.

But there was more. Much more.

Almost the first Art Deco building we came upon this time though was what looked like a toilet block!

Further still along the front was this:-

There was also a deco pub down a side street,

the Lloyds Bank building,

Morecambe Visitor Centre,*

a deco style bridge between two buildings,

and some nice deco-ish glazing on a disused hotel.

There may have been more still but we only stayed one night.

Also on the sea front was a warren of a second hand bookshop, absolutely stuffed to the gunwhales – the SF was mostly old stuff and stacked high making exploring it a bit problematic. The good lady secured a couple of purchases of vintage crime, though.

*Edited to add It’s not a visitor centre. The Morecambe Visitor is the local newspaper. See the first comment on this post.

I couldn’t stay in Morecambe without once more taking photos of the magnificent Midland Hotel.

This is the view of the building from the stone pier which juts out into the Irish Sea.

Here is a shot of the second set of pillars giving entry to the car park.

The staff were very accomodating and allowed me to take photos inside.

This is the very Deco carpet in front of the reception desk.

This is the lovely frieze behind reception. Not the best shot; the lighting conditions were low.

There is a 30s style map located in one of the function rooms

This photo of the hotel, presumably from its heyday as the seafront appearance is now substantially different, emblazons the wall on the first floor landing. There was a replica on the floor above too.