The day we visited Great Malvern…..

Well, we didn’t really see the Malvern Hills: only the mist/clouds rolling all over them. We hadn’t realised the town would be about 1/4 of the way up them and the town itself is strange. We came in from the Worcester end where first there’s a lower bit on the level with a few shops we didn’t stop at and then you go higher and eventually reach the main centre.

We followed the signs to a car park and discovered it was a fairly steep climb to the shops.

I saw this after we’d rounded what is, I think, a swimming pool complex:-

It looked to me as if it might be deco.

This is the first part of the frontage. It’s a theatre (or perhaps two – see the bit to the right of the photo which is an older building.)

This bit, just round the right hand corner of the near frontage, clinched it. Definitely deco. The railings on the roof line are nice (but may be modern.)

After some more climbing (past a mediæval Priory) we came on a second hand book shop where the good lady made a couple of purchases, then up once more to the main street.

The building straight ahead has aspects of deco but probably isn’t.

Right along the street which curves to the left in the above was this row of shops.

There is some fine detailing round and above a doorway about 3/4 of the way along them.

Coming back along we dropped into an Amnesty International charity shop and I bought two books. (The good lady’s haul was considerably larger.) Going down towards the car park I took two photos of the building which now houses Iceland’s outlet in Great Malvern. From the way it looks I think it may once have been a Burton’s.

I couldn’t really get it in one shot. Here’s the detail.

The Bridge over the Severn at Worcester is nice but not particularly striking.

This piqued my interest. It’s a gate across an alley hard by the Railway Station. It may lead to a car park there or something. Very childrens’ story like.

Just opposite Worcester Cathedral at the edge of the town centre is this statue of the composer Edward Elgar (who wrote, among many other pieces, Pomp and Circumstance March No 1; sometimes known as Land of Hope and Glory, though the words were a later addition.)

Now a charity shop, ageUK. Nice detailing on the roofline and round the windows

There is another charity shop right beside ageUK which is a bit deco.

Then there was Superdrug. I like the wavy lines. There’s another red telephone box outside here! That makes two on this trip.

Not to mention O₂. Strong verticals and horizontals. The windows here are also very good. And there’s detailing below the brickwork, on the shopfront. Pity the bunting got in the way.

Apart from the cinemas I featured last week Worcester was crammed full of deco architecture.

This shop has a nice rounded corner but its proprietors seem to be coy about themselves what with the canopies obscuring any name. I like the windows too.

This one seems to have been built in three goes – at least according to the pediments. 1925, as prominently here, 1932 and 1959 further along to the right.

This is the 1932 pediment which has Russell and Dorrell inscribed on it. I don’t know if that was the original owners or the builders. There seems to be a plaque missing on the lower level.

Then there was Boots, with nice detailing directly below the flagpoles. The ironwork is lovely too.

There are memorials to three wars just by Worcester Cathedral, on the town side.

The first I came to was the one for the South African War (the Second Boer War.)

Just a bit further on there is a memorial to both World Wars. This has no names on it. I assumed there is another memorial elsewhere in Worcester that does that. (A quick internet search suggests not, however, but there are numerous memorials in various churches etc.)

Worcester was the first big place we went on our recent trip. We took the Park and Ride as the easy option.

I noticed this Odeon Cinema on the way in just before the drop-off point and so took the opportunity to photograph it a bit later. Unfortunately there were works of some sort going on on the road outside it so you can’t see it all properly.

Just across the road from the Odeon and a few yards up is the former Gaumont Cinema which now has Gala Bingo emblazoned on it. The whole thing was too long to get a direct frontal shot.

The facade looks like this close up:-

Researching these on the internet I also came across this beauty at cinematopia.co.uk. It’s called the Northwick (an area of the city apparently.)

Histories (and photos) of these and other non-deco Worcester cinemas can be found here.