We travelled up through Nottingham intending to stop at The Crown for dinner to see if it was as Deco inside as out. Unfortunately when we got out of the car in the car park the noise from inside was blaring and was therefore even worse when we opened the pub door. It also looked a bit rough. We decided to move on.

It wasn’t long till we came upon the Beechdale – another Art Deco pub, this time brick-built.

This is from the car park:-

From south-east:-

From south-west:-

From west-south-west:-

We went into this one only to discover it was festooned with Saint George’s Cross flags. (It was in the run-up to the European Championships.) It didn’t look like Scottish sounding people would be very welcome. We opted for discretion and moved to the city centre where every single eating place had a bouncer on the door. That spooked us a bit. Yes, it was a Friday night but is Nottingham really such a dangerous place to dine out?

There was this delightful little Art Deco pub there that I spotted only after we’d already eaten. It didn’t look open anyway:-

Great detailing, with fox statue. The numbers are stylish too:-

After Oakham we travelled north and passed through Nottingham where I spotted The Crown as I was driving past. I had to stop and photograph it. Stunning.

Side view from north:-

From north-east. Windows, chimney, exterior walling, all superb. If the windows have been replaced it’s been done sensitively. Pity about the grafitti on the wall, though:-

From South-east:-

Rear of building. Nice to see the Art Deco elements extend all the way round, even if the extension’s a bit iffy:-

Detail showing Crown emblem at front:-

This view mostly avoided the lamp-post obscuring the building:-

We spent the first night away from home in a hotel just outside Derby. On our way there from the motorway we travelled along Brian Clough Way, a nondescript, even dowdy, dual carriageway. Surely there’s a better way to commemorate the man. In the morning we drove into Derby but didn’t know of any suitable parking space so gave up after a drive around the inner ring road and skedaddled back along Mr Clough’s memorial road, taking a right towards the South at Nottingham. (A curiosity was we came across two roundabouts that had roads through their middles, something I’ve never seen before. Is it a Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire thing?)

We stopped at Melton Mowbray, “the Rural Capital of Food.” (Well, 3 years ago we went to Bakewell.) Unfortunately it was market day and the place was heaving. As a result I couldn’t get a photograph of the Pork Pie shop (there was a stall in the way) but we did buy a pie and very nice it was too. Enough for lunch that day and the next. We passed on the Stilton cheese though.

What I didn’t expect was Art Deco. The place is liberally strewn with it. Remarkable for a relatively small town.

The first thing I saw on leaving the car park was the brick side of what looked like a school building but is (now, at any rate,) the King Street Building of Brooksby Melton College.

A bit rectilinear but nice iron work protecting the small windows flanking the entrance. The fan light above the door is good as is the frieze on the portico. Amazingly the windows don’t seem to have been mucked about with.

The next building along is also Deco! The Regal Cinema is a stunner. The decoration on it is sublime. It’s still a working cinema.

See more here.

Superb!