Wemyss Bay

The station at Wemyss Bay is a glorious example of engineering elegance, providing spacious, light and weather protected space for passengers. I have to admit that I only visited because of the station, but luckily it has a clock so it can be included in this blog.

The station dates from 1903, although the railway reached here in the 1860's. It is one of only ten 5-star stations in Simon Jenkins' book "Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations" (Viking Books - 2017), and indeed is the cover photograph. All of the other nine are big main line stations, so Wemyss Bay is somewhat of a unique gem.

It is also named as the Most Impressive Station by Vicki Pipe and Geoff Marshall's "The Railway Adventures" (September Publishing - 2018).

This is the view of the booking office, with its simple clock.

And now for some gratuitous pictures of the station.

 

 

Including some old posters:

Of which this one has some particular relevance i.e. Wemyss Bay station is also a ferry terminal for the journey across to the Isle of Bute.

This curved ramp leads down to the ferry....

...which waits outside.

 

 Once outside we also realise that the station has a prominent clock tower.

 

Lockerbie

In Lockerbie for a meeting on a very wet day. Lockerbie is in the south-west of Scotland, and is a small settlement with a population of about 4,000. Hence my hopes of capturing a hatful of clocks (otherwise known as a clockerbie) were not high.

In fact the only clock in sight was on the Town Hall, a splendid creation of 1880.

Nothing to do with clocks, but outside the Town Hall is a delightful sheep sculpture (or what you might call a flockerbie).

The closest I came to another public timepiece was this tower, which I assume was once a clock tower.

The building is now the church hall, but was built in 1866 as the Mechanics Institute.

Cwmbran

A rare excursion across the border into Wales for todays' posting. The trip to Cwmbran was to see a concrete mural by Henry and Joyce Collins on behalf of my associated blog Concrete Murals (probably an even more niche blog than this one, although the murals are more interesting that you might imagine - if you want to check them out you can find them at concretemurals.blogspot.com)

Cwmbran is a New Town, and therefore I was not expecting to see many clocks. And my expectations were met - I only found three clocks, but it was a whistlestop visit so there may well be others.

The fist clock is on the Congress Theatre in Gwent Square, which is at the heart of the town centre (and right next door to the mural).

The building dates from 1973, and has obviously had some external work on it since that date. Early pictures show a very simple clock with only tick marks and hands on a concrete façade. To my view that fitted better with the modernist town centre rather than the current retro clock which is rather incongruous.

I have just found another blog (https://otherformatsavailable.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/something-better-than-soulless-suburbia-cwmbran-new-town/) which shares my views, calling the changes "a crass destruction of its original stark concrete lines".

And it certainly wasn't five past five when I visited.

The second clock is on Victoria Street in the old part of the town to the south of the current centre.

From the plaques on the tower structure you can see that this is a war memorial clock to the men of Cwmbran who died in the First World War, erected in 1936.

 

In may ways you could argue that the clock and its tower are as incongruous as the new Congress Theatre one, but the difference is that this is incongruous in an appropriate and meaningful way.

And so to clock number three. Even though I was looking to see if there was one here on my way from the station (Morrisons stores often having clocks), I didn't see this one until I took a different route back.

Not really much you can say about this really - it is a standard Morrisons clock, in keeping with the building it is on.

And there we have all three clocks.

Photographs taken on 16 July 2019.

Gloucester

Dr Foster went to Gloucester, in a shower of rain - I have also paid a visit, but for me the weather was quite good.

I didn't get to meet the Tailor of Gloucester, but I did see the clock on the old Co-op building on the corner of Eastgate Street and Brunswick Road.

Close by is the entrance to the Eastgate Shopping Centre. This rather grand entrance to a 1970's shopping centre was the original entrance to the market which stood on the site, although its new role this entrance was moved 25 feet along Eastgate Street.

Apparently there was a Beatrix Potter clock inside the centre. It was installed in 1994, but sadly removed in 2013.

A star of Gloucester is the clock on G A Baker & Son in Southgate Street.

Not only is there a clock with weathervane, but there is also a series of figures which ring the bells.

These figures are reported to be an Irishwoman, an Englishman, Old Father Time, a Scotsman and a Welshwoman.

A fine clock, a fine set of bells and bell ringers, and a fine shop front overall. It certainly gets my vote as the best shop premises in Gloucester.

The clock dates from 1904.

Further down Southgate Street is the next clock on what is now The Hub bistro (the words hub and bistro would both suggest that this was not the original use of the building, unless Gloucester was at the cutting edge of linguistic use).

On  now to the docks. Gloucester gained formal status as a port in 1580, served by the River Severn, but it was not until the construction of the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal in 1827 that trade really took off.

This dockside building is now The Lord High Constable of England, a Wetherspoons pub.

I am not sure whether I should include this next clock, but here it is anyway. This is Quayside Clocks in Southgate Street.

We have done Eastgate Street and Southgate Street, so now it is the turn of Westgate Street. This is Avant Garde, a hair salon.

A bit further along is St Nicholas church. Originally dating from 1190, it has, as I often say, been through the usual re-buildings and modifications over the centuries. One unusual feature is its truncated spire, a result of being hit by cannon fire in 1643 during the Civil War.

Th clock itself dates from 1716.

And now to something a tad more modern. This building and its clock can be found on the corner of Hare Lane and Northgate Street (hurrah, we have completed all four points of the compass).

Continuing along Northgate Street, we come to St Peter's church on the junction of London Road and Black Dog Way. Which is a horrible dual-carriageway, sea of tarmac sort of a junction.

St Peter's was consecrated on 8 October 1868.

Re-tracing our steps along Northgate Street, we find the Debenhams store on the corner of The Oxebode.

At the other end of The Oxbode is the Post Office, with its window clock.

At which point we say good-bye to Gloucester.