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.