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Mr.Wilkinson was recently very gracious in acknowledging, in his absorbing English Buildings blog, the introduction I gave him to the Welland Valley Viaduct and its attendant church kneelers. So I return the compliment by finally photographing this sign he spotted on the same day behind a straggling hawthorn hedge in Rutland. Goodness knows how long it is since the Leicester Water Department commandeered a field just outside Uppingham, some nineteen miles from the city; it's been either Anglian Water or Severn Trent around here ever since I've had to cough-up to pay their exorbitant bills. But I love the cast iron 'pleasing decay' and the fact that for all its neglect it still manages to shout a stentorian command like an old sergeant major leaning into the wind on a parade ground. A straight forward well-lettered sign that wouldn't have dreamt of displaying a logo or a catch-phrase like 'On Tap For U'.
I have just had the extraordinary privilege of being let loose in Britain's finest restored Victorian pumping station at Papplewick in Nottinghamshire. Made very welcome, I was allowed to roam at will, on my own, through this simply astounding Temple of Water- James Watt beam engines, 3D gold freshwater fishes swimming through wrought iron weeds on cast iron columns, water lilies in stained glass. And out at the back under an open-sided shed a huge pile of nutty slack for the Gormenghast boilers. Coal was brought in past the red brick gothic superintendent's lodge and on to this weighbridge next to a green sentry box containing the dial. Of course the lettering caught my eye, one of those underfoot delights that we scuff with our shoes as we go about our business. Telephone service covers still saying 'GPO' , long lost electricity badges let into pavement hatches, manholes worthy of a church-style brass-rubbing. And so a 1945 'Pooley', that heavyweight name so redolent of rain-soaked coal yards, gasworks and dusty quarries. Still here in rural Notts, the non-slip steel grid gently filling up with leaves from the ornamental trees and neat hedges planted by the Victorian need to acknowledge the ideals of Cleanliness next to Godliness. Go and get steamed-up about it all on their next open day.
Mr.Wilkinson was recently very gracious in acknowledging, in his absorbing English Buildings blog, the introduction I gave him to the Welland Valley Viaduct and its attendant church kneelers. So I return the compliment by finally photographing this sign he spotted on the same day behind a straggling hawthorn hedge in Rutland. Goodness knows how long it is since the Leicester Water Department commandeered a field just outside Uppingham, some nineteen miles from the city; it's been either Anglian Water or Severn Trent around here ever since I've had to cough-up to pay their exorbitant bills. But I love the cast iron 'pleasing decay' and the fact that for all its neglect it still manages to shout a stentorian command like an old sergeant major leaning into the wind on a parade ground. A straight forward well-lettered sign that wouldn't have dreamt of displaying a logo or a catch-phrase like 'On Tap For U'.
