Field Notes: 28 May 2025
Wartime west country modernism, Seaside Heritage Network updates and a round-up of local news.
It’s summer half term. That means all the open air lidos and pools across the west country are open. It also means the skies opened yesterday and it rained so hard Somerset had a flood warning.
It also means this week’s field notes is mostly a round up of news after the deep dive essay on Lys Kernow(£) and last week’s write up of Redruth(free).
I’ve also set up an index for the deep dives, so you can find them easily.
And I’m working on my next deep dive. It’s a building that is very challenging to visit by public transport so I may end up depending on local fans for images.
Wartime west country modernism
When I was little, I’d visit family in Plymouth who worked at Devonport Dockyard. From their council house step, we could see the nuclear subs berthed in the Tamar. Over the last few weeks I’ve been down to Cornwall a couple of times. As the train slowly crossed back over the Royal Albert Bridge (Brunel, 1859) from Cornwall, I kept catching myself counting how many RN boats were in. That’s a habit picked up from my parents.
I’m fairly sure there could be an entire multipart series just on war-related buildings in the west country. Between Poole in Dorset and Minehead in Somerset there are 630 miles of coast. An awful lot of it has been dedicated to war and defense. Whether that’s huge sites like Devonport with its hulking 1970s dry docks, or the brick stumps of a 1940s listening station in a field on the Exe estuary. And the Fort Henry observation post in Dorset.
There’s also reminders of the social upheaval, such as the ghost village of Tyneham in Dorset and the war memorials in every settlement. When I was last in Plymouth, I spent a while finding my uncle’s name on the Naval Memorial (Sir Robert Lorimer, sculpture Henry Poole, 1924). So imagine my surprise to discover the Naval Memorial has a secret room.
That’s a piece originally published during the lockdowns and which the reach plc algorithms punted back at me this week.
The Reach algorithm also offered me this listicle about Cold War buildings in Devon. It is so badly formatted, it’s genuinely annoying. It also suggests that “The purpose behind [a cold war bunker in Torquay]’s construction remains uncertain.”
I’ve visited quite a few large local government buildings over the years, and every one has had a bunker. Lys Kernow has one under one of the wings. Devon’s County Hall has one.
The purpose of such bunkers was to provide a command and control centre for the civilian response to a war. When a national emergency breaks out - like the recent pandemic - local government has a key role to play in trying to manage the fallout. So every local government had a civil defence centre in a bunker. They were not especially secret: 1961 newspaper reports about Lys Kernow included the fact it will have a Civil Defense centre in it (Cornish Guardian, 27 Jul 1961). Try not to think about the scenes in Threads set in Sheffield’s council building tonight.
Seaside Heritage Network webinars
Last Thursday the Seaside Heritage Network (SHN) held an online webinar about Twentieth Century Seaside Architecture. This covered the impact of the Festival of Britain on resort architecture, the bold tower block of Arlington House on Margate’s seafront, and the pyramidal rise of the sealife centre at Scarborough.
West country buildings mentioned were:
Bournemouth’s Pier Theatre, Dorset (John Burton and Elizabeth Scott, 1960)
Weymouth Pavilion, Dorset (Samuel Beverley, 1960)
Paignton’s Festival Hall, Devon (Cyril Thurley, 1967)
You can watch the webinar on the SHN website.
The SHN are running a fundraising webinar on Railways and the Seaside on 9 July with Tim Dunn, Dr Richard Furness and Dr Susan Major. It’s mostly looking at the rise of the British seaside as the railways arrived, so outside my era. But £5 is a bargain.
Checking my content plan works
I want to make sure I’m using the time I can dedicate to this project well. I quite enjoy trawling through the current local news, but I’m not sure it’s adding value for you. Also, news about buildings is rarely urgent. So I’m running a little survey.
If people pick the last option, I’ll need to do a little bit of jiggery pokery to sort it out but I’d rather do that now than when it becomes a nightmarish admin task.
Other local news of C20th buildings
In which I fight my way through local ad-laden news sites to find stories about twentieth century buildings and related topics.
Amulet Community Share offer launches
The Amulet in Shepton Mallet is a Brutalist theatre (unknown architect, 1975). There’s a community effort to bring the building back to life as a cultural hub and last week they launched their share offer. You can visit their site to find out more about the offer.
A look inside the Plaza, Wincanton
The Somerset Leveller, an independent news site, has a good piece about the Plaza Cinema, Wincanton (Edward G. De Wilde Holding, 1934) as work starts on rennovation and refurbishment. It includes this silent video of the interior as it currently looks.
If you know of an event or news item you think I should know about, you can contact me on Bluesky.
I’m off to start creating a list of British Newspaper Archive cuttings to read through for my next deep dive.
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A journey around modernist buildings in the West Country.