Field notes: 24 January 2025
I do like Deco beside the seaside. Plus Bath's Deco fire station, Cornwall's brutal county hall budget and a Hepworth that someone chucked in a drawer for half a century.
I’ve mostly been staying in and reading for the last couple of weeks. I’ve just today got the responses to my FOI requests about Rennes House in Exeter so those will be the first thing I read on Monday.
I do like some Deco beside the seaside
I did go to the Seaside Heritage Network (SHN)’s first seminar of 2025 this week, which focussed on the Art Deco Seaside.
The presentations by Professor Fred Gray, Dr Allan Brodie and David Wilkie covered the use of sunshine in the interwar years, Bournemouth’s embrace of moderne/Deco architecture and the startling wartime history of New Brighton’s New Palace.
I’ll definitely be picking up the walking tour of Deco Bournemouth. One of the original 1930s hotels there is now run by the Premier Inn, who also built a modern Deco hotel on a Devon seafront in 2014.
There are two more SHN online events already available to book on their website. I’m looking forward to the one about Twentieth Century Architecture in May.
Modernist news from the West Country
C20 calls for Bath fire station to be listed
Over in Somerset (Bath and North East Somerset in fact), there is a valid need to modernise the fire station. so what is to become of the 1939 Deco fire station?
C20 are calling for it to be listed, not least because the design was finalised by a woman. Molly Taylor took over after her father died in 1938 before the plans were complete. The SomersetLive write-up includes some lovely hand-coloured plans.
Art deco 1930s fire station 'should be listed, not demolished' - Somerset Live
Avon Fire and Rescue Service wants to knock it down and build a 'state-of-the-art facility' in its place
Lys Kernow upgrade
The Grade II Brutalist 1960s Lys Kernow in Truro (architects Francis Kenneth Hicklin and then Alan Groves) needs upgrading. The £11.6million price tag for the work is being criticised.
How much New County Hall in Cornwall upgrade is costing | Falmouth Packet
Cornwall Council was criticised last month after it was revealed it was spending a large amount of money upgrading its headquarters at a time when…
Lost Hepworth found in school office
A 1962 sculpture that Hepworth had donated to a charity auction was bought by a governor who then bequeathed it to the school in 1975. Then the private school lost it.
Barbara Hepworth sculpture found in school office in Blandford - BBC News
Bryanston School is auctioning the Barbara Hepworth sculpture to raise funds for its art bursary.
Please feel free to say “more of this, less of that”. I’m mostly skulking around on Bluesky.
I’m off to double-check I’ve not got a missing Hepworth in my office drawers.
A journey around modernist buildings in the West Country.