Irretrievably middlebrow - a photo on Flickriver

            From a film exposed in March 2016 that always looked pretty grotty.  The other day I remembered that my scanner software sometimes used to have a funny five minutes and "untick" the Unsharp Mask box without my asking it to.  Could this be what had happened?  So I re-scanned the film and, from the first result, saw a marked improvement.
Here, in Bury St Edmunds, we see one of the noted buildings in that architecturally distinguished town.  It is the Market Cross ...the finest post-medieval building in Bury, avers Pevsner.  It was remodelled, 1774-7, by Robert Adam.  The ground floor, which had been open for corn dealing, was enclosed in 1840.  "White" brick ...which, like white wine, is of a yellowish hue... with stone dressings, rusticated on the ground floor, and decorative details of Coade stone.  Whilst acknowledging its greatness, I'm bound to say it leaves me pretty cold.  More to my taste is the rank on the right, starting with a red brick post office (recently vacated) of 1894; then a former branch of Boots, currently a W H Smith, "a riotous and glorious fantasy" (Pevsner) with stucco and timber framing featuring, in its centre gable, a panel depicting Canute rebuking his flatterers; then a Montague Burton's of 1933, before wishy-washy modern tat takes over.  Is it wrong ...somehow degenerate... to prefer what is dim and mediocre? ...to reject Rome and prefer Welwyn Garden City? to turn one's back on Palladio and embrace ...I dunno... Detmar Blow?  I suppose I'd have to admit that I prefer Betjeman to Milton and would rather listen to the Beatles than Bach.  But is it a symptom of our civilisation's decline that a member of the proletariat should have convinced himself that he has an interest in such matters at all?  Albeit, insofar as, notwithstanding... (cont. p94).
   

Taken on: February 10, 2019

Tags:

Bury St Edmunds

Robert Adam

building

Fuji Ga645Zi

Kodak Tri-X

Promicrol

Suffolk « less

Groups appears in: • Suffolk • Architecture UK more » • Monochrome Britain (no colour splashes) • Georgian Architecture • epson v500 • Promicrol - Past and Present • UK Film Club • Fuji GA645Zi « less

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