Continuing the posting of content no longer featured on our website . .
Mechanics Institute - Sep 2005
A super weird building! Grade II* listed but showing the scars of being derelict since 1986. Built in 1855 as a social retreat for GWR railway workers, though it is much noted that it was built and funded largely privately and not by GWR. The building was also used by the local community for social events and annual fetes. The site was significantly extended in 1892.
I visited in Sep '05 with Sam of www.nobodythere.co.uk. On approaching by a uniform street of workers cottages I was slightly taken back by the seemingly random arrangement of old and new that make up the Mechanics Institution, dominated by the ugly modern fly tower that just doesn't sit with the rest of the building. For a compact site on a resonably small footprint it is crammed with so much of interest, most noteably a huge reading room and library on the ground floor and auditorium on the first.
Pictures, in particular order:
Ground Floor Plan
First floor plan
Original entrance end
1892 entrance
Foyer of 1892 entrance
stairs & fire extinguisher brackets
More Escher stair shennanigans
First floor Bagatelle room
Ground Floor skittles alley
First floor Girls Reading Room
Ground Floor Reading Room
Reading room moulding detail
First floor auditorium
Auditorium plaster motif detail
Auditorium rear window (at original entrance end)
Fly Tower rigging
JD
Mechanics Institute - Sep 2005
A super weird building! Grade II* listed but showing the scars of being derelict since 1986. Built in 1855 as a social retreat for GWR railway workers, though it is much noted that it was built and funded largely privately and not by GWR. The building was also used by the local community for social events and annual fetes. The site was significantly extended in 1892.
I visited in Sep '05 with Sam of www.nobodythere.co.uk. On approaching by a uniform street of workers cottages I was slightly taken back by the seemingly random arrangement of old and new that make up the Mechanics Institution, dominated by the ugly modern fly tower that just doesn't sit with the rest of the building. For a compact site on a resonably small footprint it is crammed with so much of interest, most noteably a huge reading room and library on the ground floor and auditorium on the first.
Pictures, in particular order:
Ground Floor Plan
First floor plan
Original entrance end
1892 entrance
Foyer of 1892 entrance
stairs & fire extinguisher brackets
More Escher stair shennanigans
First floor Bagatelle room
Ground Floor skittles alley
First floor Girls Reading Room
Ground Floor Reading Room
Reading room moulding detail
First floor auditorium
Auditorium plaster motif detail
Auditorium rear window (at original entrance end)
Fly Tower rigging
JD
