A quiet space in the City of London is remarkable, but Postman’s Park is unique. Round the corner from St Paul's Cathedral where the streets are full of city gents bursting with self-importance, it contains the Watts Memorial where people who were ordinary, yet extraordinary are remembered in a very beautiful way.

In one corner of the park, easily overlooked under a canopy, there are over 50 plaques, with beautiful lettering hand-painted onto Royal Doulton tiles. Each one details the untimely end of a heroic soul who died trying to save another life. Except they put it much more poetically than that. Although they're short, they're beautifully written with flashes of detail that paint vivid pictures of these tragic gothic scenes. Take David Selves, aged 12 of Woolwich who "supported his drowning playfellow and sank with him clasped in his arms", or William Donald of Bayswater who "drowned in the Lea trying to save a lad from a dangerous entanglement of weed". Fans of Edward Gorey or Lemony Snicket get yourself down here.

At first they seem funny - a bit over the top. But by the end of the first panel I was hooked. What next? What fresh disaster? After 30 or so plaques it's almost heartbreaking. Every tile has something, a name or a place or a word that places it firmly in the past. There are occupations that don't exist anymore and situations no one would ever find themselves in, peopled by a cast of Fredericks, Herberts and Alices. Even the causes of death are wonderfully archaic - descending a high-tension chamber, trampled by a runaway horse; or spectacularly bizarre like Sarah Smith, pantomime artiste who "died of terrible injuries received when attempting in her inflammable dress to extinguish the flames which had enveloped her companion".

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Posted by Anne on August 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6)

‘I say, I say, I say, what’s 450 feet long and home to Britain’s last traditional seaside show?’ ‘I don’t know, what is...?’ Actually, I do know, the answer’s Cromer Pier, and while it might not be the country’s biggest and brightest, the town is justifiably proud of their iconic landmark; so much so that when a 100 ton storm-tossed rig-barge smashed through the middle of it on the night of Remembrance Day 1993, the council immediately made the money available for repairs, and again after substantial storm damage in November 2007.

Unlike most of the piers in the UK’s more popular resorts, stepping onto the boardwalk at Cromer, doesn’t mean first passing through the obligatory amusement arcade. There isn’t one ‘Penny Falls’, ‘A PrizeATime Grabber’, or ‘Pump-It-Up Dance Machine’ to be seen, or thankfully heard.

Instead at the pier head, you’ll find the booking office for the Pavilion Theatre, staffed by two blue-suited matrons. A little further on and opposite Tides Restaurant, there’s Footprints Gift Shop, which might claim to sell traditional seaside favourites, but you could turn the place upside down and not find a sniff of an edible willy, or any other hilarious novelty naughty bits. Sorry, but you’ll have to make do with Belgian chocolates and handmade fudge.

From here on in, your pier experience depends very much on the season and the weather. A bit of sunshine brings out the families and it’s a snapshot of any summer of the last fifty or so years. Kids dangle crab-lines over the rail, while grandad sits in one of the shelters, dangling a roll-up from his lips, and fishermen vie for position between the theatre and the lifeboat house.

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Posted by Andrew on August 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

An Englishman's home is his castle, or so they say. His own little world. The Forbidden Corner, near Leyburn in Wensleydale is a very English place, and indeed is its own little world. What the Forbidden Corner is, exactly, is hard to describe. A public garden, yes, but also a maze. A folly, but a folly hidden from site. A sculpture, and a piece of theatre; a fairground fun house that tries to unnerve as well as startle.

Getting in is itself something of an odyssey. Tickets must be booked in advance, to comply with National Park planning regulations; and once you have one, you must explore winding country lanes before reaching the car park and the gift shop, which looks like an ordinary, standard gift shop aimed at the holiday-souvenir and school-trip market. "Have you been here before?" asks the girl on the ticket desk, giving you a leaflet. "The clues are all in the leaflet, but not in the right order." And what you thought might be a plan of the site is a spread of cryptic ditties, each one hinting of treasures within. A sign at the door asks you to make sure you close all gates and doors behind you; and the next thing you find is a building with a wide, gaping mouth, inviting you to walk inside.

The Forbidden Corner was designed, originally, as a private folly. Tupgill Park, Coverham, is the family estate of a diplomat called Colin Armstrong. Over twenty-five years ago, he started clearing paths in a small wood originally planted as a windbreak. Things grew, and he hired a local architect called Malcolm Tempest to design a grotto. The grotto is still there, at the heart of the garden, but surrounded by a labyrinth of paths, glades, and formal gardens, on a site which feels much, much larger than a map would have you think. After a court battle with the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, Armstrong opened his folly to the public; and every winter it is changed, altered and extended, to keep the visitors coming back.

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Posted by FP on August 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Architecture is a serious business. There are swathes of books about great buildings, famous architects, architectural movements and the like. But how many of these great buildings are fun? Well, Bangkok’s Robot Building is.

Strangely enough, the Lonely Planet guide to Thailand fails to mention it so when I saw a pair of eyes peering out across the smoggy Bangkok skyline I thought it was an optical illusion. As the Skytrain snakes around Sathorn, Bangkok’s financial district, it becomes clear that actually the building is a robot. It has eyes and ears (well, antennae), a body and legs. In a sprawling city that has some of the ugliest architecture ever, laid out in a way that suggests someone put lots of buildings in a bag, shook them hard and tipped them out it’s a bolt from the blue, if you'll pardon the pun.

This fantastic building was designed in 1985 by Sumet Jumsai, one of Thailand’s best-loved architects, also famous for the Bangkok's Elephant Building (which looks like an elephant). A contemporary of Buckminster Fuller he took inspiration from his son’s toy robot and let it loose on a design for the Bank of Asia (now United Overseas Bank) headquarters. A sign of the times, this cheery robot signifies the friendly face of technology.

For all that it looks like an elaborate joke, every robotic aspect is well-planned and well-used. His eyes are the dining and meeting rooms of the executive suites, his eyelids are sunshades, his antennae are lightning rods. His nuts were the biggest in the world at time of development. Planning regulations give him his stepped-back sides and the blue curtain walls representing the colour of the Bank of Thailand provide much-needed shade. If that wasn't enough, the robot's eyes were designed to wink at night along to music called "The Robot Symphony" by Jacques Bekaert, a Bangkok composer. I didn't see it at night so amn't sure if that actually happens. Let's hope so.

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Posted by Anne on August 02, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)