Bridgewater Canal, Worsley
Part III and my final upload from this visit... I only post this image on account of something that caught my eye. Having watched Kevin McCloud's Grand Designs for many years, I whole heartily agree with him that great architecture and design have a positive influence on the human psyche. Why else do we paint and decorate our homes to our individual tastes if not to make us feel happy.
However, I also believe that great design goes unnoticed a lot of the time. Take IKEA for example, all their flat pack furniture is carefully designed with home assembly in mind to be assembled with the minimum of parts and tools, although some will disagree, but I bet they never looked at the assembly plan first before jumping in with hammer and nail. The London Tube Map - copied the world over because it works and nobody has come up with a better alternative are two examples that spring to mind.
Which brings me back to this image, but first, a little moan... the bridge crossing the canal is known as the Alphabet bridge on account of the 26 decking planks. The story goes that the local school children used to recite their alphabet whilst crossing - a simple story if nothing else. However, I don't recall anything being wrong with the structure of that bridge or the timbers say the odd rotten one, but it looks like new steelwork to me, which I thought would contravene renovation laws (one for Kevin perhaps). Moan over...
What I do like are those two stone benches. Prior to this paving and landscaping the area was a patch of waste ground with a very sorry conventional park bench and a litter bin right at the end that nobody used because they couldn't be ar$ed to walk that far!. But back to the benches... they could have so easily put a couple of new standard ones there instead (and probably a lot cheaper as well). I suspect you're all wondering what the hell am I going on about!!!
Whoever has come up with this design, I tip my hat to them, because they have clearly researched the history of Worsley and its mining heritage. The Benches have been cast in the shape of the starvationer boats, so called due to their exposed ribs, that were used in the underground mines to extract the coal. If you can enlarge this image you can make out the ribs on the top of the bench seats.
I just think this is such a great nod to the past and clever/creative design at its best. For anyone visiting the area without any knowledge of the local history I suspect these will go unnoticed. That's it for now, I'll be keeping an eye on developments as it reaches completion.
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