A beautiful photo from our friends at RIBA and Beautiful Kenton Bar
Friends, Roman’s, Countrymen – some time ago I received an email from our friends at Beautiful Kenton Bar telling me they had a surprise, a beautiful surprise, in the form of a photograph given to them by Rutter Carroll. The photo had been taken of a location on Kenton Bar Estate by a very famous architectural photographed – BK said they could tell me no more nor even show me the photograph until permission had been given for it’s inclusion on the blog. Yesterday the friendly and gallant folks at RIBA gave their permission for the photograph to be published free of the usual royalty payments and here my friends it is in all it’s glory.
First two links if you want to find more:-
- Ribapix – an essential source of fine photographs for the aficionado of architecture and even some nice shots of Ryder and Yates if you care to do a search!!
- RIBA – the custodians of the history, art and culture of architecture in Britain
And now dear friends – the picture itself courtesy of Henk Snoek and the RIBA Library Photographs Collection
It shows the original P-179 street lamp and also electric house the way it was originally - see the position of the post box ( not in the door but in the side panel), black panels at the bottom of the window and original design of the windows. Please zoom onto the front of the electric house (click on the picture fro a larger version) - is the horizontal pane on top of the window a black panel as well or just very narrow glass pane? Can you remember what it was originally? Again zoom in and you can see two people outside the door of the second house – where these people and where are they now?
The photo also confirms to me that indeed Henk Snoek photographed Kenton Bar Estate and not Photo Mayo as I originally thought. Maybe it is time got GOM to go down to RIBA and scour the Snoek archive for pictures of the pyramid which MUST have been high on the list of things he photographed. Many thanks to BK for the hard work on this – you know who you are……
In my opinion – if you look at the Google aerial map below the photo above was of this block. Now the garages have been mostly demolished and the lamp posts are gone – am I right?
View Larger Map
Notice something else beautiful about this fine photograph? NO TV aerials and no damned satellite dishes to blemish the fine facades.
This is so so beautiful...yes they demolished the end curve bits of the garages as apparently ruffians and bounders had apparently been breaking into them, hidden from view...so they cut of the curved bits, leaving only the straight bit of garage(so vigilant neighborhood watch types could see whats going on)...note the sapling tree in the beautiful photograph next to the curved garages has flourished into a tree in the aerial photograph and still remains...
ReplyDeleteThe photo is the bottom of Byrness Close - looking towards what was Kenny Gray's old house if I'm not mistaken
ReplyDeletewhat is that white thing sticking up between the lamppost and the sapling tree?
ReplyDeleteI think it is a hydrant sign, a letter H with distance and pressure details on a square plaque, embedded into a concrete surround above a short pillar.
ReplyDeleteImages of some HERE
No doubt there are still plenty around the Estate, although these days they seem to be fitted onto lamp-posts instead.
Here is a hydrant sign on Hazeldene Avenue near Appleby Avenue.
ReplyDeleteGoogle Streetview
By the way, what is "Beautiful Kenton Bar"? Is it another website? I can't find anything...
ReplyDeleteNo Shades..the master should have used the word 'on' rather than 'at'...these noble creatures dwell upon the estate...
ReplyDeleteRe:'Maybe it is time got GOM to go down to RIBA and scour the Snoek archive for pictures of the pyramid which MUST have been high on the list of things he photographed...'the master has but to command and I will obey, for I am but his humble servant...but we need permission from RIBA...doth thou slooshy?...
ReplyDeleteI've mentioned elsewhere on this site, but I used to live in that end house (50 Hazeldene Avenue) in the late 70's and early 80's (before the garages were demolished). There are no TV aerials because we were some of the first people in the country (correct me if I'm wrong) to have cable tv!! We had loads of American and European TV shows and cartoons.
ReplyDeleteThis style of house (the 3 bed or 4 bed, if you count the thin narrow downstairs room behind the sitting room) was 'modernised' in the early 80's when we were there and had small pitched roof extensions added to the back along with new windows, doors and panels adding into the previously floor to ceiling split windows. They also upgraded the heating systems (if I remember correctly) from the ducted air to central radiators.
Dear Anonymus,
DeleteCan you clarify the part about extensions - I thought that the alteration was purely the pitched roof. I thought that the little bit coming of the living room was always there, but with the flat roof. Please let us all know.
I don't recall the Rediffusion offering anything other than BBC1, 2 & ITV (& a few radio channels), back in the late 1960s. Perhaps they enhanced it later.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the electric houses had ducted air, they had underfloor heating.
The electric house rear extensions can clearly be seen on the 60's helicopter shots.
ReplyDelete