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Architectural AH

Again going back to Redditch and the 70's when it expanded.

There was, roughly, an hourly service by 2 coach DMU from Redditch to Birmingham New Street - it took 48 minutes for 15 miles. Redditch station is situated well away from much of the New Town growth and at the time, there wasn't a large car park there - there's about 200 places now. The line had always been a single track branch and until it was upgraded it could only handle 2 trains an hour, it can now do a 15 minute service if pushed - a 20 minute service (with a 3-coach EMU) fits in better with possible delays on the Cross-City. The station is fairly remote from the new housing areas although connected by busway - until the 1990's it was quicker to drive from Redditch to Birmingham New Street, only as congestion has built up has the train become faster - also the service has improved with electrification to 37 minutes despite 3 extra stops. In fact the Midland Red buses to Redditch - which could only make limited stops in Birmingham were as quick as the train until the 1990's and one of the two services even served the New Town.

Even if the line had been kept open to Alcester and Evesham. It would have been a drain for many years, there was seven stations between Evesham & Redditch, four of them would probably still be no use and it was old, slow and windy (my husband grew up in that part of Warwickshire/Worcestershire so I know it fairly well), electrification wouldn't be viable even now, but one train an hour to Evesham calling at a brand new stations "Redditch South", Studley, Alcester, Salford Priors and Evesham would now be viable and in the case of Salford Priors probably only in the last five years.
 
Ah ok, thanks. Didn't realize it was such a small-bore line. I suppose it would have been pretty useless to try and build up the area around the station more when it was so slow/narrow to begin with and when electrification and similar improvements weren't really on the horizon.
 
Ah ok, thanks. Didn't realize it was such a small-bore line. I suppose it would have been pretty useless to try and build up the area around the station more when it was so slow/narrow to begin with and when electrification and similar improvements weren't really on the horizon.

It was a town of about 20,000 people until after WWII, it's main industry was producing needles, hooks and the like. Titter ye not, Redditch produced 90% of the world's needles until the 1920's. As such, it didn't have a lot of rail traffic, the goods yard was fairly small and it only had two platforms because it was a passing place (and that fell out of use as traffic declined south of Redditch). Similarly Alcester and Studley are four to five times larger than they were in the 1960's and Salford Priors gone from being a flyspeck to about 2,000 people.
 
Right, it's a obvious issue. I guess the question I'm trying to ask is "can the way the New Towns develop get changed, and are there interesting knock-off effects"-for example, do they affect how central/dominant London can be or what industries shift and flourish where? Apologies if this is not really architecture anymore or if I should move this.
 
Currently reading Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture by Michael Kammen, all about public memory and national identity. While arguing that Americans consciously rejected tradition and nostalgia until after the Civil War, he brings up the fact that the city of Philadelphia had no problem demolishing Ben Franklin's house and the third Presidential mansion in the 1830s. There were apparently serious proposals to knock down Independence Hall, too, and replace it with a more contemporary public building - perhaps with a few statues of the Founders in a room off to the side as a token gesture to the past. I'm not sure about the short-term effects, but losing Independence Hall would certainly have made Philadelphia's reputation for historic significance and beauty more difficult to trade on in the future.

It reminded me of this thread. What are other now-hallowed buildings that came close to being swept away? On the other hand, what major sites were only narrowly consigned to the wrecking ball?
 
It reminded me of this thread. What are other now-hallowed buildings that came close to being swept away? On the other hand, what major sites were only narrowly consigned to the wrecking ball?
Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow comes to mind. At one point the Soviet leadership wanted to raze it, same as it had done with the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, but Stalin eventually decided it could stay--some credit architect Pyotr Baranovsky for changing the dictator's mind. Ironically, the building would later become visual shorthand for the Soviet Union.

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"What will the Soviets do when they conquer space? Why, build cathedrals, of course!"
 
The Tudor part of Hampton Court palace, as seen in numerous Lucy Worsley etc history programmes, was very nearly demolished as out of date by Sir Christopher Wren in the 1690s when he built the new, square, red-brick S and E facades. He had already been hired by William III and Mary II in 1689 to pull down the old Tudor royal apartments of Henry VIII's and build a virtual copy of Versailles instead, and the plans show that the entire palace except the Great Hall was due to be pulled down - with the GH left as the focal point of a series of new courtyards. But in the event, Mary II died of smallpox aged 34 in December 1694 and William was so depressed that he gave up on the rebuilding and kept the western two Tudor courts, with the grand entrance towers and gate that are the iconic symbol of HC in tourist brochures.

Just as important as what was nearly demolished is what could have survived but didn't - in the UK, , particularly in terms of major royal palaces (eg Whitehall Palace, the Tudor government HQ sited East of the present Downing Street and on the site of the present Ministry of Defence in London, burnt down in 1698 ) and the hordes of medieval abbeys pulled down for their stones after Henry VIII abolished the monasteries. But for the latter, the UK would have as many grand Gothic medieval abbeys as France - eg the huge building that used to exist at Glastonbury.

It would be interesting to create a 'virtual map' and reconstruction of what London used to look like in the Tudor and Stuart periods and see how much has been lost; the current mania for redevelopment in the City is nothing new. There were once large numbers of grand noble mansions across the upper-class areas of W London and along the Thames, comparable to the ones in Paris - and current road names commemorate these. I notice that a computerised reconstruction has been done for the Byzantine imperial palace in Constantinople; perhaps we could have a Sealion website one for Whitehall or other lost sites as they would have looked had an AH course of events meant no major fires or rebuilding projects?
 
It reminded me of this thread. What are other now-hallowed buildings that came close to being swept away? On the other hand, what major sites were only narrowly consigned to the wrecking ball?

Kyoto Japan. The city is home to 17 World Heritage listed sites including Nijo Castle, the Kyoto Imperial palace and the exquisite Kinkaku-ji Temple. In 1945 Kyoto was designated as the primary target for the first atomic bomb, being a city of over a million inhabitants that had not as yet been fire-bombed. The only reason Kyoto was not bombed was because of the vehement opposition of Secretary for War Henry Stimson, who had visited Kyoto several times in the 1920s and had fallen in love with the city.

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However, Kyoto's salvation was Hiroshima's destruction.
 
It reminded me of this thread. What are other now-hallowed buildings that came close to being swept away? On the other hand, what major sites were only narrowly consigned to the wrecking ball?

Derby's been particularly prone to demolition of historic landmarks, and yet could have gone further with them if they'd implemented all the 60s road plans.

Banqueting House being the only part of Whitehall Palace to survive the fire has to be on the list of near misses.
 
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I notice that a computerised reconstruction has been done for the Byzantine imperial palace in Constantinople; perhaps we could have a Sealion website one for Whitehall or other lost sites as they would have looked had an AH course of events meant no major fires or rebuilding projects?

I think this would be an excellent, if involved, idea for a series on the blog.
 
Carlton House, the original grand London home which George IV lived in as Prince of Wales from the early 1780s to his accession in 1820 - and had spent a fortune on - was pulled down in the mid-1820s after he discovered he could not afford to keep it up and rebuild Buckingham Palace and the royal apartments of Windsor Castle. He intended to keep Brighton Pavilion as his seaside home and Windsor as his out-of-town country home, and state ceremonies were as of this date usually held at St James' Palace so that had to stay in use too; but he could not afford to keep up two other London homes.

George III's main London home at Buckingham Palace (B House at that date, and only three sides of a courtyard not four as at present)could easily have been abandoned or sold in the 1820s. Carlton House was George IV's usual home and was at a good focal point for a ceremonial approach - the site is now that of Waterloo Place, the Duke of York's column and the adjacent Carlton House Terrace, at the bottom of Lower Regent Street. At that point the Mall had no entrance from the site of Trafalgar Square (then the royal stables) - Admiralty Arch was not put up until the 1900s. As events turned out the ever restless George preferred to get rid of Carlton House and bring John Nash in to redesign Buckingham House, cannibalising some interiors from the demolished CH to put in BH; CH was pulled down in the mid-1820s. But he nearly stayed in Carlton House and restricted his rebuilding to Windsor instead. if he had done so, logically Victoria would not have risked a huge amount of money in the depression-hit 1840s redeveloping Buckingham Palace and the British monarchy would have been based in CH instead; BP would have been a smaller 'annex' to the main residence, like Clarence House is nowadays. Alternatively, if George IV had not bothered with a Gothic rebuild at Windsor we would have Baroque 1680s interiors at Windsor not the actual 1820s Gothic ones - and it would have been the 1680s painted ceiling at St George's Hall (like the Verrio ones at Kensington and Hampton Court)which went up in smoke in 1992.

Victoria also sold off Brighton Pavilion in 1850 as she did not like the public looking in her windows and had just bought the Osborne House estate on the Isle of Wight as more private; if the town corporation had not bought the Pavilion it would have been demolished, going the same way as earlier royal extravaganza Nonsuch at Ewell in Surrey.

Other major removals in OTL that made the central London layout a lot different - Northumberland House (home of the dukes of Northumberland from the C16th) at the East side of Trafalgar Square, demolished to make way for N Avenue in 1874; Leicester House (home of the earls of Leicester) from the N side of
Leicester Square; the original, Tudor Somerset House (built by Edward VI's uncle the Duke of S in the late 1540s) by Waterloo Bridge; the Savoy palace and Salisbury House from the Strand; and a medieval fortress like a smaller version of the Tower of London, Baynard's Castle, from the Thames bank S of St Paul's after damage in the Great Fire in 1666.
 
Interesting! I suppose it would be hard to come up with a POD that spared all these buildings unless you somehow had the modern conception of historic preservation emerge much earlier, but a list or map of all these major changes would definitely be a useful resource.
 
A few possible PODs:

The modern concept of historic preservation becomes mainstream much earlier, through the Renaissance's interest in Roman history, or the Romantic period's interest in medieval history;

McAdam and Le Corbusier die in the cradle, sparing the world their insanity;

No Adolf Hitler, no World War II, no air raids - the concrete/glass/steel school of thought predates the POD but becomes far less influential without the need for cheap, massive reconstruction plans;

Environmentalism takes off much earlier than in OTL - plenty of people in the 19th and 20th centuries had some good ideas, but the science of the time didn't back them up yet - with related consequences in architecture.
 
I've always wondered about what Sydney and especially 'Marvelous' Melbourne would have looked like if so many of the great sandstone buildings hadn't been torn down in the twentieth century.

Before he went all... well, him... Barry Humphries did sterling work preserving central Sydney's historic architecture from destruction in the 80s.
 
The modern concept of historic preservation becomes mainstream much earlier, through the Renaissance's interest in Roman history, or the Romantic period's interest in medieval history;

I mean the latter did happen. What it resulted in was a lot of wealthy architects and 'architects' going around 'restoring' historic churches and cathedrals.

At the best you get people like Violet le Duc doing a mostly careful restoration of Notre Dame with just a few individual flourishes where he couldn't resist making his own mark on it.

At the other end of the scale you get the sort of people who demolished any alteration made since 1600, or in some cases tore out original material, so as to 'restore' a church to some idealised state of Gothic design it never actually existed in.

There were definitely campaigns to prevent individual buildings from being demolished at the time of course.
 
Honest q: how practical is this given things like fire, modern durable materials and so on?

Depends on the country. Hell depends on the city.

You'll get accidents and so on of course, but there's still a handful of pre-Fire buildings in the City of London so there's nothing particularly implausible with the idea of more of that being retained.

The crucial thing to remember is that the quality survives. Well built Tudor or Georgian buildings being kept? Sure, though expect some expansions and additions. cheaply built working class housing still probably gets pulled down and replaced in the 1880s, then again in the 1930s, and quite possibly then again in the 1970s/80s depending on what was built instead however.
 
One for London, keep the Fleet river canal running up to king's cross.

The Fleet Canal
By the time of the Great Fire of London in 1666, substantial lengths of the Fleet were straightened. The Fleet was given a second chance as a navigation when attempts were made to clean up its filthy condition. From St Pancras towards High Holborn, it was largely culverted. As part of those works, a wider reach was built from the Thames to High Holborn with wharfage for larger craft. This section of waterway was known as the Fleet Canal, or the New Canal as it was christened by 1674. Alas history repeats and the Fleet Canal ends up as a open sewer upon which boats hardly dared venture. It too was culverted in about 1733 or 1737 from Holbourn to Ludgate Circus (Fleet bridge.)

https://londoncanals.uk/2010/01/09/the-fleet-river-and-its-canal/
 
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