…place: Wisbech #1

Recently I found myself in the Cambridgeshire town of Wisbech with an hour or so to spare and my camera to hand. Dubbed ‘The Capital of the Fens’ and twinned with Arles, Wisbech is known for its well-preserved Georgian architecture and bustling marina and port (despite being situated about 12 miles inland) but I’ve not really spent much time here and I don’t know the place very well.  So I thought I would take a look at it through its typographic presentation…

There is a significant redevelopment of the marina and waterside area of the town, with some major upgrading and rebuilding going on.

It was here that I saw the march of progress and decided to record this sign before if was lost. Slightly heavy of heart, I continued to make my way into the town centre.

This building, once a Girls School, stands on a very unusually angled corner and can quite easily be overlooked; with its high windows and dark, Georgian brick, and without a grand entrance, it seems to go unnoticed amongst it simlilarly constructed, but less attractive neighbours. As I was taking these, an old lady coming out of the florists opposite asked in a broad Fenland accent what I was taking photographs of and I pointed out the inscription high above the arched windows. “Well I never noticed that before!” she chuckled, then went on to add “I can’t read it though because I haven’t got my glasses on!” and off she tootled, chuckling away with a big bunch of chrysanthemums sticking out of her shopping trolley. Unnoticed, I thought to myself and captured this stone set into the wall at the side of the florists:

The building was nondescript red brick with plate-glass windows at street level. I wonder what old E.B. Bellars Esq. would think of that?

A nice bit of hand lettering on the door light, partially obscured by white van man… note the unnecessary full stop.

And so on into the main shopping district. I was pleased to see that most of the big name stores had taken up residence in the newer Horsefair development which left a lot of the older buildings to develop in a more gentle way. This small side panel to a shop window caught my eye – you don’t see this type of opportunism these days – taking advantage of a strip of blank space poking out into a pedestrianised area, and attracting attention by employing  a plethora of typographic and graphic styles.

There are some good old-fashioned shops too, that have retained their original frontage despite the prevalence of flat, double glazed and acrylic that have blighted many a little market town.

There is so much wrong with this sign that I love! This takes me back to my childhood where every local shopping precinct had a newsagent, butchers, knitting wool shop and a mysterious ‘fancy goods’ shop. Now it is all betting shops, kebab houses and hair’n'nail boutiques. Alas, alas.

But the post office has got some extravagant lettering, made all the more beautiful in contrast to the modern sign. I wonder…

Hmm, maybe not, but it’s a diverting thought.

I also spotted this lovely stone cut sign way up above the first story windows of what sadly is no longer a pub.

And this slowly eroding plaque on a memorial to Thomas Clarkson, the anti-slavery campaigner and the towns most celebrated son. This just across the road from the post office – I wonder if the similar Lombardic styles have a connection?

 Back into the town again and I did a bit of a double-take at this butchers shop, painted on the hoarding. I was immediately struck by the markings on the side of the connecting building which remind me of the kind of height charts you find on the inside of cupboard doors in family homes, showing the growth spurts of various offspring. They must have some big kids around Wisbech way…

There are two or three more of these painted shops opposite, which make a more pleasant environment than empty or boarded up shops.

Facing the market square is the Rose & Crown Hotel, another fine Georgian pile, and like a few parts of the town, is showing signs of wear and tear. The ampersand is a little out of keeping here and is probably a much later replacement for the original, but I thought it had a lot of character. I’ll leave you with a close up, but will be back with some more from the “Capital Of The Fens.”

LINKS
GoogleMap of Wisbech
Wisbech Commununity
Wisbech Summary

So what’s in your neighbourhood?

I am putting out a request for contributors for the “my type of… place” section of this blog and would like you to put together your own typographic tour. If you are interested, download the contributors information sheet for more details, ideas and specifications here.

…place: Wisbech Museum

When I was last in Wisbech I stumbled upon the excellent Wisbech Museum. I like local museums – I always have but as times have changed and every museum is turning into an ‘experience’ and so chock-a-block with distracting technological ‘interactivity,’ I have come to relish every opportunity to while away an afternoon in a slightly fusty, deserted Victorian building, stuffed to the gunwales with the most amazing variety of things imaginable.

In this aspect, Wisbech Museum does not let me down. Apart from the fact it was incredibly clean and not at all fusty that is. I pretty much had the place to myself too – just one or two others wandered in and kept themselves quietly reverential as they too allowed themselves to wander in their imaginations as they wandered between the polished wooden display cases.

There is an excellent display of labels and packaging from pretty much all over the place, but especially from the local community through the ages. I loved the simplicity of this label – a simple dosage on the from will do – no twenty page manual about the active ingredients or possible side effects. FOUR TYPEFACES THOUGH. Those were the days…

I can’t believe it’s not butter!

It was much more simple back then – lose weight? Take  Antipon!

Old museums were always fascinating to me, partly because they were usually grand, important places that you had to be quiet and serious in, but I was also fascinated by all the latin nomenclature. I think I was also attracted to the neat handwriting and how everything seemed to ordered, fixed and known.

There is obviously quite a lot of local history here, and I was as captivated by the lettering stamped into the brick as I was this elegantly moulded Lombardic fragment. There were a good amount of prints, engravings, paintings and drawings, but I thought I would finish my visit with a simple poster, simple and very much ‘of it’s time’ but rather interesting in its tone, which is much less reverential that what is expected…

The building itself did not disappoint either and had some of the deepest carved lettering I have ever seen:

And adjacent to the museum is the ambitiously named Wisbech Castle, which is not a real castle at all but an elegant Regency villa built upon the site of a much earlier Norman castle.

Ahh, the weathering, the weathering…

I would also like to give my praise to the Museum staff, who were very surprised that I had asked for permission to take photographs (“most folk do with their phone cameras and the like, whether they can or can’t”) , but who were also very knowledgeable and keen to talk about the collection. I suppose it makes a change from politely disappointing those who came for an audio tour and some sort of hands-on extravaganza. The future is great. But so is the past. Go visit a local museum, while you still can…

LINKS
Wisbech Museum
Wisbech Castle

So what’s in your neighbourhood?

I am putting out a request for contributors for the “my type of… place” section of this blog and would like you to put together your own typographic tour. If you are interested, download the contributors information sheet for more details, ideas and specifications here.