The Pump Room, Tenbury Wells

     The object of our foray into England was a family birthday. On our return journey I insisted we stop at Tenbury Wells, a small and attractive, work-a-day market town in the extreme north-west corner of Worcestershire. I wanted to see the spa. And as you can see from the photographs what an extraordinary little structure it is. Pevsner said, perhaps a little harshly: 'much like Gothicky or Chinesey fair stuff without seriousness or taste'. I prefer to see it as an example of British eccentricity.

     As you can well imagine it is Victorian in date, by an architect who even I've never heard of James Cranston. A local, I think, though the local tourist information says he was a Brummie. Apparently the whole thing, apart from the porch, is prefabricated. The roof is clad in 'bespoke' iron sheets. The tower looks like it has strayed from a Hollywood production set in medieval Russia. Pevsner was right, it is rebarbative; but I think that misses the point.

     The Pump Room isn't the only building by Cranston in the town which is mainly red-brick Georgian with a handful of the Medieval thrown into the mix. It's well worth a stroll about.

     Below is the only slightly less extraordinary Market House dating to 1858. Not that many buildings I know are oval in plan. Pevsner rather liked it but I feel somewhat less sympathetic. It isn't bad in itself, quite whimsical really, even charming, though from some angles it looks like a grossly inflated cabbies' shelter.  The problem lies for me, however, in the execution which is rather harsh, better suited to a Victorian city than a Georgian and Medieval market town. That is partly down to the use of machine made bricks and tiles. Perhaps it will have to stand around for another 150 years for it to have bedded in properly, quietly maturing like a cheese or fine wine. Perhaps it never will, but be doomed to be forever an architectural outsider. In the meantime a change of colour scheme re paint may help. Both buildings are High Victorian in style, and one suspects Cranston was under the influence of 'Rogue' architects such as Lamb and Teulon. Drunk and disorderly on Muscular Gothic and the possibilities of mass production in the new Industrial Age.