Precinct

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Photoblog: 26 Sep 2010

This is Glover's Walk in Yeovil, Somerset. It's a short cut through from the bus station to the main shopping streets, with half a dozen small scruffy shop units along it. The Big "H" has closed down -- indeed, most of the half-dozen shops have. Acorn Records (behind, to the right), where I bought CDs during high school, appears to survive, just about.

This scene I think is synonymous with the word "Precinct": a maze of familiar faded grey 1970s low-rises. A single random, cheap, pointless flourish somewhere in the architecture. Perhaps replacement paving slabs from the late 1990s. Shops that have closed.

Yeovil was the nearest proper town when I grew up. It was an exciting and exotic destination for a five year old from North Dorset: one had to go down the jewel carrotway to get to the oval -- to the multi-storey car park if dad was driving; or else to the bus station on the 58a. Behind the camera there were escalators, with a curved perspex canopy, leading from Glover's Walk to the then new Quedam centre. There were skyscrapers up to 8 storeys high.

I took a quick detour to the town on saturday to take a few snaps for a quick photo essay that I'm preparing to explain why it beats Plymouth, Poole, Swindon and Taunton to take the top prize as worst town in the West Country.