Monday, August 17, 2009

Devizes, Wiltshire


Beer and behemoths

Whenever someone decides to put up a new building in the middle of one of our historic towns and villages, the temperature of the inhabitants is apt to rise. New buildings are seen by many as a threat, and the greatest threat of all is posed by buildings that don’t ‘fit in’. People recognize certain key elements that buildings contribute to the character of a place – elements such as style, scale, and materials. A city like Bath, for example, is dominated by Georgian architecture no more than a few storeys tall, most of it faced with local limestone; a tall modernist skyscraper made of concrete would look out place there. And if someone came along with plans for a house made of concrete blocks in a Cotswold town, or a gigantic brick tower in a Warkwickshire ‘black and white’ village, or a creation in glass and steel amongst the weatherboard and brick of the rural southeast, hackles would rise.

Devizes, this conventional wisdom goes, is a stone-built market town. The houses and shops of its central streets are mostly three storeys or less, and the character of the place owes much to creamy limestone – and a bit of matching pale render here and there. What, then, are we to make of the brick-built behemoth at the end of the market place – not a new building but certainly not one that blends into the townscape? At around twice the height of the neighbouring houses and several times the width, this monster ought to have destroyed the town centre. But I don’t think it has. I think it makes a positive contribution to the town centre (and not just because of the beer it produces, to which I have a certain attachment, because the first pint I ever drank was a pint of Wadworth’s).

The Northgate Brewery in Devizes was designed by the firm’s proprietor, Henry Wadsworth, and completed in 1885. It’s functional – the large-scale brewing process called for generous height and a big footprint. And its red bricks were no doubt economical. It was a practical building, then, that must have pleased its original owners. But what do other people think about it? Alec Clifton-Taylor (in Another Six English Towns) found it ‘perhaps a little overpowering, but…undeniably a building of character’. John Piper praised it in Buildings and Prospects. Pevsner (in the first edition of his Wiltshire) reserved judgement, alliteratively noting the ‘big brick brewery’.

Not for the first time, I find myself with Alec Clifton-Taylor. It is a bit overpowering, especially close-to. But architecture is not only about blending in to the surroundings. It's also about standing out. And seen from the other side of the market place the brewery certainly does stand out, even though its red colour also echoes the mellower Georgian bricks of the non-stone houses that are scattered here and there. For Devizes is not simply a stone town. It’s on the edge of the stone country and bricks find their place here too, just as there is a place for beer as well as wine in the town’s many watering-holes. Devizes is diverse and big enough to accommodate its brewery, and be the better for it.

12 comments:

Iain Robinson said...

I'm liking these last two posts- they're fascinating. I remember the first time I drove through Devizes, I was unprepared for the shock of fascination caused by the big brick structure. I love it, it's big, bold and very functional and Fred Dibnah, no doubt, loved it. So do I! thanks for posting this!

Philip Wilkinson said...

Yes, this is just the kind of thing Fred would have liked.

accountant said...

You make an interesting point how buildings can contribute to the townscape even though they are out of keeping with the surrounding buildings. Living in Market Harborough the centre of the town is dominated by the former Symington's corset factory in red brick which is much larger than the surrounding buildings. It is also adjacent to the town church which is built in ironstone with limestone for the windows etc. It is hard to imagine such a building being erected today in the same location.
I am ignoring the large block of flats being built opposite the railway station.

Philip Wilkinson said...

Ah yes I remember this factory - big with lots of large windows, presumably so that the ladies working inside could see to sew and insert whalebone and so on. A striking structure, and an important reminder of part of the town's history.

Bucks Retronaut said...

It can go the other way too:To my mind the main street into Wolverton from Stony Stratford was dominated by a seemingly endless red brick wall behind which were the Carriage Works of the L.N.E.R.The wall blended in beautifully with the rest of the town which was built at the same time......all very depressing and Lowry-esque ,or so I thought until the wall was demolished and in its place there now stands a Tesco,a used car dealership,and a petrol filling station all of which are totally devoid of any aesthetic merit so far as I can see.....As Joni Mitchell once sang "You don`t know what you`ve got till it`s gone". I certainly didn`t.

Philip Wilkinson said...

Yes. You, and Joni, certainly have a point. Sometimes it seems hard to see anything worthwhile in what we've got until it's demolished, but we have to try and keep our eyes open.

CarolineLD said...

It's also much easier to take a liking to a building when it's full of good beer!

Philip Wilkinson said...

How very true! But then good beer has also produced some very good buildings – Harvey's in Lewes and Hook Norton in Oxfordshire, are two shining examples.

Jon Dudley said...

A lovely post Mr.W. The mention of Harveys prompts me to recommend their wonderful off-licence in Cliffe High Street where you can ask them to nip out the back and fill your own container with the wondrous elixir dropped 'bright' that very day.

Bob's Head Revisited said...

I love this blog.
Me and my wife were thinking of moving to Devizes recently (it looks like we are going to Shrivenham now). We walked past the brewery and it looked so impressive and almost too imposing, but somehow it doesn't look incongruous.

As a fan of English architecture I couldn't fail but be impressed by Devizes. St John the Baptist Church, of course, and the Wadworth Brewery are just two fine examples of the many gems in and around the town.

Peter Ashley said...

Wadworth not only produce good beer (ooh that slightly buttery 6X), but maintains horsedrawn drays for delivering in a twenty mile radius and an in-house artist for doing proper pub signs.

Philip Wilkinson said...

Peter: RThese are the kind of small mercies I'm always thankful for. Actually 6X is quite a large mercy.