Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’

So sad. The sequence of streets and spaces of Brown Street / Weaver Square / Chamber Street / Newmarket / Ward’s Hill & related is enough to get any planner’s juices going. Talk about undervalued. Though DCC did put out a Use Strategy Discussion Paper for Newmarket a couple of years ago, suggesting, among other things, that it was a suitable space for events.

And would be great to see Weaver Square restored to something of the jump-off-the-map clarity and definition it had in Rocque (below), with quality buildings. Already a bad, cheap redbrick & PVC building was built on the west side 5 or 10 years ago, which can be partly seen in some of GrahamH’s photos above.

The fascia and cornice of the Chamber Street house (below) were taken off about 4 years ago. Presumably they noticed some movement in the front fa̤ade and decided to investigate the state of the bressumer beam Рand only got around to doing something (butchery) about it now.

Hard to know what this house originally looked like (if gabled or not) as it seems to have a different appearance to the other gabled houses on the street in the old photos. But it’s clearly very old because you can see it and the single-bay one next door on Rocque, 1756 (above), also corresponding fairly much to the 1935 OS posted above. I was passing by the single-bay house one day and you could see an angled chimney breast in the front room.