1 00:00:02,120 --> 00:00:06,560 BBC Four Collections - archived programmes chosen by experts. 2 00:00:06,560 --> 00:00:09,960 For this collection, Janet Street-Porter has selected 3 00:00:09,960 --> 00:00:12,640 programmes about post-war architecture. 4 00:00:12,640 --> 00:00:14,160 More programmes on this theme 5 00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:18,000 and other BBC Four Collections are available on BBC iPlayer. 6 00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:24,120 This is the bar in the basement 7 00:00:24,120 --> 00:00:27,560 of the Architectural Review's offices in Westminster. 8 00:00:27,560 --> 00:00:30,680 Bars and architecture... 9 00:00:30,680 --> 00:00:33,920 Ian Nairn died seven years ago at the age of 53. 10 00:00:33,920 --> 00:00:37,000 This is where he began his career, 11 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:42,080 in the mid-'50s, as a sort of enfant terrible of architectural criticism. 12 00:00:43,920 --> 00:00:48,920 Unlike many such creatures, Ian Nairn never mellowed, 13 00:00:48,920 --> 00:00:52,720 he never succumbed to the embrace of the English Establishment. 14 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:56,760 Even had he wanted to, he couldn't have. 15 00:00:56,760 --> 00:01:00,200 There was nothing desiccated or understated about him. 16 00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:04,240 He exhibited the profoundly un-English attribute of passion. 17 00:01:04,240 --> 00:01:06,680 It's in the beer, bustle the convulsion, 18 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:10,240 and I hope that most of the people here are genuine Munichers, 19 00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:14,600 not just...tourists coming to watch a spectacle! 20 00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:16,240 Because they disgust me 21 00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:18,560 and I'll probably get through more alcohol in a week 22 00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:20,800 than most of those bastards get through in a year! 23 00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:24,720 Bolton - St Saviour, Deane Road. 24 00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:29,440 By Paley and Austin. 1882 - 1885. 25 00:01:30,600 --> 00:01:34,400 And one of their noblest churches. 26 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:36,400 And now look at it! 27 00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:39,360 Talk about football vandalism... 28 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:43,440 I don't quite know how... 29 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:49,800 ..you would categorise the vandalism of the yobbos who did this. 30 00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:56,880 It makes me ashamed to be part of the same branch of biology. 31 00:01:56,880 --> 00:02:00,680 MEADES: No-one has ever written about buildings with greater passion 32 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:02,080 and I suspect that 33 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:05,800 no-one has ever written about buildings so eloquently. 34 00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:09,840 This was not least because he knew as much about writing as he did 35 00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:13,720 about buildings, he was not just a terrific architectural writer, 36 00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:15,720 he was a terrific writer full stop. 37 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:20,760 Has prose was and indeed is vivid... 38 00:02:20,760 --> 00:02:24,760 demotic, poetic, vital, and thankfully, 39 00:02:24,760 --> 00:02:26,720 the absolute obverse 40 00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:29,520 of that straightened English of Nancy Mitford. 41 00:02:29,520 --> 00:02:32,200 Nairn was defiantly non-U. 42 00:02:32,200 --> 00:02:36,480 He was, and it's an expression you don't hear much today, "redbrick". 43 00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:40,840 That was usually a deprecation, but I don't intend it thus, anything but, 44 00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:43,440 he was a genuine outsider. 45 00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:46,760 If he belonged to a type, it was to a type of one. 46 00:02:46,760 --> 00:02:49,040 There are correspondences, though. 47 00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:52,720 He reminds me of Anthony Burgess crossed with Tony Hancock 48 00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:54,840 with a bit of Jeffrey Bernard thrown in 49 00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:57,720 and maybe a dash of the Richard Cobb of Promenades. 50 00:02:57,720 --> 00:03:00,560 He's the only man to have written a guidebook 51 00:03:00,560 --> 00:03:03,240 that is a literary masterpiece. 52 00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:06,640 Nairn's London is a great and various poem to this city 53 00:03:06,640 --> 00:03:09,600 and a tour de force of topographical sensibility. 54 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:12,640 It's the work of a weird virtuoso. 55 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:18,720 Over the next six weeks, BBC Two is transmitting six of the films 56 00:03:18,720 --> 00:03:21,920 he made for telly in the late '60s and early '70s. 57 00:03:21,920 --> 00:03:24,440 Scholars of the platform are sure in for a treat 58 00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:29,320 and so too is anyone else who reveres originality, who reveres contact with 59 00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:33,040 an independence of spirit and with profligacy of ideas. 60 00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:37,000 Nairn threw away in asides ideas that others would have spun out 61 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:40,560 into entire programmes, into whole series even. 62 00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:43,920 If some of the filmic techniques seem a bit dated, 63 00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:46,240 and nothing dates quite like the recent past, 64 00:03:46,240 --> 00:03:49,560 there is only a weary freshness about the man himself. 65 00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:52,160 If he was the victim of his generation, 66 00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:55,600 it was only in his willingness to find good in modern buildings 67 00:03:55,600 --> 00:03:58,480 in which we can now only see bad. 68 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:00,400 But that doesn't matter. 69 00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:03,680 And nor does it matter that his mostly ad hoc scripts 70 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:05,640 are less polished than his written prose. 71 00:04:05,640 --> 00:04:10,200 The quality of the building, which is so rare in modern architecture. 72 00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:12,760 These bricks, they're solid, they're there, 73 00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:14,800 the pointing's been carefully done. 74 00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:20,080 No-one's going to say of this, "Oh, how shoddy were last year's ideas." 75 00:04:20,080 --> 00:04:22,680 They'll recognise it was built at a certain time - 76 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:25,800 it was built for 1972 - just as you would say the same 77 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:28,880 of a Gothic cathedral that was built for 1300 or 1500. 78 00:04:29,880 --> 00:04:33,160 MEADES: The thing about Ian Nairn is that he opens our eyes 79 00:04:33,160 --> 00:04:35,400 to the extraordinariness of the ordinary. 80 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:39,480 His love of Belgium, of Halifax, of the hidden bits of forgotten towns 81 00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:43,400 is not perverse, he simply failed to get conditioned 82 00:04:43,400 --> 00:04:47,080 or institutionalised by common ideas of what is good and what isn't. 83 00:04:47,080 --> 00:04:51,240 He abhorred the cute, the half-baked and the prettified. 84 00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:55,480 He sought out the essence of a place and it's our good fortune 85 00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:57,760 that he not only usually found it, 86 00:04:57,760 --> 00:05:00,760 but that he was able to transmit his sadness, or his delight, 87 00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:02,400 or scorn, or whatever, 88 00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:06,800 in a manner that remains unique and exhilarating. 89 00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:10,680 The first film takes him from London to Manchester 90 00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:13,960 and it's notable for its diversion to Northampton, 91 00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:16,560 which was then in the process of being destroyed 92 00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:18,520 by braindead town planners. 93 00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:22,880 It was because of people like Nairn that not more was destroyed. 94 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:26,040 But his voice was not heard as loudly as it should have been. 95 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:29,720 In Nairn's day, architectural journalism was ghettoised, 96 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:33,600 it was peripheral. Architecture was not a mainstream subject. 97 00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:36,840 Today it is and the unthinkable has occurred, 98 00:05:36,840 --> 00:05:40,120 the leading newspaper in this country is edited by a man who made his name 99 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:43,480 writing about the depredations of British townscapes and buildings. 100 00:06:22,680 --> 00:06:24,520 NAIRN: Marble Arch in London 101 00:06:24,520 --> 00:06:27,160 is a good place to begin a set of journeys, 102 00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:30,640 journeys whose purpose is first to show the astonishing 103 00:06:30,640 --> 00:06:35,520 variety of landscape and townscape there is in Britain, 104 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:38,920 more than any other country in a small area that I know... 105 00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:43,520 and second, to try and guess at what we are doing to it, 106 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:46,400 whether what we do on the landscape 107 00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:51,000 is going to enhance the variety or diminish it. 108 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:54,080 But Marble Arch, especially for my first journey, 109 00:06:54,080 --> 00:06:58,480 which is a simple line, a direct line between London and Manchester... 110 00:06:59,720 --> 00:07:02,160 It isn't the same as hammering it up the M1. 111 00:07:02,160 --> 00:07:04,680 It's a very different story, in fact. 112 00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:06,760 It only goes through one big town. 113 00:07:06,760 --> 00:07:10,280 In between there are marvellous passages of tranquillity 114 00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:13,400 and a marvellous variety of landscape and village, 115 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:18,520 and the road to Manchester starts as it started for 2,000 years, 116 00:07:18,520 --> 00:07:22,920 just over there, the Edgware Road, the Romans' Watling Street 117 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:24,760 and now as then, 118 00:07:24,760 --> 00:07:27,960 it simply points like an arrow to the Midlands and the North. 119 00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:38,440 Going up the Edgware Road... 120 00:07:38,440 --> 00:07:42,320 is a good place to check what we're doing to the townscape 121 00:07:42,320 --> 00:07:47,680 and if Marble Arch is an improvement, here, it's a sad diminishing 122 00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:51,080 because it's always been a funny, quirky, rough and tumble place, 123 00:07:51,080 --> 00:07:53,000 not quite in the West End, 124 00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:55,480 you never know what you're going to meet quite next. 125 00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:57,080 When I first came to London, 126 00:07:57,080 --> 00:07:59,040 the Edgware Road actually looked like that. 127 00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:01,720 The buildings were, up and down, Victorian, 128 00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:04,160 some sleazy, some posh... 129 00:08:04,160 --> 00:08:06,320 Now they've all been replaced 130 00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:08,400 and while the character of the Edgware Road 131 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:09,920 and the people is still there - 132 00:08:09,920 --> 00:08:12,160 it's still the funny old mixture it always was - 133 00:08:12,160 --> 00:08:15,520 the buildings have become smooth, platitudinous. 134 00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:20,920 Running down the hill now to Cricklewood, 135 00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:24,680 which is one of the long, straight suburban high streets 136 00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:26,480 on this way out of London. 137 00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:27,920 It works pretty well. 138 00:08:27,920 --> 00:08:31,040 The buildings are undistinguished enough, 139 00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:35,760 but they planted trees when all this went up in the 1880s and '90s and... 140 00:08:35,760 --> 00:08:39,040 now you can feel a sense of identity here, 141 00:08:39,040 --> 00:08:42,360 that's what the business is basically all about. 142 00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:57,160 That straight line from London to Manchester has now taken us beyond 143 00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:01,000 the rather tatty edges of London, out into the real countryside. 144 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:04,000 This is the first big landscape change, 145 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:07,080 it's a chalk ridge and though you can't see much here - 146 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:08,600 it's enclosed - 147 00:09:08,600 --> 00:09:11,760 actually, a lot of this was planted at the Festival of Britain time, 148 00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:13,440 so there's another improvement. 149 00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:18,440 This thick planting suddenly, right at the top of the ridge, 150 00:09:18,440 --> 00:09:21,920 gives way to openness, open down land. 151 00:09:22,960 --> 00:09:24,440 You're on the roof of the world. 152 00:09:40,040 --> 00:09:41,920 It's Dunstable Downs. 153 00:09:41,920 --> 00:09:43,440 Over there at the bottom 154 00:09:43,440 --> 00:09:46,120 is one of the most famous gliding clubs in Britain. 155 00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:48,920 The gliders use the scarp of the chalk to get lift, 156 00:09:48,920 --> 00:09:51,320 just as they do at Sutton Bank in Yorkshire 157 00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:53,280 and Great Hucklow in the Peak District. 158 00:09:53,280 --> 00:09:57,000 Some people think that the gliders shouldn't be there, an intrusion, 159 00:09:57,000 --> 00:09:58,360 and that I really can't see 160 00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:01,240 because provided the buildings are kept modest, 161 00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:04,400 the gliders themselves add to the landscape. 162 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:09,080 They're...in a partnership - man and the air and the hills - 163 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:12,640 they're getting the sustenance from the hills in a very real sense. 164 00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:16,680 Here, there's a small intrusion from the parked cars of people 165 00:10:16,680 --> 00:10:20,200 come to look at the gliders than there is from the gliders themselves. 166 00:10:36,320 --> 00:10:37,840 I've never done any gliding, 167 00:10:37,840 --> 00:10:40,880 but everyone who has seemed to think it's marvellous fun. 168 00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:42,920 Down the road there at the bottom of the hill 169 00:10:42,920 --> 00:10:44,640 is the edge of Dunstable town. 170 00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:46,240 There's a modern building 171 00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:48,840 where the designer has had quite considerable fun. 172 00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:29,720 When I first saw it, 173 00:11:29,720 --> 00:11:32,760 I thought this was a church with those two great rocking roofs. 174 00:11:32,760 --> 00:11:34,040 It's not, it's a pub. 175 00:11:34,040 --> 00:11:36,480 And although inside it's not as dramatic 176 00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:40,360 because you can't see right up into the timberwork in there, 177 00:11:40,360 --> 00:11:43,800 they certainly had an enormous amount of fun outside. 178 00:11:43,800 --> 00:11:46,240 There should be far more buildings like this. 179 00:11:46,240 --> 00:11:50,120 We sometimes go in for odd shapes, but dead serious about them, 180 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:52,480 like some of the new university buildings. 181 00:11:52,480 --> 00:11:54,680 This is just having a lark and a good thing too, 182 00:11:54,680 --> 00:11:58,440 especially in things like new shopping precincts. 183 00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:02,200 One building like this could revitalise the whole thing, 184 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:05,080 it could indeed revitalise the one rather limp 185 00:12:05,080 --> 00:12:06,920 in the middle of Dunstable itself 186 00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:10,080 cos there the focal point is just a bit of abstract structure. 187 00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:11,480 It would have been so much better 188 00:12:11,480 --> 00:12:14,480 if something like this had been the focal point. 189 00:12:14,480 --> 00:12:19,320 And across there, there's an exceptionally nice public park - 190 00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:21,160 no railings, no notices, 191 00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:24,720 just a broad wedge of grass going up between the trees 192 00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:28,440 and then off into rough ground, which is the beginning of the Downs. 193 00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:31,080 Now, that's public space that is really meant to be used, 194 00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:34,200 it's not just an area left on a map, you know, left over, 195 00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:36,080 they can't think what to do with it, 196 00:12:36,080 --> 00:12:38,480 which is what so many public open spaces are. 197 00:12:38,480 --> 00:12:39,600 This is necessary, 198 00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:43,640 just as the gliders using the lift from the Downs was necessary. 199 00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:49,640 How not to go from London to Manchester, at least for me. 200 00:12:49,640 --> 00:12:52,600 The straight line route is intersected by the M1 201 00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:55,640 at a couple of places this end of the journey. 202 00:12:55,640 --> 00:12:58,160 Here, it's the service area at Newport Pagnell 203 00:12:58,160 --> 00:13:04,080 and these, er, cafes have taken...a bit of stick. 204 00:13:04,080 --> 00:13:07,440 But although they are not marvellous buildings in themselves, 205 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:10,120 the fact that there's a bridge over, I'm standing on, 206 00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:11,680 from one side to the other, 207 00:13:11,680 --> 00:13:15,320 means that the basic act of tying these structures 208 00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:17,800 into the environment has been done. 209 00:13:17,800 --> 00:13:19,360 If they'd made a tunnel instead 210 00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:21,840 you'd have just had two isolated things either side. 211 00:13:21,840 --> 00:13:25,240 Here, it's made a tiny knot in the landscape. 212 00:13:25,240 --> 00:13:29,200 This is the basic thing, far more than the quality of buildings. 213 00:13:29,200 --> 00:13:33,800 As I said, it is not my way of going from London to Manchester. 214 00:13:33,800 --> 00:13:37,400 These next few miles here are exactly the straight line 215 00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:41,440 and just this once, I'm going to make a motorway journey, 216 00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:46,560 but, believe you me, I'd rather go from Newport Pagnell to the next town 217 00:13:46,560 --> 00:13:50,160 via the quiet and winding A50 any day. 218 00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:56,440 Well, there at last is my turn-off. 219 00:14:56,440 --> 00:15:01,400 It's only about 10 or 11 miles, but it felt much more. 220 00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:07,280 From here on in, it's about another, oh...five miles... 221 00:15:07,280 --> 00:15:10,920 The place I said was the only big town, the whole way 222 00:15:10,920 --> 00:15:14,080 on this direct line between London and Manchester. 223 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:17,600 - Local-grown tomatoes, light plum. - Extra large cucumber. 224 00:15:17,600 --> 00:15:19,000 Peach, pear or plum. 225 00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:21,440 - WOMAN: A pound, please. - SELLER: A pound, yeah? 226 00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:22,880 Right. Two? 227 00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:26,120 - Extra large peaches. - BOTH SELLERS: Nice, ripe peaches! 228 00:15:27,200 --> 00:15:28,400 NAIRN: Northampton... 229 00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:32,400 Northampton Market Square, it's a very surprising place to find in... 230 00:15:32,400 --> 00:15:36,680 what is otherwise a rather drab, South Midland town. 231 00:15:36,680 --> 00:15:39,120 Northampton had a fire about 1680, 232 00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:41,760 it meant the whole town centre had to be rebuilt - a new church, 233 00:15:41,760 --> 00:15:44,640 public buildings, and also a new market square. 234 00:15:44,640 --> 00:15:46,080 And the way they rebuilt it... 235 00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:49,240 ..makes the place really humming. 236 00:15:51,240 --> 00:15:55,000 A few of the old buildings are left, the whole rhythm is still left, 237 00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:58,080 the rhythm of very narrow frontages, lots of detail, 238 00:15:58,080 --> 00:16:00,080 the buildings coming out fighting. 239 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:03,960 The way everything is packed in, especially on a day like today 240 00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:06,640 where the market's in full swing. 241 00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:08,120 It makes it look more like Belgium 242 00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:10,480 than any other town I know in England. 243 00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:12,160 And, of course, it's got troubles, 244 00:16:12,160 --> 00:16:16,440 it's going to expand from 120,000 to about 200,000. 245 00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:19,920 That means a much bigger town centre 246 00:16:19,920 --> 00:16:24,240 and as part of that, the whole of the north side here is due to be replaced 247 00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:29,400 by a monolithic frontage with an office block behind 248 00:16:29,400 --> 00:16:32,400 and the centre of that is the Emporium Arcade - 249 00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:37,640 built 1901 and in spite of its size, it has the same quality 250 00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:41,680 as the rest of the earlier, smaller buildings around the market square. 251 00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:44,760 It's full of detail, things are always happening on the facade. 252 00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:48,520 There's a balcony, gables and chimneys going up at the top. 253 00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:52,680 You might call it debased if you were worrying about architectural styles, 254 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:55,680 though why people want to, I just don't know. 255 00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:57,760 But for all that, it's a good neighbour here. 256 00:17:00,400 --> 00:17:02,840 It's a bit difficult to talk about the arcade at the moment 257 00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:05,360 because by the time the programme goes out, 258 00:17:05,360 --> 00:17:07,760 its fate will probably have been decided. 259 00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:10,720 So if this turns out to be an obituary, I'm very sorry. 260 00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:14,800 At the moment, though, there's one hell of a fight going on. 261 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:16,280 There's been a petition. 262 00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:18,960 10,000 people have signed to try and save this, 263 00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:24,080 which is quite something in a town of only 120,000, 264 00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:27,360 and a town with a sort of fairly pragmatic reputation. 265 00:17:27,360 --> 00:17:29,760 The trouble with it originally was, 266 00:17:29,760 --> 00:17:33,080 it was meant to go through at the end there 267 00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:35,680 and they couldn't get the building next door, 268 00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:37,440 so it became a kind of blind arcade, 269 00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:40,040 which is always the worst thing for an arcade to be. 270 00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:45,760 Yet, in the last ten years, it has begun to regenerate itself naturally 271 00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:47,080 and meanwhile, 272 00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:50,720 here's the reasons given by the council for demolishing it 273 00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:52,440 as reported in the local paper. 274 00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:58,640 First, "The success of the new scheme depends on running a service road 275 00:17:58,640 --> 00:18:00,960 "at roof level through this place." 276 00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:04,680 Well, my answer to that is - change the scheme. 277 00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:09,080 You know, what's more important, the fate of a living bit of Northampton 278 00:18:09,080 --> 00:18:11,880 or just one scheme, the details of it? 279 00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:15,320 Number two, "The hotchpotch of small shops, many of them rather 280 00:18:15,320 --> 00:18:19,080 "on the seedy side, is an illogical use in a modern town centre." 281 00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:20,720 That seems to me to be nonsense, 282 00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:23,880 it's exactly what a town centre is about. 283 00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:27,000 Number three, "The arcade was bought by the council for demolition 284 00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:28,680 "and not as an investment." 285 00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:30,720 Well, what a confession of failure. 286 00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:34,160 You just buy up parts of the town to demolish them 287 00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:36,000 and don't alter your opinion, 288 00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:39,760 even in the face of regeneration that's already happening?! 289 00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:44,200 And number four, "The arcade has no real architectural value." 290 00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:48,240 No architectural value with this great cupola here and the balconies? 291 00:18:48,240 --> 00:18:50,720 And the arches down there? 292 00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:52,640 Arches with a perspective effect 293 00:18:52,640 --> 00:18:55,160 because this arcade is on quite a considerable hill, 294 00:18:55,160 --> 00:18:56,640 and that, in my experience, 295 00:18:56,640 --> 00:18:59,200 which, with respect, is probably rather larger than 296 00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:02,160 that of Northampton councillors, is architecturally unique. 297 00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:07,040 If they really do pull this place down, it'll be a diabolical shame. 298 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:22,560 I said the Leicestershire villages are pretty drab, 299 00:19:22,560 --> 00:19:25,720 well, this one certainly is - Stoney Stanton. 300 00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:27,320 It's about the centre of England, 301 00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:30,080 it's also about halfway between London and Manchester. 302 00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:33,120 A dead centre, you might think, looking at the bits of it. 303 00:19:33,120 --> 00:19:35,680 Although it's fairly prosperous, 304 00:19:35,680 --> 00:19:38,800 it gives the feeling of having laid down and died. 305 00:19:40,120 --> 00:19:44,920 Verges just left with concrete posts and...chicken wire, 306 00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:47,840 no attempt to make anything of them. 307 00:19:49,120 --> 00:19:53,120 Fragments of old walls broken down. 308 00:19:53,120 --> 00:19:56,680 Still a working farm, that's about the happiest thing in this village. 309 00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:03,400 DOG BARKS 310 00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:09,240 DOG BARKS 311 00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:16,920 Yet, in spite of all that, 312 00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:20,480 I did say there was one thing here which could make the place 313 00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:24,080 into one of the most exciting villages in England, and it's this... 314 00:20:26,120 --> 00:20:29,360 Right in the middle of the village, an abandoned quarry 315 00:20:29,360 --> 00:20:33,560 with a lake at the bottom, the houses all around it. 316 00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:37,040 It's very hard, very old rock, this. 317 00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:40,720 It wasn't much use for building stone, you could use it for rubble. 318 00:20:40,720 --> 00:20:43,480 It was more use as road metal. 319 00:20:43,480 --> 00:20:48,360 Now the quarry's worked out, one side is a municipal rubbish tip, 320 00:20:48,360 --> 00:20:52,520 all round the end people seem to be chipping in with their own 321 00:20:52,520 --> 00:20:55,000 bits of rubbish. What a waste! 322 00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:57,280 But think what could happen. 323 00:20:57,280 --> 00:20:58,520 You've got a ramp there now, 324 00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:02,120 you could get down and use the lake part for small-scale boating. 325 00:21:02,120 --> 00:21:04,520 You could have houses all round, looking in, 326 00:21:04,520 --> 00:21:06,360 taking advantage of the view 327 00:21:06,360 --> 00:21:09,760 instead of shunning it and haring off somewhere else. 328 00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:13,040 It makes you feel this view's too big for the people. 329 00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:16,160 They daren't look at it, it would worry them too much. 330 00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:20,000 You know, when you think of what Finchingfield has done 331 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:22,960 with its little duck pond, just imagine what Stoney Stanton could do. 332 00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:49,480 Staunton Harold - 333 00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:54,480 this group of house, church, lake in front and landscape park all around 334 00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:57,640 is one of the very finest in the whole country. 335 00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:02,080 It's one of the things that are just waiting quietly to be looked at 336 00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:04,080 if you don't belt up the M1, that is. 337 00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:09,760 That front is 1763, the church itself's about 100 years older 338 00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:11,920 and it's a very remarkable building 339 00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:15,040 cos it was actually built in the Commonwealth in 1653 340 00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:17,120 when all the Roundheads were about. 341 00:23:18,120 --> 00:23:21,600 And the person who built it was a staunch Royalist... 342 00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:26,680 ..so he built it defiantly Gothic - this was no preaching box - 343 00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:29,440 and it has an inscription on the front which says, 344 00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:31,000 "Whose singular praise it is, 345 00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:33,480 "to have done the best things in the worst times." 346 00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:36,880 They're sort of spitting in Cromwell's eye. 347 00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:40,000 Well, Cromwell spat back because he said, 348 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:42,720 "All right, if you've got enough money to build this church, 349 00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:45,800 "you've got enough money to raise a regiment." 350 00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:50,600 The owner naturally wouldn't, so he went to the Tower and died there, 27. 351 00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:53,040 What a memorial, though. 352 00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:58,560 And this marvellous thing almost disappeared 353 00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:02,120 because the house was within an ace of being pulled down in the 1950s. 354 00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:06,920 Well, happily, the house wasn't demolished, it's now a Cheshire home. 355 00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:09,520 The church is owned by the National Trust 356 00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:12,920 and at the moment, they're just about to put up the marquees for that most 357 00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:15,760 innocent of English sports, an annual fete. 358 00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:19,880 The man who built this was named Shirley, Sir Robert Shirley, 359 00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:23,480 and it was another Shirley, the 17th-century dramatist who said, 360 00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:25,160 "Only the actions of the just 361 00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:27,480 "Smell sweet and blossom in their dust." 362 00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:32,440 This is exactly what has happened here, the dust has blossomed. 363 00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:36,920 And although we now don't build country houses like this, 364 00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:39,800 we still have the same obligation to make our dust blossom. 365 00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:41,520 We can't take it with us - 366 00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:44,040 we do have the chance of leaving a bit of it behind, 367 00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:48,040 whether in buildings like this or in factories and power stations. 368 00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,520 Willington power station in Derbyshire. 369 00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:07,400 It's quite a historic design, it's about 15 years old now 370 00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,800 and the architects, Farmer and Dark, made a deliberate decision 371 00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,960 to reveal as much of the equipment as they could, 372 00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:17,680 rather than wrapping it around with a brick skin, 373 00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,880 as was done in Battersea and in so many other places. 374 00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:24,320 It's almost there, I don't think it's quite successful, 375 00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:28,160 but it's nearly there and there's certainly, 376 00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:32,400 in the variety of the equipment, just as many shapes as there were 377 00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:35,120 in the pinnacles and crockets at Staunton Harold. 378 00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:40,800 What's missing to transform it, I think, is colour. 379 00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:44,920 They've tried in a few ways there to paint things, 380 00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:49,840 but the painting is too pallid, it's not strong enough. 381 00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:55,960 It's useless trying to harmonise this with the landscape, 382 00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:57,440 it just doesn't work, 383 00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:01,200 it's like trying to camouflage an elephant, you won't do it. 384 00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,560 You could have a marvellous time with this, 385 00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,560 painting it up as a colour symphony, and why the hell not? 386 00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:11,360 Because as I say, you are just not going to camouflage this, 387 00:26:11,360 --> 00:26:15,400 this is a great big piece of electrical equipment. 388 00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:21,560 Express it, don't be ashamed of it and don't just leave it ordinary. 389 00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:25,520 They could have built Staunton Harold without pediments on the house 390 00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:27,720 or without pinnacles on the church, you know, 391 00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:29,600 it wouldn't have been the same. 392 00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,560 This Willington, Derbyshire is Willington-on-Trent 393 00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:37,520 and that's the last big landscape division before we get to Manchester. 394 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,360 You're leaving the Midlands here, you're crossing a big river 395 00:26:41,360 --> 00:26:44,400 and ahead, all the way to the edge of Manchester, 396 00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:46,160 is the Peak District, the hills. 397 00:27:14,360 --> 00:27:16,080 There's some pretty grand scenery 398 00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,360 on this bit of the journey from London to Manchester - 399 00:27:18,360 --> 00:27:20,560 I think, myself, some of the grandest in Britain. 400 00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:24,560 But what really hits me is when man and nature manage to act together - 401 00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:26,400 Not just... 402 00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,040 ..landscape, landscape and buildings like this one. 403 00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:35,520 Jenkin Chapel, built 1733 for the hill farmers 404 00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:38,640 because the parish church was too far away 405 00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,520 and this is absolutely the essence of necessity. 406 00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:46,680 Nothing is unnecessary at all here and it adds to the landscape. 407 00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:53,360 The church, like a little cottage, so humble, yet so tough. 408 00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:59,080 Circular graveyard enclosure, the trees around it. 409 00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:01,600 "Built for the worship of Almighty God," 410 00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:05,600 it says on the front there, and it certainly is meet. 411 00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,920 This is Cheshire, though it doesn't look like most peoples' 412 00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:10,640 idea of Cheshire. 413 00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,120 Just over there, beyond the hills, the Cheshire Plain. 414 00:28:14,120 --> 00:28:17,560 In fact, just over there, beyond those two hills, 415 00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:19,400 is Stockport, 416 00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:20,840 outer Manchester. 417 00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:44,040 Stockport's modern shopping precinct is a precinct with a difference. 418 00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:46,840 It's got an air of bustle and purpose about it 419 00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:48,720 that very few of these things have. 420 00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:52,280 And the reason it has is that it's been planned really intelligently. 421 00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,360 It's built over a bit of dual carriageway that nobody wanted, 422 00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:58,440 which is a pleasant idea to start with! 423 00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:00,920 On either side there are old shopping streets 424 00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,000 and instead of raising the whole lot, 425 00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,640 they kept a lot of the shops on the old streets, 426 00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:07,240 multiple stores and so on, 427 00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:10,640 which simply turn back to front, so that you can now... 428 00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:16,160 walk right through them, out of old Stockport into new Stockport. 429 00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:17,440 Everything is plugged in, 430 00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:19,720 it's the exact opposite of the Elephant and Castle, 431 00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:21,000 where nothing is plugged in. 432 00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:24,800 Even the multilevel system works because at the top level, 433 00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:28,440 you run off onto the hilly bit of old Stockport 434 00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,080 and from that top level, 435 00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:33,320 you feel that you're bang in the middle of the industrial north - 436 00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:38,640 the skyline of viaducts, cooling towers, chimneys. 437 00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:43,320 It's a complete change from the peace of Jenkin Chapel. 438 00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,480 From here to Manchester, in fact, it's completely built-up 439 00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:49,520 and some of those buildings are in a pretty sad state. 440 00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:57,000 Not only are the slums being cleared, but all the buildings - 441 00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,640 the shops along the Stockport Road - are being cleared too. 442 00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:07,120 And they are being cleared, not progressively, but... 443 00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:09,840 ..all at one... 444 00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:14,800 ..swoop, on both sides of the road. 445 00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,560 The Germans couldn't have done it, the town planners have. 446 00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:20,560 Now was this necessary in this way? 447 00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:24,240 Assuming the clearance of the slums was necessary, 448 00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:26,600 did they have to clear them all at once 449 00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:30,160 instead of a rolling programme whereby you could demolish 450 00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,560 one street at a time and replace one street at a time? 451 00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:38,240 If you did it carefully enough, you need only ever have one street empty 452 00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:39,920 and the people who are being rehoused 453 00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:42,200 could simply move one street up the road, 454 00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:43,920 which is not too much of a wrench. 455 00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,840 Here, they are dispersed all over Manchester. 456 00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,600 And did it have to be done in this way? 457 00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:54,280 And especially, did all the shops along the main road have to go? 458 00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:55,920 This one here is... 459 00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:00,600 There's nothing specially wrong with that, it would last a few more years. 460 00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:02,680 When its time came, all right, replace it, 461 00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:07,080 but don't sweep the whole lot away in one great act of demolition. 462 00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:38,400 The end of the journey, early evening, 463 00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:39,920 Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester. 464 00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:43,160 It's a weird old place, really. 465 00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,200 The gardens themselves are vital to Manchester 466 00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:48,640 cos it's the only place in the whole centre of the city 467 00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,200 where you can...sit and relax 468 00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:54,720 and take a breather from what is often rather a grim place. 469 00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:58,440 But it's not plugged in in the Stockport sense. 470 00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:00,640 There's all the elements of a city centre here, 471 00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:02,080 but they don't really relate. 472 00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:04,160 There's a bus station here, 473 00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:07,200 so you've got to nip through the buses to get to the gardens. 474 00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:10,840 The shops over there, again, you've got to cross the road to get to them. 475 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:12,920 It's isolated elements. 476 00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:16,200 Just as isolated as the weird way 477 00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,800 the blocks on top of this Piccadilly Plaza 478 00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,600 seem to have been designed for five other places 479 00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:23,520 and brought together in a hurry. 480 00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:25,200 It could be plugged in, I think. 481 00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:28,640 It needs to be related more. 482 00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,640 Say there was an extension of the plaza level 483 00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:33,480 over the roofs of the buses, 484 00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:37,000 open-air cafes, then steps down into the gardens. 485 00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,880 And then, on the other side, steps underneath the gardens 486 00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:43,280 to connect to the basement level of the shops. 487 00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,200 It had bad luck in that... 488 00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,080 what was basically a small country town 489 00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:52,400 was really choked by a ring of warehouses, 490 00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:54,200 right round the centre almost, 491 00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:57,720 which prevented any kind of natural expansion of Manchester. 492 00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,840 Well, the warehouses are going now, but the question is - 493 00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:04,320 what's going to be put up in its place? 494 00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:08,800 Could it be, for once, an actual marriage of commercial, 495 00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:12,320 residential and places just to sit around and have fun in? 496 00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:14,520 Because Manchester needs that. 497 00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:16,360 On this whole journey up, 498 00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:19,840 you've seen places like that Leicestershire village 499 00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:22,720 with the quarry that have totally missed their destiny. 500 00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:27,640 Places like Stockport and Dunstable Downs where the 20th century is 501 00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,080 actually improving on what was there before. 502 00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:36,360 And places like Staunton Harold, which the 20th century, 503 00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:39,800 thank God, has simply left alone in its own glory... 504 00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,400 ..all places on this direct line, 505 00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:46,520 all places you would never see from a motorway journey.