Visited a couple more towns in East Anglia today.
Lavenham is another beautifully well preserved medieval village, saved by the accident of falling financial fortunes around the 1500s, when people finally figured out that the cloth they were making was hideous and the bottom fell out of the market.
Similarly, Bury St Edmunds was a fabulous place with an enormous Abbey and had something to do with the Magna Carta, but then along came our old friend Henry VIII with predictable consequences. In the photo above (and apologies if it’s not up the right way, I really have no control over that, that I can see), the ruins of the Abbey are incorporated into a much later building, an early form of upcycling.
Maybe Wellington’s struggling financial fortunes (see John Key) will mean that it’s charming character will be preserved for future generations? But, please can we get rid of that horrendous block of flats on The Terrace? What were they thinking, building something so ugly? Wasn’t there a clue somewhere in the name of the building style? “Let’s make it Brutalist! Everyone will love it!” Just no.