Tag: joinery

December 1st – I keep passing this, and often wait at the lights looking at it – and every time I do it irritates the hell out of me.

On the Pleck Road junction in Walsall, where it meets Ida Road and Rollingmill Street, there is a new build block of apartments. Blessed with an aesthetic only a mother could love, it’s not the physical ugliness that bothers me – but the finish of the woodwork, external plumbing and hardstandings.

If this is what the outside quality is like, one can only wonder about the inside…

November 9th – I’m fascinated by this bit of structural joinery at Blake Street Station. It’s nothing more than the wooden frame supporting the access steps to the Birmingham bound platform, but the way they’re erected is a work of art. At the base, they’re chocked level with two pairs  of perfectly cut reverse acting wedges. You don’t see that very often these days. I’d be interested to know how old this assembly is – had it been crated today, it would be a steel framework with jacking bolts, so it must be at least 2 or 3 decades old. The precision of the wedges makes me smile every time I see them. That was a joiner who understood his art.