Tag: walkway

August 3rd – Telford on a quick visit midday, and a surprise: I noted evidence of recent exploratory drilling and a planning application to replace the dingy, 80s footbridge over the railway and adjacent main road with a new structure.

The bridge as it is is corroded and not ideal, but it’s a very large structure and it’ll be interesting to look at the plans for a replacement. 

One of the biggest problems with the structure is it’s greatest asset: being enclosed with a roof makes it an excellent sheltering point in bad weather, but makes it dingy, dystopian and unpleasant at night.

I also wonder what they’ll do with the overgrown vegetation that also make the footways here so grim at night.

The times seem to be changing. Let’s hope for the better.

November 30th – Telford, early in the rain. Not quite fully light. The skeletal, brutalist 80s footbridge and covered walkway at the station is like some strange portal. Ghosts of people, further away than you think; exaggerated perspective and peculiarly yellow lighting.

An otherworldly, slightly unsettling place.

February 24th – I’ve featured this remarkable tree in Victoria Park a couple of times, and it’s still growing, still consuming the railing that stands in its way. Having now totally encased the lower rail, one can almost hear it grunting as the upper rail is distorted by gentle, insistent and constant hydraulic pressure.

Despite the things clearly impeding it, the tree seems well enough. The way it has formed around its barriers reminds me very much of pyroclastic flow. It’s like slow, cold organic lava.