WORKINGTON, Just Walking Around.

WORKINGTON. Off Christian Street, one door, two windows.

The weekend just passed found me rain shower dodging in the northern part of the Lake District. It was a mixed train and bus journey through a combination of a bit of sunshine and plenty showers.

After my trip to Silloth the other week I thought I’d aim for Workington which is a little lower down the coast. While not the most touristy of locations it’s a place I have a fondness for, it’s a straightforward place but with enough quirky corners to go wandering around.

WORKINGTON. The bus station, the first, purpose built, covered one in the country.

WORKINGTON. See, there’s even a plaque to celebrate it.

One such area is across Washington Street on the eastern edge of the town centre, a little nest of what I think are Georgian streets, centred on the old market place. They are a little on the shabby side at the moment but they have what I think estate agents call “potential” I always take a look if I’m in the area to catch up with the state of the tide as it were. Which buildings have crumbled a bit more, which have been given some TLC. There are plenty that are used but on the other side of the balance sheet there are some that are not.

WORKINGTON. A clash of architectural styles where Market Place, Curwen Street and King Street collide.

WORKINGTON. A rare burst of sunshine makes the stately buildings around the market place glow.

WORKINGTON. Trees line one side of the multi coloured Portland Square.

WORKINGTON. Wilson Street, the picture on the wall of the market place in time past. A little bit of TLC would not go amiss.

WORKINGTON. This arch on Portland Street has always interested me. For a while I wondered if it had been an entrance to stable for the adjacent pubs but a bit of poking around online yells me that it was the way to what had been the market hall. A look on Google Earth shows a semi derelict clutch of buildings. It seems such a waste of potential, I wonder if it could be the site for a market cum food court? I’ve seen it breath life into a few moribund sites. Just a thought, as I don’t live in Workington it’s not my place to go barrelling through telling people how to spend their money. I’m just thinking out loud.

WORKINGTON. The flag flies in the fitful sunshine on Christian Street at the Workington Veterans Club.

WORKINGTON. On King Street, The Grapes sits confidently on its corner. Being a port town with a long history, Workington is not without a pub or two. I don’t have a problem with that…..

These buidings strike me as a bit of an underappreciated sleeping beauty. Hopefully one day they’ll be awoken from their slumbers. I don’t mean in a glitzy, over polished theme park way but as a living, breathing part of the town. Always seems a sad waste when I see fine buildings like these mouldering in a semi neglected shadow existence, especially the former market, as any reader of these ramblings will have noticed, I do have a real liking for a market and the lift and variety they can bring to a town. Not just the obvious shopping opportunities but the “invisible earnings” in being a place for people to meet up and socialise, chew the fat, kick back against the creeping isolation that seems to be plaguing modern life.

Small rant over…..

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