If you go down to the Shrewsbury Market Hall, you will find a celebration going on. This year, the iconic sixties building is half a century old. Open for trading in 1965, the hall replaced the crumbling Victorian market hall.
Today, fifty years on, there's a real vibrancy and buzz happening. The celebration coupled with an exhibition about the market hall, is also about how lucky we are to have this amazing, personal shopping experience in the town center.
Linda was so inspired by the market hall and clock tower, that she did an illustration of the building. The Van Gallery(situated on the balcony) asked if they could display the illustration on the stairway approach to the market as part of the celebration. The Van Gallery also have some limited edition prints of Linda's market hall design, detailed with hand finished gold leaf....very nice. Also checkout the stall holders portraits. It's these characters that make it all happen inside the heart of the market.
Part of the celebration included roof top tours. Linda and I were lucky enough to get on one of these. Always interesting to see where you live from above. Lot's of architecture through the ages all nestled in quite nicely in this lovely town.
The clock tower (composed of fifty thousand bricks and built by two brothers) stands impressively. In the original plans, a roof top cafe was drawn and built, as yet empty. What a wasted opportunity! You could call it "Birds Nest Cafe" Just an idea.
While we're on the roof top, the very top of the lot is the 37ft aluminium finial. As part of their contribution to the anniversary, Keith Ashford and Liz Turner of Sculpture Logic, have built a life size replica of the finial. They were able to use the original plans and also watched footage from Pathé Newsreel of it being built. Amazing!
Theres a lot going on in and around Shrewsbury Market Hall. Here's to the next 50 and welcome to all the new university students some of whom will have digs in Mardol House at the north end of the market hall. Cheer's!!
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