Culture Vulture

This week we have another assortment of Small Scale Scenery releases – two from the UK, and another pair from over the channel in France – all with a slight air of culture to them.

Starting up north with the largest building, we have the rather grand Glasgow People’s Palace. Opened in 1898, it was intended as a cultural centre for the East End of the city, which at the time was an overcrowded and deprived neighbourhood. After the 1940s it was used as a museum of social history, but it’s currently closed as the huge greenhouse area is considered unsafe.

Moving a long way south, we alight in Brigade’s home town of Maidstone. The subject is one of Phil’s old haunts, Springfield Library, which is sadly no more. The distinctive tower block with its ten-sided reading room overlooked the town for almost fifty years, but like pretty much every other interesting site in the country, it’s due to be turned into a housing estate 🙁

Finally we move over the water to La Belle France, with a pair of small chateaux. On the left is the Chateau de Morbecque at Hazebrouck. This was owned in 1914 by Baroness Ernest de la Grange. She made it available as a base for the RNAS armoured car squadron under Commander Sampson during the Great War. The second is the Chateau de Cherimont. This was the family home of Lt Charles Henkart – he was a pioneer of armoured cars in the Belgian army (or indeed any army). He was killed in early September 1914. Both of the chateau still exist – Morbecque is now a restaurant and Cherimont is an activity centre.

SSS-8188 – Glasgow People’s Palace – £4.00
SSS-8189 – Springfield Library – £2.00
SSS-8190 – Small French Chateaux (x2) – £2.00

And yes, we know that we’ve listed the People’s Palace under ‘English Buildings’ – but retitling that section to ‘British’ would break a lot of website links, so it’ll have to live among the Sassenachs for now.

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