When In Dumfries Town, Look Up
Like many a British market town. Dumfries town centre has the usual array of revolving high street names bringing with them their gaudy, brightly coloured plasti-cote hoardings and corporate frontages. These are designed to catch your attention and keep your eyes at street level. You may, therefore, be excused for feeling ambivilent towards the buildings they are housed in.
If, however, in Dumfries you take a minute and look up beyond the shop signs you will be rewarded with a plethora of sandstone architectural gems from stately faces & carved fruits to curved arts & crafts inspired windows and fading lettering. Take a look.
Paling's, 128 Queensberry Street
'Montague Burton: Tailor of Taste'
Gentle curves & long lintels on the High Street...
A very elegant sandstone frontage above what was once River Island on the High Street
Outside the petshop on Queensberry Street
For another Dumfries gem click HERE
Comments
Have always been fascinated by shop branding built into the fabric of the building – in the stonework or mosaics on the step. It just shows how permanent people believed things to be in an earlier age. As in many things, the French have a more civilized approach and in many towns do not allow shopkeepers to change the fabric of the building – branding must fit into it, not obliterate it. Kensington High Street has had an interesting experiment going on for a few years: it’s the only high street in the UK where anyone who wants to put up a sign or street furniture of any type has to gain the approval of one person. He has harmonized the look and feel of it all. Take a stroll down it on google earth….