Bracknell revisited

Like you, I have often laid awake at night, starched pyjamas in parlous disarray, milky Horlicks growing tepid, pondering which of the London-circling New Towns is the worst.

It's not Harlow.  Definitely not Basildon.  My sleep-addled mind proposes Hatfield, with its deserted plazas and horrible motorway-spanning mess of an outlet mall.

But, of course, it's Bracknell. Poor, poor rubbish Bracknell.

The Powers That Be try to keep you away - the train there stops absolutely bloody everywhere en route - for your own good. But the brave / daft tourist can get there if he displays enough vim and spunk and doesn't get arrested for so doing.  And, because I'm a fan of the underdog / desolation, I went back, almost two years to the day since my first trip.

Again, it was drizzling in Bracknell.  I do like a good spiral ramp up to a multistorey car park, looming like a concrete lighthouse to guide travellers to the safety of the shops.  It's a shame that Bracknell doesn't have one.

The train station is the most poxy and boxy of all the New Towns.  It's got an office block popped on top, pigeon-spikes tastefully decorated with an urban art installation.

Bracknell cares.

Like all good New Towns, the pedestrian can avail him/herself of a network of underpasses from the train station to the shops.  This being Bracknell, the underpasses are decorated with depictions of hanging baskets of flowers (the eidetic reader of this blog, or one with good taste, will recall that hanging baskets are hideous).  Sigh.

The main square (Charles Square) has, as ever, been filled with a mess of glass-canopy escalators, street furniture and other vile clutter.  It's like a pastiche of the naffest bits of Coventry.

Thanks for that

There's also a water clock, which shows the time once every five minutes, and for the rest of the time is just decorative.  The idea makes my brain hurt.

Oh, it's either 29:04 o'clock or it's not

Princess Square, the basically rubbish indoor shopping bit, is being restyled and has sadly lost its amusingly overblown entrance canopy thing.

September 2011

September 2013

The regeneration masterplan is in various stages.  The first, honestly, is to build a Waitrose.  Social engineering lives!  The plans for the revamped Charles Square are a bit grim.  Which is, I suppose, in keeping for Bracknell.

It's not all bad.  St Joseph's church opposite Princess Square is a little gem -  a clean, simple A-frame structure, immaculately maintained.  And actually open, which, empirically, is unusual for a church.

Also fun is the sort-of out-of-town retail park which has a lovely, lovely bit of yellow-frame PoMo, with (bless!) a little pyramid hat on.  Grubby!  Shame really that the Odeon inside has been refurbed and isn't in its original livery.

For some reason, I imagine that Bracknell is like the Outer Circles of Hell. Not actually horrible, like the infernal torments reserved for estate agents, but just consistently unpleasant.

I shall leave you, sweet reader, with a photo taken in another of Bracknell's underpasses.  Lovely.

WHY ARE WE HERE?