Manchester Memories

By the nature of this blog, many of the places featured here I am unable to visit but others are all too familiar to me. Today's post is the latter.
I was a student a Manchester University in the mid 1990s. If you're  expecting tales of drugged fuelled nights at the Hacienda then I'm sorry to disappoint you, I never went and I never did drugs either. I did get thrown out of the Paradise Factory though for following some friends through a side door as I didn't realise they were trying to sneak in without paying, oh and I once saw Dawn Acton in Jilly's Rockworld but perhaps those stories are better for if I ever cards of those particular nightspots.
I digress, today's subject matters were seen nearly every day by me for three years.  The first card is the Manchester Mathematics tower. I never had lectures here ( I studied languages) but I do remember taking a couple of exams here and finding the room labelling rather confusing. There was an urban legend that the tower had accidentally been built upside down and I can almost believe it. Like most students I tended to use the maths tower as a landmark, especially in the early days when I was new to the city. Its instantly recognisable shape probably aided many a poor student to navigate the city. I know if I saw the tower I knew I was nearly home.
The Mathematics Tower was constructed in 1968 in a modernist-brutalist style by local architecture firm Scherrer and Hicks. It was in use until merger of UMIST and The Victoria University of Manchester in 2004. It was deemed unfit for purpose and demolished the following year.  It was replaced by the Alan Turing Building in 2007. The postcard isn't dated but I've seen a similar picture in the University archive and that is from 1972 which seems accurate for the card.

The next card is of Moberly Tower and the Refectory, now I never stepped foot in Moberly Tower but I did use the refectory quite a bit and enjoyed their fish and chips and hot chocolate.  The Tower was built in 1963 and named after Walter Moberly who was Vice-Chancellor of The University between 1926 and 1934. I don't know if the refectory was built at the same time. It outlasted the Mathematics Tower by 5 years being demolished in 2010 and replaced  by the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons.  The card was sent in 1966.

Regarding the structures, now I'm the kind of person who can see beauty in most buildings but even I struggle to call The Mathematics Tower and especially Moberly Tower attractive , but I do think a refirb would have been preferable to total destruction. The towers were symbolic, and evocative for those of us of a certain age and instantly bring to mind more carefree and idealistic days .  The Maths Tower can even be seen in my graduation photographs. I visited Manchester University a few years ago as part of an alumni event and I shocked to see so few buildings I recognised (my halls of residence have also been destroyed). A lot of my memories are tied up in the look and feel of the place and I found it quite disorientating being among a mixture of the familiar and new. I almost felt as if my memories had never been real or had also been destroyed.
For those who want to see the destruction of the tower, pictures can be viewed here. As you'll see not everyone is as sentimental about the place as I am.
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=254283

Dover Stage and Coach Hotel - They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Well paradise is pushing it, but the Dover Stage and Coach Hotel was quite well thought of for a while.

The postcard is one of those that many people would consider boring and it certainly wouldn't look out of place in Martin Parr's Boring Postcard book but it is the sort of card many collectors, myself included, enjoy. I do wonder, looking at the Martin Parr book today how many of the structures still stand. Now there's an idea for a book.  For those of interested in that kind of thing, the card was published by Judges' and is not dated but is thought to be from mid sixties to early seventies.

The Dover Stage Hotel was built in 1957, only the third hotel to be built in the UK in the post war period. The modern but unusual design was meant to attract visitors from mainland Europe . The hotel was not glamorous but it had a lot to offer a visitor. All its 42 rooms were sea facing and had their own balcony, the hotel also had several bars and a large ballroom.  One thing it did lack were en suite facilities and though these were later added, it was to the detriment of the room size. Despite this, the hotel did attract many visitors for a while
It was not just overseas visitors who enjoyed the facilities. The ballroom and bars were popular among locals  for  wedding receptions, formal dinners and dances . Some say that this was because there was a lack of choice as other nearby hotels had been destroyed in the war but its ballroom in particular remained popular until the hotel was closed in 1988.  Unfortunately by this point the people who counted, namely Dover District Council, considered The Stage Hotel to be past its sell by date and approval was granted for its demolition.
It was stated that the plan was to build flats on site, but for some reason, possibly because that had never been the  actual plan, the flats never materialised and a car park for the visitor attraction The White Cliffs Experience was built instead.  
Ironically The White Cliffs Experience was a bit of a flop, was nicknamed the White Elephant Experience, failed to attract the visitors and closed after 8 years. Plans to build a new hotel on the site have  come to nothing and it remains a rather underused carpark.

Paulinerkirche - Leipzig's Lost Church (1956)

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have an interest in the GDR so you can expect to see quite a few East German cards on the blog.
I spent 5 months as student at Leipzig university in 1998 by which time University looked rather different from this 1956 postcard.
The Paulinerkirche is probably the most well know of the buildings on the card. It was built in 1231 and since the foundation of the university in 1409, the two have been closely related with the preachers appointed by the university.
During its proud history, which included inauguration by Martin Luther, many famous musicians have been associated with the church. Johann Sebastian Bach conducted holiday services there and Felix Mendelssohn's funeral was held there.  It also served as a military hospital during the Battle of Leipzig in 1813.
The church survived both word wars with little damage but a decision was made by the GDR government in 1968 to dynamite the church and the Augusteum next door as they were deemed ill-fitting for their concept of a socialist-orientated university.  Protestors were arrested.  A memorial, in the form of an A-frame sculpture in the size and location of the church was erected in 1993 and was still there in 1998 when I was a student in the city.
Today there is a new university church in its place and has the same shape as the Paulinerkirche. Church Services have been carried out there since 2009.

Edit - I've found  a picture which I took in 1998 as a student there, showing the A-frame.

Death, dereliction and destruction - The Curious Case of Jezreel's Tower.

This strange folly stood in Gillingham, Kent from 1885 until 1961. It was never completed and had already started to fall into dereliction when this misspelt  postcard was produced.

The building was the vision of self proclaimed prophet James Jershom Jezreel, the founder of  the Jezreelites sect.
He had grand plans for the tower which was to be their headquarters. These plans  included an amphitheatre to hold upto 5000 people, printing presses, castellated towers in a cube shaped building with a glass roof. Perhaps the most ambitious part of the project was the assembly room floor which would rise under hydraulic pressure on which a choir and preachers would rotate.  Along with gardens and stately avenues ,the estimated cost of the project was £25,000.
Jezreel did not live to see his vision realised. He died in March 1885, 6 months before the foundation stone was laid.
His unpopular widow carried on with the project,  alienating many of the followers along the way before she too died in 1888 at the age of 28. Her death put an end to any further building work.  
The Tower was sold in 1903 but only used by the few remaining Jezreelites for two years before demolition began.
However in  twist to the tale, the contractors employed to do this went bankrupt and demolition was only completed in 1961.
The strange building, fortunately for people like me, was a popular subject for postcards allowing people to marvel at the eccentricity of it all.