Colchester photo albums

To see slide shows of some of the less well-known parts of Colchester, click on the pictures below. During the slide show, you can click on a picture to get further info, if it's available.


Specialist shops

Specialist shops

 

Inner green spaces

Inner green spaces

 

East Hill

East Hill

 

East Street

 

New Town
(Magdalen St)

 

The first Co-op on Colchester

New Town
(general)

 

firstsite:newsite

 

East Bridge

 

The Hythe (old)

 

The Hythe (new)

 

Balkerne Heights

Balkerne Heights

 

Greenstead Estate

Greenstead Estate

 

Greenstead Road

Greenstead Road

 

University

University

04 January, 2007

Magdalen Street, New Town


Colchester's old "commercial road" is Magdalen Street: the connecting thorougfare to the town's port. The port has gone, but the street still reflects some of its original character, both in the remaining architecture, and in its busyness. The new Aldi's (see picture above) should help keep things busy, at least. There are some very old buildings behind the plastic fascias and affordable double-glazing. To the north, by contrast, on land previously occupied by railway sidings, there's a new neighbourhood - all white and pretending to be classical - with amazing views over Colchester's secret inner green valley. Magdalen Street's reaching a tipping point: if any more of the old buildings go and are replaced with meaningless cod-Tudor/Georgian/Victorian styles, we'll be saying good-bye to another fascinating part of Colchester. For location of Magdalen Street area, see map, waymark 5. See more pictures in and around Magdalen Street.

1 Comments:

Blogger Atomic Puppy (Becky) said...

I'm a Magdalen St. resident and it's sad to see the Victoriana of Colchester vanish. Magdalen Street certainly needs a tidy up but I am not sure that Aldi is going to provide that. The council has failed to put any traffic calming measures in place alongside the new Aldi (I asked them, and they said I had missed the consultation date - so I asked when the consultation period was, the fellow rustled some papers on his desk and came back at me with "....oh, there wasn't one"!!). Bearing in mind that Magdalen St, along with North Station area are probably the town's most busy streets already, and that Aldi will maybe treble the traffic flow, I think the council have been spectacularly remiss regarding the extra traffic that will be generated. Still, what can you do? I suspect there has been a rather large back-hander in the council's favour to make this go ahead in such an unplanned way.

Sunday, 14 January, 2007  

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