Tuesday 25 March 2008

Brentford rising - up on the Golden Mile - # 08/54

By the 1920s the Great West Road, running through the centre of Brentford, was hopelessly congested. A new fast road from London to the west of England was driven through, along the northern edge of the town, and a cluster of magnificent, large Art Deco HQ offices and factory buildings for international companies was built along what had become known as the Golden Mile. In the 1960s the new M4 Motorway to the west was opened, starting at Brentford and even more large modern office blocks were built.

Here is a night view of the recent newer buildings, far less attractive than their Art Deco relatives but using electric light to make up for the shortcomings in style and elegance.

Earlier postings here have shown the some of the Art Deco buildings and a Web search on "The Golden Mile" http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=the+Golden+Mile+Brentford&fr=FP-tab-web-t340&ei=UTF-8&meta=vc%3D will tell you more.

5 comments:

  1. Interesting photo. And the story behind it is also interesting.

    Abraham Lincoln in Brookville, Ohio

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  2. Nice picture, love the detail on the bricks.

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  3. Interesting night colours Chuck'

    I had a serious spot of bother taking my last picture, it was very unpleasant.

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  4. Big change from the river scenes, pub crawl and Ham House... almost didn't recognise the blog! :-)

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  5. Lots of nice colors in this.

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