Architecture
Despite, or perhaps because of, its small size Harwich is highly regarded in terms of architectural heritage, and the whole of the older part of the town, excluding Navyard Wharf, is a conservation area.
The regular street plan, with principal thoroughfares connected by numerous small alleys, betrays the town’s medieval origins although many buildings of this period are hidden behind 18th century facades.
The extant medieval structures are largely private homes. The house featured in the image of Kings Head St to the left, is unique in the town and is an example of a sailmaker's house, thought to have been built circa 1600. Notable public buildings, all later, include the parish church of St. Nicholas (1821) in a restrained Gothic style, with many original furnishings including a (somewhat altered) organ of the same date in the west end gallery, and the Guildhall of 1769, the only Grade I listed building in Harwich.
On the quayside may be seen the Pier Hotel of 1860 and Great Eastern Hotel of 1864, both reflecting the town's new importance to travellers following the arrival of the railway line from Colchester in 1854. The Great Eastern Hotel was closed in 1923 by the newly formed LNER, the hotel having suffered a decline resulting from the opening of the new passenger port up-river at Parkeston Quay where a new hotel with the same name had been opened by the Great Eastern Railway. The hotel became the Harwich Town Hall, which included the Magistrates Court, and following changes in local government was sold and divided into apartments.
Also of interest are the High Lighthouse (1818); the unusual Treadwheel Crane (late 17th century); the Electric Palace Cinema (1911), one of the oldest purpose-built cinemas to survive complete with its original projection room and ornamental frontage still intact and operational; the Old Custom Houses on West Street; and a number of Victorian shopfronts.
There is little notable building from the later parts of the 20th century, but major recent additions include the lifeboat station and two new structures for Trinity House; that organisation's office building, next door to the Old Custom Houses, was completed in 2005. All three additions are influenced by the high-tech style.
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Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“Defaced ruins of architecture and statuary, like the wrinkles of decrepitude of a once beautiful woman, only make one regret that one did not see them when they were enchanting.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)