Saturday 9 October 2010

St Albans Odyssey back story






As you can see all done in 24 hours - looks like a building site now. Somehow when you walk past one of these, even though it's only chipboard, white paint and safety notices, you know people are serious about what they are doing. Gives the Odeon an air of moving on. The second pic shows in the distance that the Virginia Creeper which embellishes the south side of the building is still going strong. I hope that it and the ivy survive the updating - must provide homes for so many moths/beetles/ bugs. This bit of St Albans needs to hang on to every bit of bio-diversity it has. Most of it's gone. We used to have a colony of pretty frogs at the other end of Lower Paxton Rd but they disappeared when the old dairy was converted into housing ( which floods...as the frogs warned us about, of course...).

And while we're on the topic of temporary additions what about the lean-to along the side of the building - top pic gives view of its front. It's quite a big space inside. Mick and Darren have been trying to work out what it was used for. One guess is it provided a space for patrons' bikes/motorbikes? Maybe somebody out there remembers?

2 comments:

  1. This lean-to was originally used to house the stage scenery & effects (scene dock)during the time when it was the Capitol Theatre. When I was a projectionist there in 1963 it was used for publicity materials etc. and also parking for the manager's car.

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  2. Many thanks for getting in touch...it's good to know its history...

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