Friends' Gallery Picture of the Month - August 2024

[Old Dave]

Even nostalgia is not as good as it used to be is it??

I see the old Little Chef at Markham Moor on the A1 near Worksop with the flying wing roof is now a Starbucks. Believe it or not it is grade 2 listed !!!!!!

[Reckless Rat]

Aye but so are the Parkhill flats in Sheffield. What a monstrosity. I know, I had to police it in the 1980s.

[Charles P]

Aye but so are the Parkhill flats in Sheffield. What a monstrosity. I know, I had to police it in the 1980s.

I saw the musical “Standing at the Sky’s Edge” last week, based on Richard Hawley songs (Sheffield hero) and set in Parkhill flats. Very good it was too. 
In the programme he echoes my experience of the area saying that in the 1980s you only went there if you wanted to be killed.

[Hugh Barnes]

All a bit different now. The only thing likely to kill you in Parkhill now is an unobservant driver running you down with their Range Rover. (Please excuse snaps taken on my phone)

   

   

And we love Richard Hawley... I am yet to see Standing at the Sky's Edge, something I must rectify..

[AustinWood]

The old Little Chef at Markham Moor on the A1 near Worksop was originally a filling station.
It is listed because it is a very unusual structure. The roof is a hyperbolic paraboloid which is extremely rigid and is supported on just 4 pillars. The current building is built underneath the canopy and does not support it.
A straight edge can be laid along its surface in all directions which looks very unlikely.
There are a few other examples of this design used for building roofs icluding a primary school in Cambridge.

[Ian Wegg]

Some images, courtesy of Google.


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Some interesting diversions from the original post!

[Chris KC]

The Little Chef on the A303..... You would go in, eye up the menu, order and wait....and wait....and wait.... Lucky if it would show up within an hour! The concept of "fast food" escaped them completely.

There were a few on the A303. We would stop at the one at Chiclade on our annual pilgrimage to Padstow in the 70s.  I went back there once with Mrs W in the 90s. We were put on a table with another family. My meal arrived first and I'd finished it before my wife's turned up.

Our closest equivalent was the Happy Eater at Hindhead. I always thought Happy Eater was slightly more upmarket, even though their logo looked like someone throwing up a giant prawn.

Apparently, Little Chef disappeared in 2017, the final ones being converted to Starbucks or Greggs.  Happy Eater had gone by 1997. 

Thank goodness for the Wimpy still at Southsea!

You might remember 'The Frying Pan' then - was it at Sparkford? I don't recall ever eating anything there but it was a 'milestone' on my journey West. It was destroyed in a fire I believe, the charred remains stood there for quite a while.

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The old Little Chef at Markham Moor on the A1 near Worksop was originally a filling station.

I know that one well, for some years I used to turn off just past it to visit a friend who lived at the end of Limetree Ave in Clumber Park.

[Reckless Rat]

Skye Edge is another council built estate in Sheffield further up the Hill from Park Hill, close to Manor Lodge. Another dump. Sorry about the drift.

[Charles P]

And we love Richard Hawley... I am yet to see Standing at the Sky's Edge, something I must rectify..

Sadly it closed last week after an on and off run since ( I think) 2019 at The Crucible, The National and latterly the Gillian Lynne.