Saturday May 11th saw the reopening of the
Devonport Column - its viewing platform closed to the public for 50 years - one of the landmark buildings in the architect John Foulston's early 19th century development of a Devonport civic centre on Ker Street.
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The 124-foot Grade 1 listed column formed part of the centrepiece of Foulston's development of a civic centre around Ker Street in the 1820s, when the district Plymouth Dock gained independent status as the town of Devonport. It was part of a "picturesque group" comprising the Column, a Parthenon-inspired town hall (now Devonport Guildhall), an Egyptian-style library (now the Oddfellows Hall), and the "Hindoo style" Mount Zion Calvinist Chapel (the last no longer exists). Restoration of the Column has been in the pipeline since 2010, and the Real Ideas Organisation (RIO) subsequently obtained Heritage Lottery funding for the project. The Column had its reopening party on May 11th; for those not up to the 137-step spiral staircase, the site is to feature a ColumnCam relaying the view. It also has WiFi connectivity for viewing historical archives during the visit.
See the previous post Devonport Column and Foulston's Devonport for further background on the column and location.
The Devonport Guildhall website has visitor details; the same site has a gallery of spectacular images of the column's illuminations at the opening party. The Devonport Column also has its own Facebook page.
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Ker Street in 2008, Wikimedia Commons
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license |
- RG
