Did You Know There’s a Giant Pikachu Hiding in Plain Sight in Bangor Town Centre? He’s in My Favourite Non-Residential Bangor Building.

My favourite non-residential building in Bangor is one that you may not even take heed of. It’s sort of faded into the patchwork of the Main Street over the years, but when you take a good look, it’s a very unusual, modernist marvel.

From the front you can see the huge glass front door panel, and the windows are massive, and by the looks of them, still single-paned, which must mean it’s a pain to heat for current tenants Boom Studios. 

The building was originally home to the Allied Irish Bank, built in 1969 to a design by Shanks & Leighton. Again I’m mourning my loss of a certain book, An Introduction to Modern Ulster Architecture, by David Evans, as it’s got a photo of the interior when the building was first built. It’s interior design was as modernistic as the outside. The walls swooped down to a curve to meet the floor, making the offices look like the inside of a spaceship, if perhaps the alien HR department.

A nice touch is the fact Boom Studios have had a poster made by Neal McCullough from Hand Drawn Creative (lots of great prints for Christmas gifts in his store by the way)  featuring the building itself.

So, the Pikachu? Well, Smix spotted it one day when we were walking down the town. It’s peeking out of one of the top windows, round the corner just off Main Street. Watch out for him next time you are down.

Did You Know Scrabo Tower Is The Result of a 1855 Design Competition? The Prize Was £20! Plus a Mysterious Disappearing House.

It's so hot & sunny today, so I dragged Smix away from the computer and up to Scrabo Tower in Newtownards to plane watch. We sort of did the real life little Newtownards logo. You can spy the little plane below.

There wasn't really anyone else around. Just three other bunches of people, and the crazy father & son in the pic below, doing sprints on the hill we struggled just to walk up.  

Looking back down you could even see the Mourne Mountains in the distance. We will have to get down there at some point during the summer. 

Sadly the tower itself was closed today. It recently reopened to the public after closing due to water damage in 2014. 

You can visit on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, between 10am & 4pm. Entry is £3 for adults, £2 for kids, £10 family ticket. As it's National Trust owned I would reckon if you have a annual pass, entry would be free. I have a media pass, so I might go and check that out for you in a blog soon.

The history of the tower is pretty cool. It was actually the outcome of a design competition, launched in 1855. The brief was to design a memorial for Charles Stewart, the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry. The design was not to exceed building costs of £2000, and two prizes were offered, £20 & £15.

One of the four final architectural designs chosen was by W.J. Barre. When he took the plans to be priced by Belfast's McLaughlin & Harvey, they estimated it as 20% over the £2000 Barre claimed it would cost. He was outraged and said the competition was rigged. He reused the design for the Dawson Monument in Monaghan (pictured right), and I think it would be rather grim and more like a tombstone to have that perched on the hill.

In the end three of the final designs exceeded the £2000 budget, so Charles Lanyon's design which didn't, was chosen. Ironically it then ran over budget, ending up being OVER £3000 to build, with the plans scaled down and turrets & tower itself made smaller, the buttress walls in the sketch you see above were left out, but it is his design which was completed in 1857 which we see today. Many people think the actual design was by Lanyon's assistant W.H. Lynch (maybe he got the £15!). 

I said to Smix as we drove up this morning, how odd would it be to see that hill without the tower there? Everyone alive today has only known Ards as it sits in the shadow of Scrabo Tower. It's strange to think of that hill without the tower at the peak. 

The photo below shows a more barren hill, before the golf course added the landscaping. 

From the top of the hill you can see Belfast, all of Craigantlet, right down to Bangor, over to Donaghadee, the Ards peninsula and the whole way to the Mournes. Smix was most interested in the small Newtownards' Airport (runway very bottom of pic below), where you can watch small private planes take off and land. There were quite a few today because of the clear weather.

Just before the turn off to the golf course, is another house I've always loved. It's a farm house and I think it's the combination of the balcony, the strange little tower and the green appeals to me. 

I thought it was quite amusing that Streetview caught a tractor right outside it.

I also did a bit of rubbernecking from the car, as just past the road to the right, there was a new build I hadn't seen before. It's all glass and modern shapes and I was hoping to nosy further on Streetview when I got home, then share it with you here. Thing is, it must be so new, it isn't on Streetview! In fact where it is seems to be a field! I wish I had tried to take a photo now.

Tagged on and making it a little bit like a jumble sale of a blog post today, I noticed a vintage Ulsterbus in the bus station. I also like that the station has the old fashioned 1980s' Ulsterbus font and logo.  

Finally, if learning the history of Scrabo Tower has made you fond of seeing it more often, then local artist J.S. Kelly has a wonderful print of the tower to buy. I love love love his work, as I have a couple of vintage travel posters myself, and his work is in that style and of dozens of Northern Ireland's best known landmarks. Go support him!

My Favourite Houses in Holywood, Plus A Real Life Grey Gardens in Bangor?

I'm starting off with the red herring. It would be an easy guess that this George McDermott designed, positively mansion-esque, flat-roofed home in Cultra would be my favourite house in Holywood. 

Sitting alongside the Culloden Hotel on the main road from Belfast to Bangor, it's as luxurious inside as the size would imply. The interior has been fully modernised, but I would love to see photos of its original 1970s' stylings, especially the pool room, which it's rumoured George Best frequented back in the day. Best loved this place so much that he has his home in Cheshire based on some of the wilder features.

The home went on sale a few years back for £1.2m and includes vast grounds and an outdoor pool. 

While I admire the modernist design, it alone isn't my favourite house in Holywood. There is a cluster of split-level, reverse-rooved wonders just a little further up the road and on the opposite side.

The Marino area on the hill side, not the coast side of the main road, is home to half a dozen parallel streets with these family homes of 1960s & 70s quite innovative designs. 

Because of the hill, split level is used frequently, as well as lovely big windows for the views. 

Here is one of the homes that's been modernised in the last decade, although the others don't look too dated. 

I do wonder if this style of modernisation I've seen on bungalows in Bangor West too, will soon look more dated than the original homes, the way the cladding fad has. 

This one isn't terribly design heavy, but I love it because it is true , right this minute Kitsch. A small family home overdecorated to the point it looks too much. Anything too ornate on something small is kitsch. 

Finally, I'm not sure if this would be of interest to anyone, but there is a real life Grey Gardens really close to my house. Someone really lives in this house, year round. The house is as it was when the street was built. No upgrades or double glazing, in fact the top further window is broken and just has card in place.  

I wonder how much it would cost to repair the place to how it should be? Would it be cheaper to tear down? 

So now I think I've featured all the houses I know of and love, but does anyone know of any others I might like to look at? I've a feeling there's a patch over in Greenisland with similar houses to Marino, I just don't know where to look on Streetview to see them. Let me know! @rudedoodle

My Favourite Art Deco House in Bangor Northern Ireland- Plus Tonic Cinema Illustration From Hand Drawn Creative

I shared with you my favourite house in Portstewart last week, so how about my favourite house in Bangor, where I actually live.

Its this pink beauty which resides in the wonderfully named 'Beverley Hills', in the Ballyholme area. Built in the 1930s it nestles amongst a neighbourhood of otherwise regular family homes, and backs onto a golf course.

I know what you're thinking- ​the cladding. I know. Cladding the exterior of a house in fancy stonework was a trend in the 1970s and you would wonder who in their right mind would have altered such an already high concept design building like this, let alone all over cladding, then painting it pink.

The photo below showing the house in its original form is so much better, the corner windows to the left side are totally lost under the heavy brickwork. 

The current owner was not responsible for the cladding, or the pink, ​and they also say the original interiors have been stripped and changed too. So no retro futuristic interiors to observe, sadly.

David Wilson architects did some remodelling work recently extending the kitchen and living area on the ground floor. They appear to have done a good job, in keeping with the traditional design of the building.

Bangor has some beautiful Art Deco public buildings, one of which Neal McCullough from Hand Drawn Creative has featured in a clean crisp illustration, which you can buy on his Etsy Store.

The Bank of Ireland building is another example, right at the midpoint of Main Street. The building to the right which you can't see in the photograph has quite a few modernist qualities. I have an old Ulster Architrcture book somewhere that features it, I must dig it out to share with you on another blog post.

There's another section of Bangor, what I call the new-build sprawl of the East which is like a maze to me, but which has a pocket of home designs I've always loved.

Along the ring road and into never ending suburbia there are a couple of streets of these happy little chalets. They look like designs of the 60s or 70s, family homes with asymmetrical rooves, cute archways and novelty balconies. 

There are several designs dotted along the Pinehill / Silverbirch area.

Incidentally Neal has a print that looks a little bit like these homes- Hand Drawn Creative Hollywood Bungalow A3 for £20. Apart from his Fisher Price retro toy illustrations, I think this is my favourite of Neal's work.

The last home of my favourites in Bangor list, is one I've been telling my parents I wanted to live in since I was a little girl, when we moved to the same road when I was aged two.

"The Sugar Cube", as its lovingly named by the family who live there, is a flat roofed design house on the same road as my parents' home. I always told my parents I would love there so I wasn't too far away from them when I moved out as an adult. Ironically I actually live almost this close now, although it's round the back of the Springhill Road, rather than down and opposite from my parents' house.

So have I got all th unusual homes in Bangor? Or do you know of any that I might like to nosy at too?  Hit me up on Twitter- @rudedoodle

I may feature Holywood next- it would require a lot of time on Google Streeview going up and down the split-level, modernist heaven that is Marino!

One last bonus architectural oddity- the Ballyholme windmill, which peeks out from in between the streets of homes. 

I would LOVE to live somewhere like that.