View from the Bench: Mill Road

The almost total removal of Covid restrictions, for the time being at least, had been heralded by ‘Freedom Day’. I cautiously felt that the grip of the pandemic was finally loosening. At least for the time being. The beginning of the end and the beginning of whatever the ‘new normal’ would look like. 

 

I had been wandering along Mill Road, the main street in the vicinity, on most days during the pandemic. For the majority of the period, Mill Road Bridge had been closed to through traffic as part of an Emergency Traffic Order to help social distancing on the street. The bridge closure and its associated ‘build outs’ initially seemed to bring about an atmosphere of almost static interregnum, layered on top of the already existing Covid-induced pause in everyday life. But as restrictions eased, the street became gradually more populated. At the same time, a noticeably different feel emerged, in comparison to that of the pre-covid era. Random encounters with friends and acquaintances and sightings of familiar faces were (still) much rarer than before. I recognised barely anyone among those on the street or in the shops. Nor among those sitting outside the cafes and restaurants that had installed additional tables on the pavements. Things were different to ‘the before time’. The phenomena that seems most symbolic the changes is the orange Voi e-scooter, a thing barely known of pre-pandemic but now ubiquitous. Its arrival, among a plethora of other electric powered bikes and mopeds, seemed to herald a significant shift in time and place, as if the street had fast forwarded a few years, rather than a few months.

I decided it was time to take stock. I had been walking the street most days, but really in a getting from A to B way, not properly noticing. Rather than just walk, I decided to include a static form of observance on one of Mill Road’s benches. There are a handful dotted along the road and I had a vague plan that having a ‘sit’ for a period on each of these. Maybe using them all over a period of time would allow me to properly immerse myself. A sort of immobile psychogeography. There were several options. There are benches around the Romsey R, one on top of Mill Road Bridge and some outside the Co-op. There are probably others I’ve never noticed. I elected though, to go to the bench on the corner of Coleridge Road.

The bench sits at a four way Junction with traffic lights with Hemingford Road opposite Coleridge Road, and Mill Road passing through the middle. It is somewhere most people probably walk by without paying too much attention. I couldn’t remember ever stopping and sitting here, or lingering in the vicinity. But when I arrived soon found myself in a place that seemed to exist in an almost separate enclave. The bench backs onto a wall, next to a couple of bins and green telecoms boxes. On the wall are two utilities markers. There are several manhole covers on the ground, including a series of concrete grey ones surrounded by tall flowering hollyhocks.

Upon sitting on the bench among these utilitarian objects and (possibly) random selection of plant life, I soon felt like I was in a sort of liminal spectator zone, where I could exist as unnoticed as the telecoms boxes. 

 

Across Coleridge Road was the yet-to-be developed old Romsey Labour Club building. It still exists in its own liminal space surrounded by an area of decaying concrete floor and wild edgelandic vegetation. The windows are now boarded and graffiti is starting to emerged on the crumbling brown walls. But other than that, it remains in a similar state to the last time I mentioned it, in a previous blog from the beginning of the bridge closure just over a year ago. I don’t know what is preventing the development into serviced apartments, which was approved over two years ago now. I suspect the task will be easier for the developer once the building has collapsed of its own volition, particularly the facade which is meant to be retained. But for now at least, I could savour the building, which despite its sorry state, is still one of Mill Road’s best features.

The Labour Club was once the epicentre of Red Romsey or Little Russia and no doubt built to last. But its demise is symbolic of those terms being irrelevant in contemporary Romsey, as the forces of change and gentrification march ever onwards. The building is an outcrop of an otherwise buried layer of Mill Road’s history. As I observed from the bench, a black and white spray-painted Joe Strummer looked on enigmatically from the corner of one of the boarded up windows, while the Coleridge Road sign was being slowly engulfed by vegetation. The only new feature I noticed, other than the street art, is a road sign. This shows the traffic restriction due to the bridge closure to the right. Meanwhile any would-be bridge crossing cars are diverted to the left, down the stretch of Mill Road that seemed least affected by the changes brought about by Covid and the bridge closure. I reflected that the Mill Road Winter Fair, which in pre-Covid times saw the road closed for the day in December, also usually ends at this junction, leaving the leftward stretch as the only part of the road open to traffic. I wondered if the fair would be extended on its pre-Covid return to include the small number of businesses along this usually forgotten part of the street, along with a chance to visit the impressive mosque which I’m not sure was open in time for the last Mill Road fair.

My attention wandered from the Labour Club, across the road to the Romsey Mill. At the same time, I began to settle into the micro-environment afforded by the bench. I became dimly aware of the background sounds of car engines, as they waited at the lights next to where I sat before slowly moving off. This sound became repetitive, almost unnoticed and strangely soothing. It became a sort of aid to noticing. Outside Romsey Mill was a tall conical tree, part obscuring the building, and behind it another bench. I had never noticed either of these objects before and wondered how on earth that was possible. The Romsey Mill serves as the local polling station and to vote is the only time I’ve ever set foot in it. It is the home of a Christian based charity that started in 1980, in the building that was formerly a Methodist chapel. I noticed two blocked up apertures next to the main door; a small bricked up arched window and just below that, too low for any sort of normal window to have existed, was a brown oblong, a 1970s sideboard had been inserted to occupy the space and fitted perfectly.

I shifted to observing the people passing by. There was a random and rich diversity among those that I noticed. An enigmatic, sage-like ageing man with what looked like a kit-bag drifted by, possibly on a Saturday morning derive of his own. Maybe just going to the shops. A singing man with dreadlocks went by on a bike, I heard him before I saw him. He looked oblivious and carefree, in comparison to a group of hipster-types who’s man-bun attempts to a similar direction were clearly carefully and self-consciously curated. They were outnumbered by the number of old ladies I saw, heading towards the broadway utilising a range of mobility aids from the walking sticks to the full on electric mobility scooters. These were the pioneers in the new age of electric transport. I only witnessed one Voi scooter, but several white vans. As I became even more settled in my bench enclave and reached a point of imagined invisibility, the background engine sounds aided an almost meditative state.

After a while I became aware of a distant chanting, coming from the direction of the bridge. This slowly roused me and I remembered that there was a protest due to take place, organised by the traders and others from the pro-bridge reopening faction. As mentioned previously the bridge closure had caused controversy and division. The County Council were due to vote the following week to decide whether to keep the bridge closed or reopen it, while a period of consultation took place. The bridge had initially been closed with no consultation, one followed some time later but was disregarded, due to concerns that the councils consultation system allowed the same people to comment more than once. The traders saw this protest as a last stand. As their voices grew louder, I was roused from my immersive state and curious to know what was going on up the road. I realised I had only been on the bench for around twenty minutes but it felt like a lot longer. I wrenched myself into a standing position, then removed myself from its immersive atmosphere, as I passed beyond the hollyhocks and manhole covers. I looked back to the bench and its surroundings, a segment of space that was almost tangibly separate and off-kilter from its immediate surrounds, I felt like it was a protected and protective space.

 

The protest was in full swing as I passed it crossing the bridge. There were chants, with the aid of megaphones of ‘one Mill Road, one community’. Meanwhile, the Romsey City Councillor, Dave Baigent, a vocal pro-closure proponent, stood among the protestors in silence. The scene was a microcosm of the division the bridge closure had created and the chanting seemed almost anacronistic.

Further down the road was a delegation of people from the pro-closure faction, specifically from a group called ‘Mill Road 4 People’. This group had sprung up relatively recently with a professional looking website showing quite detailed ideas for how the bridge could stay closed and asking for views to help make this work. There has been much speculation as to who might be behind the group, with the finger being firmly pointed by several social media commentators at Cam Cycle, a vocal pro-bridge closure lobbying group. While the rhetoric and ideas of both groups seem very similar, I don’t know whether this is true. As I passed through the delegation, one of them stopped me and handed me a leaflet. I expressed my reservations around keeping the bridge closed. I asked what about the traders claims that they were seeing a fall in takings. This was brushed off, and it was pointed out that several new business had opened during the closure and these would attract more to open as footfall increased. I wondered though, who were these new businesses for and whose feet would be falling? The emphasis was largely on the more artisan end of the food market, even beyond this to include something called a ‘Fish Butchery’, which struck me as something beyond pretentious.

My earlier fears, which had dissipated earlier in the protective environment of the bench, returned. The street was in danger of becoming something beyond the parody of Nathan Barley, with its various forms of e-scooter transport gliding along the road, a proliferation of serious faced joggers and high end eateries with outside seating becoming ever more prevalent, making ambulatory activity that bit more awkward. I wondered if the solution to Cambridge’s pollution and traffic problems had to be the imposition of a ‘continental cafe culture’ and the creation of a destination resembling Hoxton aspiring to be Hampstead in Mill Road, which is what many on the pro-closure side seemed to be pushing for. Certainly, the Covid-era seems to have accelerated a move towards such an environment. It was probably on the cards anyway, but the shift has been stark in its rapidity. I felt like I had been suffering from ‘Future Shock’ over the last few month as a result. As I moved along the street, it didn’t help when I noticed Fagitos was still ‘closed for refurbishment’. I wondered if it would ever really re-open and of so in what form. The legendary late night kebab joint has been unrivalled since the 1990s and is one of Mill Road’s most iconic institutions, but has been closed for months. This seemed an ominous portent that the direction of travel was set for good. There would be no return to the comfy, slightly grubby Mill Road of ‘the before time’.

As I retracted my steps, I passed by the protestors banner still standing at the foot of the bridge. ‘Open The Bridge. Consult!’ its shouted. In my deflated state, the banner seemed to express the futility of any attempt to prevent the worst extremities of gentrification imposing a more sterile and expensive version of Mill Road. But at least the bench was there, unaffected, at least for now.

 

Footnote: The week after the walk/bench sit, the County Council voted to re-open the bridge while a period of consultation takes place. I can’t say I’ve noticed the traffic get much busier as a result but I suppose it is the school holidays. I’ll find another bench to try out during this next stage of flux, until the next stage of the bridge saga.

Bridge Closure: Bleak Interregnum on Mill Road

At the time of writing,  Mill Road bridge has been closed to traffic for a couple of weeks, due improvement works for the railway below it and to facilitate the Chisholm Trail bikeway. In the run up to the closure there seemed to be lots of excitement being touted on social media of the possibilities the situation might bring. The lack of through traffic along Mill Road would mean an almost car free environment which would present opportunities for alternative uses. Street parties, markets, music, 'parklets'* and just generally walking about without worrying about getting run over.  This spirit of opportunity had echoes of the Reclaim the Streets party that occupied Mill Road Bridge on a Saturday in September  1996. Sort of. On this occasion the Bridge was closed and inaccessible, other than a narrow footpath corralling pedestrians across, and this was to be shut off some of the time. This time it was the stretches of road each side of the bridge that would be free space.  The spirit was a bit more 'polite and establishment' than 'chaotic rave with police confrontation', the 'Mill Road Summer' promotion being led by local councillors and associates who are co-ordinating and promoting events during this near traffic-less interregnum.

Things haven't really panned out as as promised, at least not that I've noticed. In a rare display of co-ordination with the people doing the work on the bridge, the Gas Board (or whatever they call themselves now) dug up a considerable portion of road to do maintenance of some kind, starting at the bottom of the bridge and stretching along the opposite side of the road from the Broadway before stopping across the road from the Co-op. So far I've witnessed the odd display of busking and hula-hooping along the street but it seemed decidedly underwhelming, possibly due to the intervention on the Gas Board and it's holes, traffic lights, diggers and hi-vis clad contingent of workmen dominating the scene.

The atmosphere has been one of slight desolation, exacerbated by the humid hot weather and additional dust from the road works. People have been marching continuously across the bridge between Petersfield and Romsey, like a stream of the disaffected. Others cycle even more randomly than usual in the road, either no handed or glued to phones.  Occasional arsehole drivers with car stereos blaring, taking advantage of the reduced (but by no means abscent) traffic to reach speeds not  possible under normal conditions, like aspiring  Donald Campbell's with a bad musical accompaniment. Others park just as randomly as normal on yellow lines, blocking half the pavement.

While a bit disappointing, the situation seemed tolerable from a personal point of view and had the air of the temporary. A brief vision of a possible future where the Mill Road resembled a place on the periphery of a post apocalyptic Britain, with surviving middle class coffee joints,  kebab cafes and various other places where eating and drinking on the street continued pretty much as before. But news from The Mill Road trading association warned that the majority of their members were experiencing a fall in takings if up to 60 percent and some businesses were threatened, which was worrying.

Things took a turn for the worse about this time last week. The night of a partial lunar eclipse was also the night of signficant disaster as a fire engulfed H. Gee. Gees, for anyone not from these parts, is an institution. The shop has existed since the 1940s selling all manor of electrical items. An Aladdin's cave for radio hams and people who know how to make electric circuit boards, as well as the less technical who just want a lightbulbs or blank tapes. Going inside the shop was like stepping through a portal to another world.  A small standing space in which you were surrounded by a chaotic maelstrom of infinate stuff, dust and cobwebs. A place in which time had moved at a much slower pace and in a slightly different direction to the outside world. It felt like there couldn't have been an era when it didn't or wouldn't exist.

It looks certain that H Gee will not rise from the ashes. What is left of the building is almost  certainly structurally unsound. 'Mr Gee', not a young man, has been unwell and the shop has been temporarily closed for some weeks. The fire putting an end to H Gee feels akin to an earthquake altering a long standing stable geomorphology beyond all recognition. The shop belongs to part of a series of buidings that have an air of ancientness and familiarity, as if they were formed from just beneath the earth's surface over thousands of years.

I was out of town when happened but read the reports on social media. The Cambridge News was more concerned with 'traffic chaos' than the lives of those affected by the fire.  Other outlets were more sympathetic and informative. Thankfully no-one was hurt, but people living in the flats above face uncertain future, including a good friend of mine. Fabios Tattoo studio and optometrists, either side of H Gee, are closed, for an indefinite period.

I took a stroll along the road from the Co-op the next morning to survey the scene. Drifting along the road just as I got there was the stark apparition known locally as 'Dead John'. A man who dresses in the manner of a very aging goth and who I've never heard speak. A slightly sinister figure, often spotted in the more central regions of the city with his cane, big boots and top hat, but almost never in Mill Road. An ominous sign.

As I passed the Broadway opposite, I re-noticed the ABC Barbecue, another long standing Mill Road emporium. It's not been there as long as H Gee but it existed when I was small. The chickens on spits in the window still miraculously turn, despite the arrival a few years ago of the more upmarket (but inferior in my book) Sea Tree next door. The ABC stands as another portal to a previous Mill Road. I recalled something called 'The Amusement Cafe' being next door, in the 80s. I never got to go inside. Nobody I know seems to remember this being there. Whenever I mention it the reaction is the same blank and slightly worried look people give when recalling an obscure children's TV programme that nobody else can recall ever existing.

Crossing the bridge, the atmosphere was subdued. Oddly, I bumped into at least three people I knew but rarely saw within the couple of minutes it took to get across. It was a midweek lunchtime and more deserted than normal so these encounters seemed particularly unusual. Among the paraphernalia of the works a sign reasurred us that Mr Safety was there to prevent any sort of disaster, but he had failed miserably. The Earl of Beaconsfield looked on in disdain.

Arriving on the other side I was confronted by the cordoned off buildings, the shell of H Gee in the centre.  A burnt stench permeated the air. The building looked almost certainly beyond repair and the re-appearence of 'Mr Gee' very unlikely. Another fire in some nearby flats on the Bridge had displaced another much loved character of Mill Road only a couple of months ago. The disappearance of these people and their type seems in keeping with a creeping gentrification that has been going on for years along the street with a certain type of middle class-ness now firmly embedded as the dominant force. The hipster-types of the previous few years being replaced by, or turning into, young families with cargo bikes.

Back across the bridge I paused at the 'Romsey R'. A fairly recent addition to the streetscape, being a statue of a giant letter R with names of destinations and departure points important in the lives of local people. I don't recall being asked for my contribution but I probably wasn't paying attention at the time. It is meant to commemorate the railway heritage of the Romsey area and the letter is based on a rubbing of a letter from one of the victorian street signs nearby.  To me the sculpture symbolises a sort of anachronism. While it 'celebrates' the railway age which is the reason the terraced streets of Romsey exist, it also seems to be a symptom of the particular sort of gentrification seen in the area in which the past is both celebrated and replaced with something different. The terraced houses once occupied by railway workers and their families with the area was known as Red Romsey, due to the working class heavily unionised population that dominated the area. It's unlikely that the workmen on the Bridge would be able to afford to live and bring up a family in one of these houses now, without a substantial lottery win. It's unlikely that any shop units becoming vacant due to lack of takings will be replaced by an ABC Barbecue, H Gee or Curry Queen or anything else resembling any other old staple of Mill Road.

The R also occupies a site where previously an inconspicuous bench provided a place for a small inconspicuous group of people who used the place as a quiet social gathering point, to drink and chat. They seem to have disappeared with its arrival, although a bench is still there. The sculpture is not quite as welcoming as a 'Soviet Bus Stop' style shelter might have been for such convivial activities.

The Romsey R has emerged in a period where the Romsey Labour Club building has been subject to two planning applications, one for student flats which was initially passed but the decision reversed in order to comply with 'The Cambridge Local Plan'. The second, for serviced apartments , was passed 5-4, the casting vote going to the chair. A perplexing decision, not least because the City council is Labour controlled, as is it's planning committee.  The volunteers that built the club, including my Great Grandad, must be turning in their graves. Ironically just across the road the Salisbury Club (the Conservative equivalent of similar vintage) still survives. Surely this has to be on the Developer's hit list for future applications. I finished my walk at the Labour Club building. A pity it wasn't still functioning to provide cheap beer and cheese and onion sandwiches during these irregular times on the street. Within its crumbling and plant festooned facade lurked the ghosts of it's Red Romsey past, soon to be buried beneath another computer generated clone development owned and to be occupied by people that have no regard for the previous or current communities. A sorry site indeed.

*A parklet is a concept first tried out in San Francisco and involves car parking space or two in a street being reclaimed for pedestrians, by turning them into a mini public space with seats and sometimes plants for people to sit in, relax and enjoy  The Mill Road parklet (so far there is only one) appeared the weekend after the Gees fire in a space normally occupied by double yellow lines. Designed to last the duration of the bridge closure, it was assembled out of chipboard and pallets outside a cafe and deli/cafe, looking very much like an extension of the spaces already occupied on the  pavement by those establishments and protected by similar barriers used earlier in the week by the Gas Board.  It's too early to say wether this prototype of possible future Mill Road parklets will/can be used as a neutral space where, say, the people who used were ursurped by the Romsey R could mix with the wider community and share a tin of Super-Bock from the shop up the road. Let's hope so. I'll watch those spaces...