Keel Row Books

Another walk I took one day as a mini-reward to myself was to visit Keel Row Books on the way to Morrisons supermarket to pick up a few groceries. This was making a 1.7 round trip into something more like 3 miles, which was part of the point.

I was sure I'd written about this place before and sure enough I had, but without a camera. It only took me eight years to follow up on that intent in this previous post. February seems to be the time of year for me to drop in there.

Along the way I snapped a photo of the new hours listed on the gate at Tynemouth Architectural Salvage. It's been a while since I browsed (went 'window-licking') there (eight years again?). Another salvage place, Huscrofts, in North Shields is 'decorative' salvage. Both places are equally fun to visit.

I browsed the books at Keel Row, beginning with the front window. I couldn't get a good photo of the complete set (6 for £75) of The Modern Baker Confectioner and Caterer because of the glare of the glass, but I did find a number of these on Archive.org. I'm none of the words in the title but I do love the cover design.

Inside I looked through the sewing and crafting section but found nothing there I couldn't live without. The fiction section, I noticed, included some novels by Robert B. Parker. I've discovered Ace Atkin's revival of the Spenser detective series at the library and enjoyed them. I may try the original Parker version at some point. 

I never noticed the little bird who stole the 'O'.

I was wishing I had my book list with me and I didn't really know what I was looking for. 

On the other hand it is always an intense pleasure just to be surrounded by books. The other night at the WI the speaker had his books for sale. I saw one purchaser open her new book and sniff as she sat back down. It made me smile. Old books have their own scent - perhaps it is accumulated dust, I don't know - but beyond the olfactory input just the sheer volume of possibilities in a room full of books as yet unread by me is almost brain-food in itself.

I stumbled upon a Laura Ingalls Wilder omnibus, containing her first three books. I knew she was on my list, having never watched the TV series or read the books before (late to most parties, me). 

The lady at the check out was clearly a Wilder fan, being so enthusiastic about my purchase and telling me there were three more of her books if I liked them. I did, more than I expected I would.  

I picked up a leaflet about a book fair in Durham and snapped a photo of the Edinburgh book fair for the WI book group and the bookshop's hours for my own reference. 

The main thing I love about Keel Row Books is that you can see it was once a house and that whole house is now absolutely crammed full of books. It is a semi-detached and the other semi- is on the market. The house for sale is disappointingly modern in decor (I snooped online - don't you love being able to do that!?). It occurs to me that if I could afford the other half of our semi I would want to do just that: turn the other half into a 'library', or maybe an antique shop (where nothing is for sale) or would it be about fabric? Hard so say.

Across the road: Christ Church (Anglican), 350 years old this year. North Shields Embroiderers' Guild meet there.

On my way to Morrisons I photographed another couple of houses for sale to snoop. I noted an odd feature in someone's garden and discovered I could see a tower in Preston Village from the main road, a feature I've long wondered about. With a bit of research I discovered someone else has written about it. I must go back sometime and try to get a better photo, though most of it is now obscured with greenery and I'm pretty sure that some of the grounds have now been developed.

Not a path, not yet a border, no stream there...is it just for decoration?

I can't recall what I bought at Morrisons but I do remember having a heavy, lumpy backpack for my journey home. All part of the exercise regime.

See tower of house behind, upper left? That's 'Preston Cottage'!

Antwerp Art Nouveau

As usual, I've learned a great deal in the process of writing this post, more than I knew at the time of our visit.

That's always the way I am, though.




For some reason, I cannot get motivated to read about a place before I visit.




I always feel inundated with the information presented in tourist books.




I can't possibly remember it all in advance of what I end up seeing.

However, once I've been, I'm hungry to know more.




I prefer to do things this way, backwards as it is.




It's probably simply laziness on my part.

Bill remarked about how the lines of the car seemed capatible with those of
the house.

Good thing Bill is prepared to do a bit of advance research, although it is very much a case of taking library books along for the ride and then browsing in our spare time during the journey.

This works better on trains than when driving a motorhome, obviously.




Then again, there is a lot of time sitting around in a motorhome.

There are streets and streets of these things!

I remember once that Frugal Scholar remarked she felt she hadn't done Britain properly on her previous visit, hadn't seen nearly all there was to see. 

I've thought long and often about how to 'do' a country - even one as small as Britain -  but I don't actually think it is possible.

Particularly when there is such a density of practically any object of interest, and such a length of history as Britain has.

Perhaps if one limited themself to something quite rare, like pre-historic artifacts, one might get through it all, though Britain did help itself to quite a lot of such things from other countries, and I've always found the British Museum fairly boring.

But never mind Britain, we are 'doing' Belgium, right?  Though Belgium has much the same length of history and is even smaller.

I think Bill did a brilliant job of selecting the focus we would most enjoy - that of tracking down art nouveau architecture.   A round of applause for Bill, please





So here is another tangent for you.  When Bill goes for a run, he prefers a circular route rather than an out-and-back. 

I lean towards that latter approach for several reasons I won't list here.  I always say the return view is different because one is facing a different way. 



Here I have a case in point.  I never realised there were not just two, but four houses at this corner. 



They are called the Four Seasons.  I'd only noticed the two green houses facing us, herfsz (autumn) and zomer.  The two other corners are of course lente (spring) and winter. 

Also, being taken with the funny bay windows and the shape of the roof lines, I missed the frescoes on each building, symbolizing each season. 




Of course this area is not called South Africa by Antwerpians, but rather Zurenborg. 




It is noted not just for the Art Nouveau architecture but for a wide variety of dramatic fin de siecle - turn of the (last) century - styles.





At some point in the notorious 1960s (when loads of historical buildings in Newcastle were demolished), this district was due to be re-developed.

It seems that because the interiors of the buildings were plain and old-fashioned, instead of being decorated throughout like Horta's house in Brussels, they were disdained.

Mind, plain and old-fashioned in the Victorian era will still likely mean high ceilings, wood floors and fireplaces. 

I wanted to photograph them all, better yet, tour them all!

I guess that's all common as muck in Europe but those features are still pretty exciting to me. 




Thankfully some artistic types adopted these buildings and they became listed and most were saved from the wrecking ball.

If not from the cameras of nosy tourists.

Art Nouveau Walk - Brussels

Bill led the way, as outlined on the map we got from the tourist office.  I was over-whelmed by the variety of architectural styles that we encountered and so did my usual stop-to-snap and scurry-to-catch-up dance.  Except that sometimes Bill also stopped to take a photo (evidence below).

I love all sorts of interesting architecture, or so you may have noticed.

And I'm a push over for a window box or a splash of colour.

I might have missed this odd-shaped show window but I was on the hunt, which is to say that I was paying attention for a change. I'm quite an internally directed person, so I spend a lot of time not seeing anything outside, just thinking my own thoughts (it's a great way to get lost, I can tell you).

It's a frugal hobby, this, walking around looking at buildings for free; it's just the travel to foreign places that hikes the price!

Then we started to see the occasional art nouveau house.  I've just never seen anything like these, with the curvy woodwork or metal work on the doors, the round windows, the vine-like ironwork.  I'm sorry that my photos don't do them justice.  In my defense, there usually wasn't sufficient space to get the whole house in, and if there was it was usually across a very busy road.  Also, snapping the whole house meant that one couldn't always appreciate the details, even if Bill would have waited for me to do all that to-ing and fro-ing.

Oh, that's good...blame it on Bill!  Bless him.

Actually, the pickings were a bit slim and the map sent us to an area where two of the houses were on each side of a large concrete park, the main feature of which was a skate-boarding area.  I did take in the general demographics of the park users and question the statement I'd read somewhere that skate-boarding is largely a middle-class pursuit.  I think that might only apply in Britain.

But I was so enthralled with these houses and absorbed in trying to get photos, I didn't even try to stick close to Bill.  I don't know what those kids made of us.  Perhaps they were used to tourists and cameras.  I listened for any objectionable language, but decided there were advantages in being a foreigner.

I didn't feel threatened in any way at all, though I did notice that the light wasn't great.  It wasn't a place I'd care to have been after dark.  As we left, Bill and I both noticed gatherings and discussions going around parked cars and let our eyes slide past, commenting quietly amongst ourselves. 

I was sad for the houses.  Grand old ladies and gentlemen should enjoy a certain amount of respect in their old age, shouldn't they?

Then again, it could all have been in our imaginations.

It's a good job there aren't these sorts of things around Newcastle.

I don't think I'd ever be able to choose which one to buy, if I could even afford one.

Bill said he found a real estate ad for an art nouveau house in Antwerp for about 300,000 euros, but it was just the outside that was art nouveau.

The inside was very plain and modern, with any original features ripped out.

That sort of thing happened to all sorts of houses here in Britain and probably everywhere - out with the old!  In with the new!

Then we found this and I was vaguely disappointed at having already eaten lunch. 

It is a restaurant called La Porteuse Deau (The Water Carrier).

Isn't it lovely? You can see inside here.

According to this website,


The water-carrier in question, tradition tells us, was a girl who, back in the 19th century, used to provide water for the exhausted horses after they had pulled the horse-drawn tram from the centre of Brussels to the Bareel/Barrière in St-Gillis/Gilles. In 1900 they put up a statue of her in the middle of the square.


However, that website also goes on to describe, in quite complimentary terms, the food and beverage available from this neo-art nouveau.  Just goes to show, I don't even know my old from my new art nouveau.

Anyhow, by that time we'd pretty much done our dash and so we headed back towards the Central train station, near which I ran into my old friend, the Port de Hal, which I'd forgotten until I saw it again.



Apparently this is neo-gothic but I cannot find anywhere the name for the ironwork on the roof. Would you call that a crow's nest?