Tag Archives: Bangor

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23

23

Date

22 November 2020

Location

Tesco Extra, Caernarfon Road, Bangor
SH 56147 69806; 53.20579°N, 4.15532°W

Related

Tesco, Bangor
23 fascinating facts about the number twenty-three (The Independent)

There’s no such thing as destiny. There are only different choices. Some choices are easy, some aren’t. Those are the really important ones, the ones that define us as people.

Walter Sparrow, The Number 23
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Chinese Walking Stick Bamboo

Chinese Walking Stick Bamboo

Date

17 October 2020

Location

Bog Garden, Treborth Botanic Garden,
Treborth, Bangor
SH 55240 71098; 53.21714°N, 4.16947°W

Information

“Chimonobambusa tumidissinosa
Chinese Walking Stick Bamboo
From Southwest Sichuan and northeast Yunnan (China), has been used for walking sticks since the Han Dynasty. Edible shoots.”

Further Reading

Treborth Botanic Garden

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Treborth Botanic Garden

Treborth Botanic Garden

Date

20 May 2017

Location

Treborth, Bangor
SH 55240 71098; 53.21714°N, 4.16947°W

Information

The land for Treborth Botanic Garden was purchased by Bangor University in the 1960s in order to develop a plant collection for its Botany Department. The garden had previously been developed in the 1840s as part of the Chester and Holyhead Railway’s planned tourist destination Britannia Park. This was designed by architect and gardener Sir Joseph Paxton (1803 – 1865) – best known for designing the 1851 Great Exhibition’s Crystal Palace. However, lack of funding led to the project being abandoned.

The botanic garden is host to more than 2,000 native and exotic species and the university maintains six glasshouses on the site. The university provides free access to the grounds to the public throughout the year.

Further Reading

Treborth Botanic Garden

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Veillance

Veillance

Veillance

Date

26 February 2017

Location

Pontio, Deiniol Road, Bangor
SH 57929 72174; 53.22753°N, 4.12972°W

Information

The Veillance datascape artwork was designed by Llanfairfechan-based artist and design consultant Ronan Devlin, Designer-in-residence at Bangor’s Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre.

“A new interactive artwork that visualises information generated by our networked devices. Our digital devices regularly share information with government agencies and third party companies for both surveillance and commercial purposes.

“Veillance invites you to browse the internet using a device provided in the exhibition. Your searches will be intercepted, your data captured and reconfigured to create an immersive audio-visual experience.

“Your browsing will reveal words that are identified by UK and US global security services as ‘triggers’ for potential suspicious activity. These words appear to leave the screen echoing the journey your information makes from you to outside agencies. A list of websites with which your device is communicating is created in real-time, illustrating the constant communication between you, your data and outside agencies.

“To comply with data protection laws, the artwork intercepts only publicly accessible information from unencrypted websites.”

Further Reading

Pontio I;
Pontio II;
Pontio III

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Dr Zig’s Extraordinary Bubble Shop

Dr Zig's Extraordinary Bubble Shop

Dr Zig’s Extraordinary Bubble Shop

Date

14 May 2016

Location

Vaynol Estate, Bangor
SH 53812 69633; 53.20359°N, 4.19017°W

Information

Dr Zig’s was started up in 2011 by Paola Dyboski-Bryant and was named after her son Ziggy who was two years old at the time. The eco-friendly company sells bubble mix and kits and also provides giant bubbles at events such as parties and festivals. Their premises in former dairy buildings on the Vaynol Estate comprise a manufacturing unit, café and shop, outdoor play area and the ‘Bubble Barn’ – a giant bubble venue for parties and events.

Further Reading

Dr Zig’s

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Harvey’s, Bangor

Harvey's, Bangor I

Harvey’s, Bangor I

Date

1-2 April 2016

Location

Cyttir Lane, Caernarfon Road, Bangor
SH 56381 69985; 53.20745°N, 4.15191°W

Information

Harvey’s US-style diner and drive-thru outlet in Bangor opened in March 2016, with planning permission having been granted in September 2015. The restaurant was built on open ground next to Tesco Extra to designs by consulting engineers H A Structures. The chain, owned by St Asaph-based family-run business Restaurant 72 Ltd, opened its first restaurant in Llandudno in 2012 and a drive-thru in Rhuddlan in 2014. It also has ambitions for outlets in a further four locations: Menai Bridge, Holyhead, Wrexham and Chester.

Further Reading

Harvey’s New York Bar & Grill

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Demolition of Bangor Railway Institute

Railway Institute

[ 12 March 2016 ] Railway Institute

Date

12 March – 9 April 2016

Location

Euston Road, Bangor
SH 57283 71538; 53.22165°N, 4.13910°W

Information

Bangor’s Railway Institute building was featured in 2012 in a previous article, which provided details of its history. In brief, in its time the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) was the main employer in the city and the West End area, around the station, has many Victorian red-brick terraces that housed the railwaymen and their families. In their midst the Railway Institute was built as a social club in 1898 and the building was extended in 1905.

The social club – which is incidentally no longer exclusively for railway workers – was, owing to increasing debts, obliged to sell the building in 2014 and then rented it from the new owners. (The 424 square-metre two-storey property, whose site covers an area of 0.14 hectares, was advertised with a guide price of £125,000.)

The current owners, Stockport-based developers Kingscrown Properties Ltd, lodged a planning application in June 2015 for the demolition of the existing building and the construction of a three-storey student-accommodation block comprising 27 flats together with a lay-by with parking for seven vehicles.

The planning application portrayed the Institute as an “anti-social nightclub”, which caused some dismay amongst locals as it was used mainly by pensioners for bingo nights. Furthermore, the prospect of the historic building being razed was met by local opposition. An online petition, started in August 2015 by Bangor resident James Johnson, called on Gwynedd Council to make the retention of the building’s facades a condition for the approval of the planning application. The petition garnered 1240 signatures.

In October 2015 Bangor Railway Institute Club was granted planning permission for change of use of the former health clinic in Sackville Road to use as its new premises. Later that month Gwynedd councillors, against the recommendation of the council’s planning officers, rejected Kingscrown Properties’ application to build the new student flats.

Nevertheless, in November 2015 the building’s proprietors notified the council of its intention to proceed with demolition, claiming that the structure had become unsafe and was subject to vandalism. As the building was not listed – when approached with regards to a last-minute request for an emergency listing, heritage body Cadw did not change its previous stance of declining a listing on the grounds of the building’s loss of historical character resulting from various alterations – the council had no powers to prevent demolition. Contractors moved onto the site in January 2016, with all the slates first being removed from the roof. The building itself is currently in the process of being torn down.

Further Reading

Bangor Railway Institute;
Elevations of proposed student accommodation (permission refused);
Impression of proposed student accommodation (permission refused)

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