John Foulston's Devonport

Mostly just a hyperlink today, to a post I wrote for the Devon History Society: Devonport Column and Foulston's Devonport.

A Western Morning News report led me to a pleasant excursion into the story of redevelopments nearly two centuries apart, and the strange architectural world of John Foulston whose 1820s design concept for the newly-badged town of Devonport (pictured above in the 1832 Devonshire & Cornwall Illustrated) mixed Doric, Corinthian, Egyptian and "Hindoo" styles in a civic centre that is still mostly extant (though partially endangered), and one of the foci of the current redevelopment of Devonport. Highlights include the 1828 Plymouth and Devonport Guide; the splendid, but At Risk, pseudo-Egyptian frontage of the Civil and Military Library (now the Oddfellows Hall); the Bing Maps Birds Eye view; and a Flickr photoset by Denna Jones documenting her Devonport Column Site Visit - Summer 2008.

- RG