Nuneaton Serendipity

Here is a question that might be familiar to devotees of Radio 4’s Round Britain Quiz: “What connects the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, the Mill on the Floss, the film Kes, and Nuneaton Library?”

Echoing the programme’s format - where teams try to find common ground between the items – here, we have two real buildings and a fictional one. The two real ones are as different as chalk and cheese. The fictional one would be recognised by those team members with a literary penchant as The Mill on the Floss written by George Eliot.   

Those with interest in films would “unpack” Kes, as the story about a boy and his kestrel, his troubled home and school life, based on the book A Kestrel for a Knave.

But let’s park that for the time being, and look at the cathedral. This magnificent structure, consecrated in 1967, deserves its recognition as “iconic”. Its circular shape, with a part conical roof, topped by a stained glass lantern, with its 16 concrete ribs, and piazza approach, has an exterior majesty only surpassed by its interior – full of light and space, and dignity, well suited to the purpose of prayer and worship.

Turning to Nuneaton Library – have a look at the adjacent photograph. It is a typical 1960s style building but it was designed in 1946 as part of the scheme for the bomb damaged town centre. Its windows reaching down to the ground are a functional feature – filling the library with light, and there is a Georgian influence in its elevations. Completed in 1962 it has impressed its visitors and users alike. In spite of being described by English Heritage as ‘sensitive’, it didn’t quite make ‘listed’ status when threatened by a redevelopment programme - fortunately now in abeyance. However, after undergoing several refurbishments, Nuneaton Library remains a worthy repository for the collected works (and the largest collection this side of the Atlantic) of George Eliot, the town’s most famous literary daughter.

So, the answer is beginning to take shape. We had a look at the design of the cathedral, but not the designer, and it is now time to reveal his name – Sir Frederick Gibberd (1908 – 1984), the architect of many notable buildings in addition to the cathedral, such as the London Central Mosque (completed 1977) , the offices  of Coutts & Co in the Strand, Didcot Power Station  and – you’ve probably guessed by now – Nuneaton Library. He grew up in Coventry and had family in Nuneaton.

Well, that just leaves us to fathom out the part played by Kes. It’s not so much a part we are looking for, but rather the director, and he is Ken Loach. His career spans many years, and he has received much public recognition for his cinematographic oeuvre (realism), with films such as Cathy Come Home, and winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 for The Wind That Shakes The Barley . He was born in Nuneaton in 1936, and attended the town’s King Edward VI Grammar School.

And there you have it!  Two distinctly different and geographically separated  buildings designed by the same architect, and a son and daughter of Nuneaton  - a town which is only 20 miles north of  Leamington Spa, the home of Wright Hassall.