Gabions

Gabions used to be used by by soldiers to protect themselves during sieges and more recently by engineers looking to do things like facing the banks of earth dams or facing sea defences. They now appear to be the latest architectural fashion, and Cambridge, always a leader in traffic management and architectural fads has taken to using them for facing new buildings and for building small support walls.

In the example snapped above, for an enclosing wall for a bicycle shed outside the Cambridge Central Travelodge in the Clifton Leisure Centre, on what was the cattle market, handy to the railway station. Not to be confused with Cambridge Central Mosque, a couple of miles up the road and to which I shall be returning in due course. Maybe I should talk to the people at Ewell West station about raising their Cycle Hub game. For which see, for example, the end of reference 6.

I wondered how these gabions, filled with what I take to be white limestone, will stand the test of time. Will they gradually attract all kinds of low life - both animal and vegetable - and gradually turn green? Rather like the banked hedges at the side of Devon roads. In the meantime, will the upper layers be a repository for the litter deposited by the hordes of young people milling around the leisure centre at night?

I find this morning that the fashion has extended to suburban gardens, with Bing telling me about lots of people who would be happy to sell me the things, filled or empty.

PS: Bing also tells me that the leisure centre is owned by the company once known as Land Security, to be found at reference 3, which at least has the virtue of being PLC, listed on the stock exchange and proud member of FTSE 100. A company which publishes annual reports. However, Bing failed to turn up anything, at least anything anywhere near the top of the search results, when I asked about the share register and who might be on it.

References

Reference 1: https://cambridgecentralmosque.org/.

Reference 2: https://cambridgeleisure.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://landsec.com/. The owner of Cambridge Leisure.

Reference 4: https://landsec.com/annual-report-2021. Their latest annual report.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsec. The story at Wikipedia. Looks to have been built out of the shambles that was London at the end of the second world war.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/fourth-blackberries.html.