Triumphal arch

I mentioned the back of the new Lidl building in Tolworth yesterday (reference 1) and today I got around to inspecting the front, on Kingston Road (right), just after where I usually turn off into Jubilee Way (bottom right), where there is indeed a triumphal arch. Just about where the green marker is.

All very grand, a sort of low rise version of the sort of thing you might find in central London, say in Southwark Street near Tate Power Station. While Sunbelt Rentals appears to be a very large and whizzy equipment rental operation, which appears to be headquartered in North Carolina, hence the sun belt. Now expanded into Europe, which is perhaps where Lidl got connected to them.

Very grand looking compared with their shops, which are well designed (I say this on the basis of very slight acquaintance), but basic by design. Apart from the car parks which they seem to think are the business of their local authority hosts. They don't seem to be in the least embarrassed by the queues of cars waiting to get in, backing up into the main roads adjacent.

Now down to planting the gardens and erecting signage.

I expect Mr. Lidl expects his office staff to earn their oats, so it is handy that there is a Premier Inn adjacent for when they have to work very late. Just to the right of the arch as you face it. And beyond that Tolworth railway station.

I wonder if they will have their staff beanos in the bowling alley the other side of the station? A place I have even used once or twice myself, although I thought the balls were rather heavy.

PS 1: also wondering how much grief Brexit has caused Lidl and Aldi. My recollection is that a lot of their stock is visibly foreign. Maybe they wouldn't have bothered to push into the UK at all, had we been outside the union.

PS 2: in the margins of all this I have discovered that Beaconsfield has a lady MP from Indiana who worries that our country is being taken over by the commies who seem to infest our Department of Health. She is also very keen on the monarch. I wonder if they have ever met?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/collecting.html.

Reference 2: https://www.sunbeltrentals.com/.

Reference 3: https://www.garysinisefoundation.org/. There may be a link with this veterans' support organisation. Their logo certainly appears at the bottom of the Sun Belt home page.

Reference 4: https://www.garysinise.com/. A luvvie who became a humanitarian. Plus a slight whiff of godliness.