Bewiched

This is my favourite space in Wellingborough. Note the mullioned window on the left, from the 17th century. There are mullioned windows behind the photographer. A planning department would rarely consent to a modern extension on a 17th century building like this, but they must have been inspired by the beauty of it. I love the way the room moves between centuries, gradually with no one point where the change happens. I love the harmony of old and new. I even love the lavatory- not something one says often, though there was a pub in Edinburgh where the urinal was mirrored metal covering the whole wall, down which water flowed constantly, and which was such an attraction that women would go in to see it.

I love the lavatory, because it breaks the oblong of the room, and creates that nook where I can sit between the mullioned windows and the new windows to our right through the thick old wall; under that beam, which is in keeping with both the old and new parts of the room, in cosy darkness despite the brilliance of the light through the glass wall on the white interior. There there is a couch beside a table with a grungy, even cyberpunk feel about it, the heavy rough square wood, the large metal brackets and pins. And the further corner is lovely too, glass walls behind and to both sides, glass roof above, which opens to cool the space in Summer, looking down to the 17th century part, or across the grass and through the trees to the old church.

Upstairs, away from the noise of the coffee machines, is restful; or one may sit outside in Summer sunshine.