Concrete

The central Bognor sea wall, between the esplanade and the shingle bank, is decorated with various motifs, some of which are illustrated left.

The concrete looks to be very much of the age and appearance of the small bridge parapets near where we live, these last probably having been put up in the twenties of the last century.

There must be around twenty different motifs, scattered along the wall in what appeared to be a random fashion. They also appeared to have been cast in-situ, which suggests to me a high-class concreting operation. To get this amount of clean detail in concrete requires careful attention to be paid to the shuttering, to the mix & the mixing of the concrete and to its compaction once poured. Plenty of TLC, all of which is much easier to manage in the controlled conditions of a factory than on the sea-front. I doubt whether I could come near this quality back home, even if someone else provided the moulds for the motifs.

I wonder whether the heritage people will catch onto the notion that this sort of thing should perhaps be painted in bright colours, after the way of ancient Greek sculptures - or indeed after that of the Saudi copies of them today. I don't think our cathedrals count, because while a lot of the masonry was indeed painted, the paint was dull vegetable stuff, no match for our aniline and acrylic.