Shelter on Queen's Promenade, Blackpool

Promenade shelter of 1903, relocated around 1924, by Walter MacFarlane and Co of the Saracen foundry, Glasgow.

MATERIALS: cast-iron columns, brackets, dormers and gutters with wooden screens, and lead-covered roofs. Steel bench castings.

DESCRIPTION: of almost-square plan, with slim columns at the corners, linked by screens at each end, and with an axial screen aligned north-south. The round columns have foliate capitals and each has three foliate brackets in open arabesque pattern, supporting the diagonal timbers of the roof soffit. The emphatically-ribbed swept roof has a blind round dormer on each side (in 2021, missing on the west), and a depressed-ogee cap (in 2021, missing its finial). Ogee gutters above a timber cornice discharge via the columns. The screens have tongue-and-groove lower panels and (now unglazed) upper glazing panels. The axial screen has concave tongue-and-groove, accommodating a curved bench on both sides. The ends have straight benches.

Many components are identical to, or very closely match, designs in a MacFarlanes catalogue of approximately 1890, including: dormers (type 39 on p644); columns (type 130, p572) and brackets (type 53, p549). The bench castings match type 11, p402.