May 30 to June 6 (From Worcester News)

May 30 to June 6

10:39am Monday 1st June 2009 in

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THIS WEEK IN 1959:

CAR showrooms are to replace the former historic Theatre Royal in Angel Street, Worcester. The old theatre closed early in 1955 because of dwindling support and is to be pulled down and replaced by new premises for car distributors, Colmore Depot.

The empty theatre and its site were originally priced at £18,000 but have been bought for £12,500.

● Henry Gorst, the Worcester architect, told a meeting of the Foregate Society in Worcester that towns and cities were dying simply because people were no longer living in the centres of them. Until people returned to live in the centres, towns and cities would continue to deteriorate in character and increase in size, he asserted.

● Wanted; £8,000. That is what the Lower Avon Navigation Trust needs to complete its £50,000 task of restoring the river Avon between Evesham and Tewkesbury to navigation.

THIS WEEK IN 1969:

ANOTHER Elgar landmark is soon to disappear from the Worcester scene. The city planners say they find it impossible to save the substantial house called Marlbank in Rainbow Hill where Worcester’s most famous son, composer Sir Edward Elgar, lived for the last few years of his life.

The planners claim the property is in such a “dreadful” state that the cost of restoration would be prohibitive. As a result, planning permission has been given for the demolition of Marlbank and the construction of a block of flats in its place.

● Women in Worcestershire are being urged to take advantage of the county council’s cervical cytology service for the early detection of some forms of cancer by smear tests.

Women should apply to local clinics for the test which is proving invaluable in many parts of the world.

On medical advice, women should have the smear test repeated every three to five years.

THIS WEEK IN 1979:

CONTROVERSIAL plans to fill a disused Worcestershire quarry with rubbish would benefit the area, claim waste disposal consultants. But people living near Penny Hill Quarry at Martley, near Worcester, fear the rubbish dump scheme would bring vermin and flies to their homes.

However, Dr Peter Oliver, head of a firm of consultants who would run the refuse tip for the owners – a consortium of Bromsgrove businessmen – is seeking to allay the anxieties of local residents and farmers. A hydro-geologist and expert on water pollution, Dr Oliver is convinced local farmers’ fears of noxious seepage from the proposed tip are unfounded.

He said: “Rats need food and flies need rubbish to breed on, but refuse tipped at Penny Hill Quarry would be carefully covered over every day so that these problems would not arise.”

Local residents are pressing for the quarry to be entirely filled with soil instead but Dr Oliver says it would take between 100 and 200 years to do this. He estimates that the quarry would be full after 12 years of refuse tipping. Malvern Hills District Council is to consider the refuse tip application in July.

THIS WEEK IN 1989:

THE Cornmarket in Worcester is to get a new focal point – a £60,000 fountain to mark the city’s Charter Year, the 800th anniversary of the granting of its first charter. A design competition featuring six of the country’s top sculptors and fountain designers is on the cards as the city gears itself up to create national interest in the scheme.

Already, the Society of British Sculptors and the Fountain Society have agreed to back the proposal and will submit at least six entries for the design competition. A short list of candidates will be drawn up in July and city council leaders are hoping to announce the winner of the fountain design competition during the November Charter Week celebrations.

(The Cornmarket did not materialise. MG).