WORCESTER may rejoice under the title the Faithful City for its perceived, but in reality rather opportunist, support for the monarchy during the English Civil War, but that didn’t mean the Queen had to dig it out of a financial hole in the last third of the 20th century.
But she did, knowingly or not. Because it was the investment by the Crown Estate, the commission that handles the Queen’s property holdings and investments, which lifted Worcester’s fortunes considerably.
The dramatic reversal came in the wake of the 1960s redevelopment disasters and the doom and gloom of the 1970s recession, which saw many of the city’s shops, offices and factories lying dormant.
There was a virtual forest of “For Sale” or “To Let” signs stretching from High Street to the suburbs.
By the 1980s the Centrovincial company, creators of the 1970s Blackfriars Square development lying between Angel Place and Dolday, saw it as a mistake and put forward plans to remove what many considered a scar on the city’s shopping scene.
But what was to come next? Enter stage left Her Maj. on a white horse. Or rather Her Maj’s men and women.
The Crown Estate agreed to provide the necessary £80 million injection to carry out the new project. It was much enlarged and renamed CrownGate, becoming a joint development with Worcester City Council, which owned much of the earmarked land in the Deansway/Bull Entry area.
Demolition and construction work began in earnest and much was made of the huge benefits CrownGate would regally bestow on the city, a location one of Elizabeth II’s predecessors had quit in rather a hurry in 1651 – The Battle of Worcester, for those who may have forgotten.
There would be three multiple stores, more than 50 shops, offices and restaurants, a 750-space multi-storey car park and a central bus station, a real boon to public transport in a city where bus terminals had been haphazardly scattered.
The scheme also proved the saviour of the former Countess of Huntingdon Chapel, which had been under threat of demolition by the City Council in the 1960s. The Crown Estate came to the aid of a local voluntary trust and helped considerably in the restoration of the chapel and its conversion into Huntingdon Hall, creating a performance and arts centre.
However, The Queen doesn’t open shopping malls, so CrownGate was officially unveiled by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester in April 1992 and immediately expanded Worcester’s main retail area by a third.
The building of CrownGate involved one of the scariest jobs I’ve ever been on. Along with John Pratt, our late, great photographer, I went to interview the operator of the huge tower crane which loomed over the sprawling site.
It reached more than 150ft into the sky and rung by rung, with no safety harness, we climbed the steel structure as it swayed and creaked in the breeze.
Clambering into the cabin at the top I felt quite pleased with myself, until I realised John had made the same climb carrying all his photographic kit. Now there was a man who really did drink Carling Black Label!
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