Art Deco buildings often show off elaborate embellishments, or motifs, and there are plenty of these to be found on Loughborough’s Art Deco buildings! Let’s look at some fascines (bundles of wood), fans, and feathers, and where we might find these …
Fascines
Probably the
best example of fascines can be seen on the old No.1 Branch Co-op building on Derby
Road, a building which has featured numerous times on this blog! [1] It’s a
beautiful building which has a lovely balustrade, almost forming a faux balcony
in front of the gabled roof, and bunches of foliage dropping down along columns
of the second floor. The fascines are in the middle of the three bays, leading
up either side to the metal lettering, indicating that this is a Co-op
building. I’m calling these fascines, but it’s probably open to individual interpretation,
and you might see long-handled torches, or tied bamboo stems! Here’s a couple
of photographs of the building and the detail.
Fans
Again, my interpretation
of a fan motif might be slightly different from yours, but after a long time
spent looking up at the detail on some of Loughborough’s buildings, it gets a
bit tricky to tell exactly what the motifs are! The detail on the first floor
of the building that used to be PoundStretcher on High Street, both on the
middle gable and on the surrounding two bays, could loosely be described as
fans. Alternatively, you might see wall lights, or candelabras, or maybe
feathers or shells!! But, I’m sure we can all agree that the detailing is
beautifully on what was opened as one of Russell Smith’s drapery stores. We
might, however, consider the building is in a domestic revival style, not Art
Deco!!
Feathers
And finally,
we take a look at feathers!! Art Deco feather features often depict peacock
feathers. Again, in my opinion it’s a bit of a subjective thing, so some
feathers might be shells, and vice versa! The motif on what is now Caffe Nero, just
above the first floor window, with its faux balcony, looks like peacock
feathers in the centre, with decoration leading out to some proud miniature columns,
with possibly a round flower motif to complete the design.
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[1] See the following examples:
https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2022/12/no1-co-op.html
https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/01/changes-in-loughborough-2023.html
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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough
With apologies for
typos which are all mine!
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Dyer, Lynne (2025). F is for Fascines, Fans, and Feathers. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/f-is-for-fascines-fans-and-feathers.html [Accessed 7 April 2025]
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