A small group of people wearing various hues of pink stood outside Faringdon’s Corn Exchange on a sunny Saturday morning in October waiting for something to happen. The occasion was the unveiling of the first of five Faringdon Pink Plaques.
Inspired by a suggestion from local musician Rachel Williams, a group of local enthusiasts came together, and the project was taken on by former town councillor Rosalind Burns, who doggedly pursued the project from beginning to its realisation, overcoming several obstacles on the way. The idea being to celebrate the more unusual and quirky people and places in the town.
The first of the plaques to be unveiled was in honour of the group Slade, who played at the Corn Exchange, before they were famous, sometime around 1969/70. As Rosalind explained the context for the plaque the strains of Slade’s song ‘Cuz I luv you’ were heard in the street. The pink huddle moved across the road to the site of what was once Faringdon’s only Art Deco inspired building – The Regent Cinema in Gloucester Street, opened by Lord Berners in the mid 1930s. Sadly it was demolished in the 1980s and the plaque is now on the outside of a flat in Gloucester Mews. The third plaque was unveiled outside the dentists in Gloucester Street as being the site of a Cistercian Monastery in the 13th century.
The group then ambled up through the Market Place and up London Street to the side wall of what used to be The Bull, now a private house where Freddie Mercury was known to frequent once in a while. A detour around Ferndale Street and a visit to the site of the former workhouse in what was formerly Union Street before the group descended on a house in Skinners Lane - The Old Bakehouse. This was where a real character called Angel Heavens lived in the Nineteenth Century. Feted for his gilded gingerbread, as well as being a publican, he was mentioned in Thomas Hughes’s novel ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’ and his signature is there on the deeds for the house as all were shown on the day by Felicity Cormack, the current owner of the house. Five pink plaques are all now in place, marking their contributions to Faringdon’s quirky history and there may be others appearing in the future.
Further information on Faringdon’s Pink Plaques can be found on the leaflet available at the Information Centre in the Market Place.
