The picture below is an aerial view of
Kemptown, about the eastern-most third of Brighton and Hove. Where I live is
shown by a yellow arrow. The foreground is sea and beach, and beyond the coast road is a white strip of Regency buildings, mostly about three or four stories high. (Except near the left you can make out Royal Crescent whose buildings are faced with an unusual black brick - it looks gray at this distance because of the many white painted window frames.) Half off the picture, to the right, is Brighton Marina. |
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Once through the front door, you are in a smallish entrance lobby (I don't
know the correct architectural term) and then you go through another set
of doors into the main entrance hall.
Here, (the picture below) I am standing about twenty feet inside the entrance
hall. It's a fake door, to match the real door through to what I jokingly call the "servants' quarters" where I live. More on that later. You can see the "door" is curved at top and bottom, but it is not very obvious - particularly since the camera is so close that the verticals either side (particularly near the window) look curved when they are, in fact, straight verticals.
The next picture is taken from the same place, but I have turned around about 180 degrees, and am now looking up at the main staircase. The top of the window opening is visible at top right (it's a big window).
The stairs would originally have been carpeted, of course, as you can see. Under the stairs, you can just see a pushchair peeping out. Two of the flats have small (less than a year old) babies, and the Residents have agreed that they don't need to manhandle baby transport apparatus up or down stairs to their respective flats. That was January 2005 - it's now October 2006 and the babies have got a bit older! You can also see the real door through to where I live in the background. Gosh! It could do with a fresh coat of paint! And, indeed, it got one. From me. Easier just to do it, than to wait for scheduled maintenance/redecoration. I should take another picture, while it still looks fresh! This is a close-up of the bottom of the door.  A bit scuffed. It could really do with some fresh paint. Perhaps I'll volunteer to do it at the next Residents' Association meeting. And, Reader, I did. And now it looks beautiful. But you'll have to take my word for it until I get around to taking a new picture. (The official redecoration cycle for internal areas is quite long, but all the doors have to be self-closing because of fire regulations, and this door gets more wear'n'tear than most, because it can be kicked open.) Anyway, you can see that the door is curved.
The last picture (for today) shows the servants' stairs.  Well, the part outside my front door, anyway. I am standing with my back almost against my front door. To the right (off picture) is the other side of the door from the previous picture. To the left, is an impressive picture of my finger, from very close up -- I am not deliberately obscuring the view through the window, which leads into a little courtyard. The white vertical thing in the middle of the stairwell is the remains of some kind of dumb-waiter apparatus, but I doubt it's been used for tens of years (a hundred? who knows?). |
