1965-70: Friars Square, Aylesbury - Original Development

Between 1965 and 1970, Aylesbury’s town centre was the subject to its biggest-ever re-development. Old buildings were demolished to make way for a brand-new shopping centre and business hub, now known as the original Friars Square development.
The two phases of the construction work spanned all those years and much of it was recorded on film by members of the Aylesbury Cine Club using professional 16mm cameras.
The outdoor market, once sited in the adjoining Market Square, moved to the new open-air premises in the centre of the development..
The first phase was opened in 1967, and second three years later when it received a royal visitor, Princess Margaret to view the modern facilities.
Filmmakers: Aylesbury Cine Club; Source: 16mm colour silent film; Length 24m 29s; Digitised March 2023.
BRIEF SHOT-LIST
00.08-00.53 Aylesbury Town Centre views, buildings and traffic, including outdoor market stalls in Market Square.
00.58-02.01 Progress Report 1, May 1965. PHASE 1. Initial work after demolition, gauging a giant hole with cranes and construction equipment and vehicles. Top shots, and ground shots.
02.13-04.05 Ceremony of laying the foundation stone June 1965 involving the Mayor, James Blyth.
04.08-05.26 Progress Report 2, December 1965. Development emerging. Top shots & ground shots.
05.28-08.27 Progress Report 3, April 1966. Central building reaching fifth floor and lower areas approaching roof level.
08.28-11.12 Progress Report 4, October 1966. First top shot showing complete shape of development with open-air market area crowded with building supplies and equipment.
11.17-15.45 Progress Report 5, May 1967. Top shot of much cleaner site apparently ready for occupation. First shops, including Mothercare, Timpson shoes, Co-operative; an “OPEN” sign had gone up on the central raised cafe with exterior and interior shots, the new market area springing into life. Shots: elevated top shots, ground and interior shots.
15.48-18.27 Progress Report 6, December 1967. PHASE II. Adjoining area being cleared and initial groundworks underway.
18.32-21.31 Progress Report 7, October 1968. Film shows Phase 1 shoppers and shops, including Boots and Tesco. Top shots and ground shots of new area emerging, plus giant cranes.
21.38-00.00 HRH princess Margaret visit, 14th July, 1970. The princess with mayor Huber Smith visits shopping centre. Crowds and officials.
NOTE: The area was re-developed in 1993 and the open-air market returned to Market Square.

[@Rapscallion2009]

This was several years before I was whelped at Stoke Mandeville (just up the road). Out there are my Grandparents (in early middle age) and my parents as hip young people.
When you think about it the original Friar's Square didn't last all that long - only around 30 years. I think the new one has been up almost that long now.
What is really weird is seeing the odd patch of skyline or building I recognise. I see it and it sparks a memory, but it's like it's a familiar thing in an unfamiliar place and time.

[@annmills5853]

With my mum we used to change buses at Aylesbury to go to my grand parents who lived down the bottom part of Bierton.So many memories seeing this video I'm now 80 and have lived in Italy for 58 years, thanks alot for sharing 🤗👍👏💂🇬🇧❤️❤️❤️

[@briangibson6403]

I remember it so well ! Thanks for posting 😉

[@dogsbolls]

Well done for posting.

[@paulsexton8056]

Of course many now people know that Stanley Kubrick filmed a scene from Clockwork Orange there on a few successive nights in winter 1970. The scene taken from the novel involved a Professor leaving a library late at night. The scene was subsequently cut from the final edit of the film, however stills of the scene available online.

[@megatronsfury8048]

I know that the old concrete shopping center gets a bad wrap but lets be honest. There were more shops offering a much wider range than what we have now and whilst it was windy and cold you never got groups of dirty poor chavs hanging around everywhere. Yeah the male public toilet area was a place you never went too and the bus station was scarier than most horror films but the underground market was awesome, Zodiac toy store, Our Price, Woolies etc was magic.
Aylesbury has changed so much and most of it is for the worse. It's horrible to drive through, it's far too built up and noisy, people have such a crap attitude and its too expensive to buy or even rent here. The 70's, 80's and early to mid 90's it was great.

[@LUNATIC75]

Seeing the shops brings back a lot of memories, but even to a young lad in the early 80's, the place was a concrete dump.
So much damage was done in such a short space of time... I doubt the centre of Aylesbury will ever look anything other than awful in my lifetime...

[@philiphide]

Good film but a horrible place. The wind used to whistle through it and the bus station was a fume filled concrete cavern. It went rapidly down hill after they turned off the water that cascaded down the glass over the stairs to Lower Friars Square( in the first few months}. I'm glad I caught the bus in Kingsbury.

[@carltyler1812]

Finally, someone that does not see it through the rose coloured glasses that so many seem too. The stinky urine smelling stair cases, the urine smelling swans outside Woolworths, and you're right about the fumes in the bus station. On a wet day the whole concrete mass was one of the most depressing things to look at.

[@philiphide]

@@carltyler1812 I'd forgotten about the smell....

[@steve1113663]

@@philiphide remember the fishy smell down to the underground market?!!

[@mikey_360]

​@@steve1113663 that fishy smell was me wifes noo noo sorry about that 😢😢😢

[@DavideMazzetti]

@@carltyler1812 Absolutely! I was born in 1957 so I remember what the area was like prior to this concrete monstrosity being built. It was the beginning of the end of the 'old' Aylesbury; well, it really began with the equally ugly County Offices.

[@ronnieparkerscott6223]

Brutalist architecture at its worst.

[@Rapscallion2009]

I rather liked it. I still maintain a lot of the problem people had with brutalist was that it appealed to people who saw it as cheap to put up and maintenance-free. So cost was the driving factor in it's construction (hence - low quality and now focus on aesthetics) and it quickly got dirty, cluttered with street furniture and tasteless modifications and ended up looking terrible.
If the design is kept clean, populated with well-maintained decorations such a flower beds and good lighting and maintained well (jetwashing and repairing any damage - it doesn't take much!) then brutalist can be really attractive.
It's just that it virtually never is.
But the big problem here is that bloody great brutalist structures don't FIT in a beautiful olde-worlde market town like Aylesbury was back then.

[@jemimahlawrence1951]

"Promo SM" 🤗

[@brithozierhozier4718]

What a dive!