IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Smith Street, WATFORD, WD18 0GQ

You can just about pick out the words Barclays Bank in the grubby fascia above the ground floor level, and the word Bank carved in the stone lintel above the entrance on the corner of this attractive and historic building, which is at the junction of the High Street to the left and King Street to the right. There are plans to redevelop this whole block stretching down to Image in the distance. To be known as the Met Quarter the redevelopment would have both residential and commercial uses. However this building is not statutorily listed and was under threat of demolition during this redevelopment, until, for once, Watford Borough Council acknowledged its duty to preserve what little remains of historic buildings in the town, and stepped in to demand its retention. The most recent plans appear to be to still demolish the bank but to incorporate the retention of its façade into the new scheme. After Barclays vacated the building it may have been used as a pub or some other type of similar outlet.

Mecca closed this facility (?) in King Street in November 2014, after about 46 years of use as a bingo hall, citing dwindling customers as the reason. The purple sign tells disappointed punters that the nearest other Meccas are in Luton and Hayes. Please see Image for a history of this building which started out in life as a cinema. There are plans to build 25 flats and a retail outlet on the site, necessitating the demolition of much of the back of the building but retaining the Art Deco front facade.

This metal sculpture is at the junction of Watford High Street (on the right) and King Street. The sculpture is a reference to the nickname of the local football team.

Formerly the Essoldo cinema, later flats, retaining the facade.

Shows the location of Image intu has "20 centres across the UK and Spain" and its "whole business is focused on creating the best places for shopping and leisure, so that visitors come more often and stay longer. [intu] do that by bringing together [their] scale, expertise and understanding of what visitors want to provide compelling experiences that deliver real results for [their] customers, restaurateurs and leisure specialists". I did not make that up - see https://www.intugroup.co.uk/en/ . Update March 2020: Perhaps the customer experiences aren't quite as "compelling" as intu was boasting: the company recently posted a loss of £2 billion for 2019 and may collapse https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/12/intu-warns-it-could-go-bust-after-reporting-2bn-loss .

See Image

This building, on the corner of King Street to the left, and Smith Street to the right, dates from 1888 and was Watford's police station until 1962. In that year the new police station was opened in Shady Lane and this building was converted into a public house, called, unsurprisingly, the Sir Robert Peel, and remained as such until very recently. A comparison with a wood etching of the building made when it was newly constructed reveals that a few things have changed. The ground floor level facings over the original brickwork came with the conversion, as did the loss of the ground floor level corner, and a couple of chimneys have been demolished, including the obvious one above the chimney breast with the terracotta date tablet, which was quite high. The whole block, including Image is earmarked for residential and commercial development as the Met Quarter, and as part of the plans the building was to be demolished. However in June 2007 Watford Borough Council for once sought to preserve what little remains of the town's historic buildings, and refused to uphold the demolition on the grounds that it would have a detrimental impact on the streetscape and on the character and appearance of the conservation area.