Six English Towns - Richmond
Hometowns
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29m
Richmond, North Yorkshire. 'Shoes with heavy soles are what you'll need for seeing Richmond,' says Alec Clifton-Taylor, for the streets are like rocks, all of local cobbles freely gathered from the bed of the River Swale. Richmond was founded by the Normans 400 years before there was a Richmond in Surrey, and their castle still dominates the town's clustered hillside homes. The town also has a delightful Georgian theatre,' not perhaps the most comfortable in the country, but certainly the most authentic'. In a neighbouring park there is the unusual and rarely seen Culloden Tower built in 1747 in the Gothick style. Also in the Gothick style, but 100 years later, is Richmond's railway station, closed in 1963, but now a thriving Garden Centre - 'A shining example of what enterprise and imagination can do to save an excellent building no longer required for its original purpose'. From BBC Archives.