Trip to Hereford

I've been wanting to take pictures of the carvings on the front of Hereford Library for a long time, but it always slipped my mind while I was there until now. Here's a rather jolly crocodile near the front door. If the County Council have their way, of course, this will be the only library left in all of Herefordshire, and there will be no funding whatsoever for the museum part of it.



Here's the Old House in High Town, just behind the bull. It's a great place to visit, and it's in the middle of the town - so are they just going to lock the door and leave it when they stop the funding?
One of the other museums in the county has a regionally important costume collection, which people come to visit from abroad as well as the UK. There are also collections of local importance - finds from archaeological digs in the county have to be stored somewhere, and be available for study as well as display. Are these collections going to be dispersed? Nobody seems to know.
The new protest group trying to save the libraries and museums has calculated that, for every £1 spent on museums, they earn £4 - which is surely worth hanging on to and trying to improve. They've also calculated that the money set aside to pay the councillors' allowances would pay for the museum service for 18 months.

It's not only the libraries and museums, of course. Every single public toilet in Herefordshire will be closed - they've already closed quite a few in Hereford town centre.
As I walked round town, I noticed that Accessorize on High Town seems to be moving into the same shop as Monsoon, and half of Maylord Orchards has been boarded up while all the shops that were there are turned into a big new Wilkinsons.
I did get all the shopping I went for - and I treated myself to a graphic novel from Waterstones (a film noir style story called Blacksad), and a Fairport Convention CD from HMV after I'd done the serious business of getting new ink for my printer. I had a very nice pint of Wainwright bitter in Wetherspoons, too - and on the way to get the bus I noticed some hand carved bowls and spoons outside the little craft shop at the side of the bus station. I came away with a lovely dipper/cup made out of willow by a Romanian lady, which I can use for re-enacting.