Poundbury...

On a breezy, overcast day I’m exploring Poundbury, the suburb of Dorchester in Dorset, built on the architectural principles of Prince Charles. It’s a strange place, taking its design inspirations from a variety of sources, it seems: collonades from the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico, balconies from New Orleans, the layout from the American ‘model town’ of Seaside, which was used as a film set for the film, The Truman Show, and the general ambience from our future king’s puffed-up self-regard.

Cottages sit side-by-side with smart town houses, their blocked-up windows recalling - for no good reason - the way people blocked up windows in the 18th century to avoid paying ‘window tax’. Strathmore House, a development of luxury apartments in Palladian style, recalls a pared-down Buckingham Palace. The building’s neo-classical flourishes - pillars, columns, archways, etc - are repeated around Poundbury.  I’m having a cup of tea in the pub, the Duchess of Cornwall. It’s hardly a pub at all, being modelled on the Ritz Hotel, a favourite haunt of the Queen Mother (whose statue overlooks the building). Another block of twenty exclusive flats - and a spa - is being built on the other side of the square; it will be called the Royal Pavilion, apparently, named after one of the Queen Mother's racehorses. 

Poundbury might as well be called Poundland. It’s fake, bogus, ersatz, counterfeit, a vanity project, a mere pastiche of town planning. It exhibits a sublime irrelevance… a bit like Prince Charles himself…

Not the Duchess of Cornwall pub in Poundbury, but the bar of the Seymour Arms in Witham Friary...