George Skipper

This morning I went on a very interesting walking tour in Cromer to look at the architecture of George Skipper. He started as a painter, then he trained as an architect. He's best known for the Royal Arcade in Norwich, plus the Jarrolds building in Norwich, but he also designed or remodelled seven major hotels in Cromer around the same time, plus designed the town hall and several houses, mainly in the 1890s. This was when Cromer was booming and people arrived by train. Some of the hotels have since been demolished, one was used by troops in WWII and badly damaged, and generally tourism demand fell. Two of his buildings are undergoing major renovation at the moment and couldn't really be seen as they are covered with scaffolding, but it's a good sign that they're being done up. After a very quick lunch I was back out for our U3A meeting where GracieG's husband M gave us a very interesting presentation on photography in relation to Langham's Dome, which was very well received.