This is why the Village's decision to demarcate the "historic" center of Bolingbrook seemed a little insignificant. Nonetheless, those in charge pushed forward, and now, driving around the southeastern part of town, the street signs are brown and there are signs letting people know they have entered "Historic Downtown" Bolingbrook, built in 1960.
No, you read that right. 1960. 52 years old. I have family members older than Bolingbrook, and I often wonder if I should petition the Village for a sign so that my Mom can be recognized as Historic Barb.
Let's compare this to, say, Shrewsbury, just over the border in England. Two friends of mine moved to Shrewsbury, shirking their Welsh ties for the comfort and ease of a more populated town, albeit an ancient town (I'm not sure how the British decide what gets to be a city and whats a town, but I was informed that Shrewsbury, despite it's size and history, is still called a town), settled around 800 AD.
Yes. That is correct: 800 AD. 1212 years old. Now THAT deserves a historical mention. Even before that, though, the Welsh and the English continually fought over the spot, which suggests that people have lived nearby for several years - maybe even decades or centuries - before it was officially settled as a town.
The UK is filled with stuff like this: castles dotting the landscape, houses built before America was settled, towns that have stood for centuries. Or in the case of Shrewsbury, dozens of centuries. This is not something that Americans can fully comprehend: there has been a Shrewsbury for over a thousand years. Although the name has changed (Wikipedia, which we should all believe unquestionably, suggests it was originally called Scrobbesburh), there has been a settlement in or near where contemporary Shrewsbury stands now.
This is evident in the local architecture. There is, as with most good border towns, the remains of a castle used to keep the Welsh out of England, and to export their wool around Europe using the River Severn as a trade route. The castle has been meticulously maintained, which is not always the case with castle ruins (see Aberystwyth), and even the updates and repairs keep with the general look of the castle. One of the towers, Laura's Tower, still stands, and from the walls surrounding it, it becomes clear why Shrewsbury was such a hotly contested strip of land. The countryside spreads out wide in all directions, and a watchful eye could see for miles down the river.
But castles are easy. London has had it's city center rebuilt, destroyed and paved over every couple centuries. Few of the original buildings which stood on the banks of the Thames from the Roman era still survive today, not to mention later buildings. The Tower of London, built by the invading Normans in or around 1066, still stands, but the walls surrounding what is known as The City is practically gone entirely (it is rumored that one pub in The City has used part of the original Roman wall as it's interior walls, but I haven't seen it). This is partially because the Saxon tribes ransacked the remains of the original Roman settlement too scared to put the buildings to any good use, and partially because of the wars and struggles that have taken place in London (not the least of which was the Blitz in World War II in which the Nazi army bombed several places in London, Coventry and Liverpool to rubble). For whatever reason, though, the really early history of London only remains in myth and story (or, as in the case of the Globe Theatre, replication).
Shrewsbury has not had as chaotic a history, despite being an often contested town. Most of the conflicts occurred before the destructive force of gunpowder and rocketry, so many of the medieval structures still survive. This is especially true of the Tudor style homes, popular in the late 1480s through the early 1600s. Any street in the center of Shrewsbury is dotted by several houses with the black beams and the white plaster. These buildings were built long before lacquering and precision tools were used to build houses, and thus have settled in quite skewed positions. Often, cross beams were visibly warped or bowed which made the houses look like they were falling in on themselves, or in some nervous cases, into the street.
Standing beside these houses were the red brick buildings popular during the Industrial Revolution (approximately 1750-1850). With the increase in manufacturing technology came the rise in brick production. A good chunk of Shrewsbury, including the house in which my friend Stephanie lives, is from around this time. Red-brick terraced houses seemed to dominate the landscape, particularly away from the city center. There was, of course, several Georgian and Victorian buildings, but these young buildings were as noticeable as the miles of terraced red-brick houses.
What was particularly nice about Shrewsbury, and what really gave the city it's historic feel, was how the red-brick and tudor style houses ran through even the new architecture. Standing atop the wall and looking out over all of residential Shrewsbury, the older houses seamlessly blended into newer residential areas with red bricks and faux timbers on the facades of most of the houses.
That is not to say that modernity doesn't rear it's sometimes ugly head. Across the Market Square from the original town hall and several Tudor houses sits an office block that is straight from the 1970s. Though much more appealing, the very modern Severn Theatre sits across the river from several mixed late Tudor shops. For the most part, though, the modern buildings add a nice contrast, or stays well-hidden.
Interestingly, though, Shrewsbury is a town of about 96,000 people. As I said earlier, Bolingbrook is a town of 73,000. Bolingbrook, in it's 52 meager years of existence, has grown by about a thousand people a year in order to reach that number, while the much older Shrewsbury has had to add about 75 people a year over the course of it's history to reach their current approximate population. That is a significant different in population change, and someone who was better with stats might be able to come up with astounding percentages that neatly represents this massive difference. Probably an impressive number like 8000% difference or some other mathematical impossibility that is paradoxically true in this situation. Either way, that difference is interesting, probably with implications for the way that Britain grows and America grows (and even further and deeper implications about how this growth is representative of a specific mindset that is ingrained in the culture of both said countries).
Instead of all of that neat cultural analysis, I want to talk about faking history for a moment.
It's certainly true that I am a little suspicious of Bolingbrook's supposed "Historic District". I feel that the use of historic in that sense pales in comparison to evident history or Europe and Asia (even Africa and the native tribes of North America, though most tribal nations tend not to leave awesome building laying around) and is thus inauthentic. But this in-authenticity at least comes from an earnest place. Bolingbrook didn't try to find some tenuous connection to an earlier settlement to make it seem like the suburb predated Columbus.
This is not true of the Gregynog building just outside Newtown. This massive Tudor-like building sits in the middle of an AMAZING sprawl of fields and hills populated almost exclusively by farm animals. The building itself is owned by the University of Wales (which doesn't exist any longer), and is used as a conference hall and hotel of sorts. There are lots of paths through sheep and horse fields, through forests, and through some meticulously manicured gardens and lawns. The drive up the winding long path gives a breathtaking view of this massive Tudor-style house sitting among some topiary bushes, across a stone bridge which crosses a ravine that cuts between the house and the near-by forest.
But it's all a fake. Built in the late 19th century, the building is almost entirely clad in concrete (interestingly, one of the first concrete-clad buildings of the time). There are no timbers or plaster fillings. The bricks are not structural, but decorative. The building is made to look old, but it is not as old as it looks. And thus is a lie.
Now, earlier I praised Shrewsbury for continuing the Tudor and red-brick architectural styles throughout the more modern residential areas, so this above sentiment would seem contradictory. The difference here, and it's a key difference, is that the facade of these Shrewsbury homes is made to resemble older styles, not replicate the style whole-hog. That is, there is no denying that the houses in Shrewsbury are new houses, but they borrow for earlier veneer styles. The Gregynog house tries to pass itself off as a Tudor house, when in fact it is nothing of the sort. There is nothing on the exterior that suggests or even resembles concrete. The very same material responsible for the crushingly depressing Cold War architecture of former Soviet countries.
Here, Gregynog does something upon which Bolingbrook can look down: denies it's heritage in favor of fake austerity stolen from previous styles. It's a fine line to walk, but it's one that separates authentic history (Shrewsbury and Bolingbrook, lame as it is) and inauthentic history (Gregynog). Bolingbrook's history might not be older than the most recent renovation to Stephanie's house in Shrewsbury, but at least it's an honest history.
