Tudor House, Bromsgrove

We paid a rare visit to Bromsgrove town centre today, for a rather fine shop called Artyfacts. We always go there when we need a picture framing. We took along a very large print of one of my photos, which we will hang in our spare bedroom.

The rest of Bromsgrove town centre is rubbish, I'm afraid. It's suffering the same fate as so many small town centres, with retail dominated by internet and edge-of-town stores, leaving little more than charity shops on the high street.

There are still a few attractive old buildings, the Tudor House being one of the finest. Built in 1572, it used to be a coaching inn called the Hop Pole. It was demolished in 1840, but all of the components were preserved and it was rebuilt and given its present name in 1867.