Some will know it as a building with exceptionally rare and beautiful Turkish baths, more will know it as the place where a disgusting, vomiting Mr Creosote explodes after being offered “a wafer-thin mint… oh sir it’s only a tiny little thin one.”
The Porchester Centre in Bayswater, west London, was used by film-makers for the restaurant scene in Monty Python’s 1982 film The Meaning of Life.
On Friday it was highlighted by the heritage body Historic England as one of the more interesting and unusual buildings to get listed status or be upgraded in 2019.
It named 21 places including a 1960s kinetic water sculpture in Liverpool, a post-modern insurance company headquarters on the outskirts of Peterborough and two shipwrecks off the coast of north Norfolk.
Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, also pointed to a 19th-century nursemaids’ tunnel and an Elizabethan playhouse as being among the quirkier places to receive protection in 2019.
“By celebrating the extraordinary historic places which surround us, above and below ground, we hope to inspire in people a greater interest in our shared heritage, and a commitment to pass it on.”
The Porchester Centre has been upgraded from grade II to grade II* and is described as “an unusually elaborate civic building of the 1920s which survives with little alteration”.
The baths, still in use, are the highlight. “Since the original listing in 1994, understanding of the history of the Turkish bath in Britain has been greatly enhanced,” said Historic England.
“From over 500 Turkish baths which once existed in England, there are only five that are still in use today. Porchester Baths is considered to be the best example, in terms of the quality of the scheme and its extent of survival.”
The building’s opulent main hall was the place used for the Mr Creosote sketch, a slice of movie comedy that once seen cannot be unseen. Copious amounts of condensed minestrone soup were used for the vomit in the sketch, which nauseated even Quentin Tarantino.
More than 500 buildings were added to the National Heritage List in 2019. Other unusual listings include:
• The Piazza Fountain in Liverpool, known locally as the Bucket Fountain. It was made in the late 1960s by the fountain designer Richard Huws and is the only surviving example of his water sculptures. It now has grade II listed status.
• The Pearl Centre on a Peterborough business park, which became the headquarters of Pearl Assurance when it moved out of London in 1992. It has decorative elements that echo Moorish traditions and the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and a landscape that includes lakes and a wildflower meadow. Designed by Chapman Taylor Partners, it has been given grade II status.
• The Seagull, a paddle steamer, and The Xanthe, a steam-powered cargo ship, both 19th-century shipwrecks off Horsey Gap, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. They have become scheduled monuments.
• A big concrete arrow in north Devon, which was part of a practice bombing range at Putsborough Sands. Historic England said the remaining structures are “important as evocative reminders of the extensive preparations by British and American troops during the second world war”. It has been listed grade II.
• The Nursemaids’ tunnel in Regent’s Park, London, which is one of the earliest surviving pedestrian subways in London. It was built in 1821 because local residents considered the road too dangerous for prams. It gets grade II listing.
• The Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch, east London, is scheduled. It was built around 1577 and is the place where Romeo and Juliet was staged during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Substantial archaeological remains of the Curtain were discovered during excavations beginning in 2011, making it some of the earliest physical evidence for Elizabethan playhouses in London.
The list was welcomed by the heritage minister, Helen Whately. “England is home to many historic, iconic, and sometimes quirky sites,” she said. “Protecting our heritage is of huge importance so future generations can better understand all the things that have made this nation great.”
