Islamic school, Lancaster (The Royal Albert aka Jamea Al Kauthar)

The Royal Albert building on Ashton Road, Lancaster. This impressive structure currently houses an Islamic girls' madressah and boarding school, Jamea Al Kauthar. The school caters for 440 girls who study:

"the traditional sciences concurrently with secondary and further education, offer[ing] the 'Tahfeez Ul Quraan' programme (committing the whole quran to memory) and a two year abridged version of the Islamic Teaching programme in the English medium."

I know little about the school beyond what can be found on their website, although it's a building I'd dearly like to visit. I'll contact them and ask for a tour at some point when school is out, perhaps during the summer.

The Queen is Dead: RIP Lancaster Odeon

In a previous post I snapped a shot of the old Regal Cinema (later the Odeon) lying derelict on the main thoroughfare around Lancaster city centre.

Her Majesty has gone completely now, just a crane left standing among a few remaining pieces of rubble. A big, gaping hole in the skyline, soon to be replaced by a block of luxury apartments - or so we've been told.

I managed to capture this last section of the old gal left standing on a dark January evening (24/01/10), the light thrown by my flash and accompanied by more spilling out from the Weatherspoons pub next door. Not sure whether the wreckers ran out of time at the end of the day or if they deliberately preserved this temporary monument. Either way, the Regal's last gasp was captured.