Local Photographs

Mike was so delighted when , the day before yesterday, something that he had done actually got onto my journal!!  He was so pleased that people liked the photographs.  So I have decided to make his day again today and add some more.

This is our Parish Church.  Actually we fall between two Parishes so we can use either church.  This building dates from around 1300.  It is very unusual in that it has a wooden steeple.  The porch was rebuilt in 1884.  At the eastern end of the churchyard is the final resting place of one William Burton. Burton murdered his wife, a washer woman, in a drunken rage and hid the body.  He might have escaped detection had not a small boy called out to him that his wife's body had been found.  He completely lost his nerve and hung himself in a nearby granary.  Although, of course, he was never tried and therefore the case was not proved, as a likely murderer and  a definite suicide, the Minister could not allow him to be buried in consecrated ground.  He was therefore interred just outside the Churchyard - in the hedge!

By the west door there is an area that has never been used for burials and has no memorial stones.  Tradition says that this is the site of a mass burial for the victims of the Great Plague of 1665.  Unfortunately, Mike could not photograph any of the interior.  Sadly, many churches in this area are now kept locked apart from when services are held, due to vandalism and theft.

This is our local pub, just up the road from us. The pub faces the village green.  We are lucky in that this is one of the few places in this locality that still has a village green.  A fair is held there every year.   The date of the pub is actually not known for sure but there has undoubtedly been an inn on this site for centuries.  This was an agricultural community (still many farms around here).  Hours were very long, the work back-breaking and the men took their ease and leisure in the local inn.  Alcohol was cheap and was considered the "scourge" of farming labourers.  Communal cooking was done in a vast iron boiler at the inn.  A bullock or sheep's head could be purchased at very little cost and thrown into the pot along with vegetables to simmer all day.  Financial transactions were carried out here and the wages paid out to the local workers.

Our village green. It is bigger than it looks.  It is sad that we have lost so much of our countryside now to development as we are on the main commuter line to London.  However, we do treasure what we have left.

This cottage is just yards away from us and one of the oldest properties left in the area, dating from the 1500's. You probably cannot get a true idea of just how small it is.  It is dwarfed by the buildings around it.  Originally probably set in deep countryside it now fronts the main road and has traffic thundering past all day and all night but there has never been a time when it has not been occupied.

This cottage was probably originally a farm house. Date unknown but undoubtedly many centuries old.  Mike could not get what he wanted to show, that the whole property is on a tilt but if you look at the bulge in the roof and the windows that are out of line, you can see that the property has "twisted".  In the upstairs rooms the owners will have to walk uphill and downhill!

Our local woods.  Comprised of many individual little woods that once had differing names but now all brought together under one and called Bull Woods.  It is a place of beauty and tranquility.  However, at weekends it is full of people and their dogs, horse-riders and ramblers. Many different varieties of birds are found here and squirrels abound.  The only little problem is that  the summer brings out the ants - large red ants which were imported from Spain many years ago to keep the black ant population under control.  These red ants bite!!!! Quite painful, so it is advisable not to site on the ground.

I hope you enjoy these pictures. Mike enjoyed taking them for you.  I shall be showing more of our local area another time.