Then I remembered that around the time we created the Time Capsule, the Engineer had gone hunting about in the massive box of old slides that grandma had left for us to 'caretake' (along with a great deal of other similarly old but much less useful things...), and had found several lovely old shots of the house from back in the 1970's. So I had wandered out to photograph those same angles to put them side by side. I had posted this on my personal facebook page for friends and family, but never got around to putting it on here. Time to rectify that, I think!
Above, this must be sometime in the early 1970s, the kitchen (single storey extension) still looks pretty fresh and new! But the surprise here is the flowerbed in the foreground - absolutely no sign of this at all now, just lawn here where the tennis games and cricket is played in the good weather. Not fantastic lawn here either - dries out the fastest and goes brown very quickly in extended dry spells. Oh the joys of the island bed! All that edging to be done...urgghhh.
Apologies for my brother-in-law enjoying his paddling pool! That dates this photo to 1971 probably as he looks about 18mths-2years. Again, yet more flowerbed extending out where there is nothing but lawn now, straddling the little slope. The interesting thing I find in this shot is you can see that grandma and grandpa are obviously in the throes of removing the old pigsty building which used to stand where the little square patio in the circle bed now sits - you can see the wheelbarrow abandoned mid shot and the half de-constructed old stone walls. Could that be our magnolia already in place and full grown immediately behind the stone walls? In which case it is of a venerable age now.
It also looks like a little vegetable patch or cutting garden perhaps used to extend between the old pigsty and the amazingly glorious looking greenhouse! What I would give now for a fab greenhouse like that - it would cost a fortune. And how illustrative of the ever changing fashions in gardens - here they are labouring away to remove what they saw then as an 'eyesore' of a decrepit old bit of agricultural building...now I would love to have that old collapsing romantic utilitarian ruin, around which you could create a gorgeous naturalistic planting with the stone walls as backdrop...Oh well.
 |
| Looking up the driveway in 1976 - the boys and a friend from round the corner. Note the newly planted wee trees and hardly any conifers! The one visible in the middle right of the shot is now the same height as the chimney... Old porch and the original boiler house visible behind. |
 |
| Same view Sept 2014 - garage extended and no longer half made of timber, new porch, no more boiler house, and a generally profusion of conifers over 20 feet tall |
 |
| This is one of the oldest photos of the cottage that we have - apparently grandma and grandpa took it on the day they bought it at the auction, in December 1968. You can see both tie bars here (the right hand one is now hidden inside the roof structure of the porch). Look at those Crittal windows! The boiler house is there, half hidden by the shrub in the foreground, and there appears to be a patch of lawn in the middle of the drive. |
 |
| Here's grandma with my brother in law as a toddler - the corner pillar and old open apple store have been filled in, so this must be shortly after summer 1969, though the pigsty (which we saw being dismantled in the photo above) is still standing here, just visible in the shadows mid left of the photo. Dew on the grass and young leaves on the trees - could be late spring/early summer 1970? That would make Simon about 10-11 months old. Taken from underneath the horse chestnut trees in the South west corner of the garden - you can see the leaves just overhanging the corner. |
 |
| This looks like the closest I could get to the same angle - the massive pyracantha growing up the south wall is hiding the window visible in the earlier photo, but there is the well still, but the pigsty, shrubs and young trees that had obscured the view of the west side of the house have all gone. |
It's so strange, but also nice, to have the luxury of being able to place these old shots alongside the new - and see how much has changed but also how much is still the same.
We have a painting hanging in the upstairs hallway, which someone made of the front facade looking from the driveway dated 1950 - 20 years earlier again even before our earliest photo in 1968. Tomorrow I will try to photograph it and perhaps add it on to the end of the post here. I like it - it is by no means amazing artwork but truthful and simple - perhaps painted by the house's occupant at the time? I must ask grandma where she got it. It shows the walls the yellowy ochre limewash colour that I found on the walls when I was repainting the south wall in September, and had so desperately tried (and failed!) to find a match for. It is a naive simple rendering but so full of the feel of the cottage, even though much had changed even by then. It looks welcoming and homey. It is the picture I look at when I am reminding myself of what we are trying to do - to return the place to being simple, welcoming, and homely. Sadly the 1970s and 80s do have a lot to answer for in that the fashions and 'new technology' did a lot to somehow spoil the old rustic simplicity of this type of buildings. I'm not blaming anyone - they were doing what was thought to be the right thing at the time - and doubtless in 50 years time others will say the same thing about what we are doing! Plus ca change...
Here's the painting - I photographed it this morning, the light is terrible as it's pouring with rain, but it hasn't come out too bad:
 |
| Our painting of the cottage here at Windy Acre in 1950, artist unknown |
No comments:
Post a Comment