NOT QUITE DERELICT - SUNDAY!

A good service at church this morning with rather a small congregation, as several people were away and some were not well – so we weren’t quite so late leaving afterwards.
 
Mr. HCB had decided that in our search for dereliction we would go westwards out of the town.  We passed through  Brinkworth, the longest village in England, being 6 miles long and equidistant between the towns of Malmesbury and Royal Wootton Bassett.
 
Turning off, we found ourselves on the road to Grittenham, a rural community to the south of Brinkworth.  We stopped to look at an old farmhouse named Goddards Farm and as I walked over with my camera, a lady came out and asked me what I was doing.  I explained that we had been intrigued by the farmhouse and I wondered if I could take a photograph – she readily agreed, but said that they had had a lot of trouble just recently, and therefore was rather suspicious of people coming near and especially if they were taking photographs!  I told her I quite understood, but we were honest and upright people and if she wasn’t happy then we would just go.  She obviously believed me because when we asked about the history of the farmhouse, she was happy to give us information.
 
She said she ran the farm with her brother and they were presently renovating the wattle and daub on the sides, but it was taking rather a long time as they had to take every brick out, lay it down, deal with what was underneath and then put it back in exactly the same place, as the building was a Grade II Listed farmhosue.  It was difficult work she said and they could only do it with a teleporter because of the height and complexity.
 
From information on the internet, it appears that the building dates from the early 17th century and was altered and added to in the 19th century.  It has a timber box-frame construction with lime-washed brick nogging on the north and west side and weatherboarding to the south. It also has a Roman tile roof, and apparently, all these features are highly unusual in this area.  There is even a very old milk churn stand at the farm gate.
 
Wattle and daub is a composite building material used for making walls, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw and nogging is when bricks are used to fill the vacancies in a wooden frame.
 
I also found out that Jacob Nichols (1803 - 1867), who ran Goddard's Farm almost 150 years ago was described at his burial as having been 'for 40 years the rector's church beadle' - most probably with the responsibility of organising and running the parish meetings so obviously a busy man in the church as well as being a farmer.
 
Although this is my Blip for the Derelict Sunday challenge, the building is not actually derelict but is a “work in progress” and very interesting too. 
 
Having had our picnic, we meandered home through the country lanes in the glorious sunshine – what a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. 
 
“Architecture is the very mirror of life.
You only have to cast your eyes on buildings
to feel the presence of the past,
the spirit of a place;
they are the reflection of society.”    
I.M. Pei


Nothing pink today, but please click on this link to enable someone to have a free mammogram.  Thank you.