Memory Lane

Busy day. Haircut, head massage and lunch in West Sussex, acupuncture in Berkshire, shopping in Surrey and dinner on the way home in Hampshire. Living close to where three counties meet - Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire - makes it not such a trek as it sounds. Berkshire is a bit of a stretch, I admit, but my acupuncturist, who I've known for 30 years, is outstanding and well worth making an effort to get treatment.

On the way to see him, we stopped by the cottage we renovated from 1981 onwards. We did some serious nesting here. It is a timber framed hall house, this one having 3 bays, or divisions in the building process. Two of the bays made the hall or space for living, with a central hearth open to the rafters. At one side there was a platform for sleeping, in some parts of the country called a solar, with the animals underneath at night.

The walls are made of wattle and daub - straw, horse hair, mud and laths between wooden frames. The roof was straw thatched, a couple of feet thick, wonderfully warm in winter and cool in summer. The whole thing sat on an oak base plate, directly on the earth. This part of the building, from the door and to the left, dates back to 1620 - to put it into context that was the year the Mayflower sailed to America carrying the Pilgrims to their new life. The cottage has been standing on this spot for the whole of American 'modern' history. The main oak beams were already second hand in 1620, evidenced by the notches cut to take other timbers, and most likely came from ships. Its heart wood is incredibly hard, we could never drive a nail into it and drill bits just broke in the attempt.

Second phase was a Victorian extension to make a home for two families, farm workers, each family having one room downstairs, one up. These are the two windows to the right of the door, which eventually became our dining room.

When we bought it, the floor was brick over earth, with ferns growing through the cracks. It's a listed building so any alterations had to be approved by Listed Buildings as well as the local Council, and I seem to recall there were Conservation bodies involved too. Tricky to get everyone in agreement. We finally got permission to put in footings and a damp proof course, and to extend the '2 up, 2 down' cottage, providing we made a break in the shape to distinguish the old and new. Bizarrely we had to fight for thatch, the planners wanted a flat roof. How aesthetic would that have been! The extension housed a second staircase, bedroom and shower above a kitchen/breakfast room. So although it looks quite a big house from this angle, it is only one room wide with 3 bedrooms. We spent a memorable and snowy winter in a 3 berth touring caravan in the garden, two adults, a growing boy and dog, constantly begging baths from friends.

We moved on in 1988. It was a bit sad today to see it looking shabby, the thatch needs replacing [every 25 years for straw so well past its sell-by date from our efforts]. Once moss starts growing on it, its days are numbered as damp is held in and rots the straw. But it houses a family and a lovely ginger moggy, and I'm pleased to see its life goes on, almost 400 years since it was built.