DERELICT SUNDAY

After watching our online service this morning, we went out for a drive looking for dereliction, as we often do on a Sunday.  Mr. HCB had decided we would make our way towards a lay-by he remembered from our outing in early March, where he knew there was a long stretch of derelict wall.

We stopped to eat our picnic in a little lay-by, which had lots of nettles, and on closer inspection, we saw more of the Peacock caterpillars we had seen a couple of weeks ago on our walk.  

We then carried on along the A4, which was known as the Great Western Road, and ran 127 miles from London to Avonmouth.  It is not used anywhere near as much as it used to be, because it is now paralleled by the M4 motorway.  Before the M4 was built, Mr. HCB used to drive along this road frequently when he visited friends who lived on the other side of London and remarked how much quieter it was nowadays.  I guess when people want to get quickly from A to B, they choose the motorway, but they miss so much!

We started off on our journey again, only for Mr. HCB to stop when he saw what he thought was derelict buildings at the side of the road.  We got out of the car to look and there were indeed lots of buildings in various states of disrepair, together with several pieces of farm equipment - but they can be blipped another time.

A little further and beside the road was a red-brick house called Harrow Farm situated near the Ramsbury/Chisbury crossroads.  I found out the following from British History Online:

“This property was built in about 1800 and the house, the outbuildings of which stood on the north side of the road in Froxfield parish, was open as the Harrow Inn in 1812.  By 1841 it had become a farmhouse and its outbuildings had been converted to farm buildings.  In 1998 the house remained the only part of Harrow Farm in Little Bedwyn parish.”

It is an area we will visit again, as there are more derelict buildings around, so watch this space!

The farm was definitely derelict, but interestingly, there was a Victorian Postbox in the front wall of the property, which had a sticker on it that said “Priority Postbox” and there was also an NHS sticker too, so it is obviously still in use.  Apparently, this was put in the wall of Harrow Farm in 1905.  Victorian boxes, all marked clearly with VR (Victoria Regina) are now Listed due to the efforts of the Pillar Box Society.  I wonder how many people have posted letters in this postbox over the years?

“I've always felt there is something sacred 
     in a piece of paper that travels the earth
          from hand to hand, 
               head to head, 
                    heart to heart.” 
Robert Michael Pyle : 
Sky Time in Gray's River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place