Landmark

The ironstone from which most of the old houses in our village are built is one of the things I find joyful about living here. The soft warm colour - like wheat straw; the variation from stone to stone in a single wall, and the way they play off one another; the changes with the light or rain. This simple gable wall is as good an example as any: unpretentious, undecorated, doing the job it was designed for, but as subtly coloured in today's heavy cloud and dim light as it will be in mid-summer sunshine

This is the smaller of our two pubs; in effect, the brewery tap. It was built in the 18th century, when there was a fashion, for those who could afford it, for expensive red bricks - something that would make a property distinctive in a place where almost every other building was local stone. All well and good for the frontage, but no reason to go to that expense for the other three walls, so the end product is this rather startling mixture of materials. I rather like it - in fact we used to own a house with a similar design - I think my beloved stone is adaptable enough to embrace and frame the red facade to the advantage of both

The pub is marked on the Ordnance Survey map - with a traditional discreet 'PH' on the 1:50000 series and a garish middle-class beer glass on the 1:25000 series. The Ordnance Survey (founded for military purposes after the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, when English generals realised they were at a serious disadvantage through not knowing the lie of the land they were fighting on) are proposing to add new symbols to their maps, including "points of safe river access for water sports". As an occasional paddler, I wonder if the OS understand the snake-pit of vituperative abuse from the English establishment they are walking into with that suggestion. Their military connections could come in handy