Tuesday 7 September 2010

Please Adjust Your Vertical Hold...

I seem incapable of taking a photo in which verticals are vertical! But I thought I'd let you all see this delightful pub anyway. 'The Old House At Home' has the date 1339 inscribed deep in its outside wall, and centuries of memories enfolded in its heart, no doubt.


I first visited it in my student days, before it had been 'modernised' (dreadful word), There was a huge open hearth in the main bar, a stone floor, a slate shove-h'appeny board and a wooden, table-top skittles game with which local yokels could while away the evening as they quaffed their beer. The bar room was tiny, and it didn't take many bodies to make it feel like a rugby scrum. Modernisation saw internal walls removed between it and the next cottage to the left, and now there's enough space for groups of small tables where good, plain but tasty pub food is served.

You can see the top of St Faith's Church clock tower nestled among the trees round the graveyard whose ancient graves are at shoulder height - level with the top of the encircling brick wall that leads your eye into the picture.

Between the pub and the church, a short fight of stone steps lead up to a narrow, dirt pathway  (dividing line between God and Man ?) which has now had flagstones laid along its length, and thereby lost some of its magical appeal. Wrought iron railings of the church boundary were overshadowed by graceful old trees - beech or sycamore- and there was a certain spot roughly half way along this path, where I always had to pause and savour the 'time out of time' awareness that it held.

The first occasion that my brother visited me, after emigrating to New Zealand, I led him along this pathway, but made no mention of  'the spot'. I walked slowly ahead, but suddenly he called me back. 'Stop! Pen, wait!' and I looked round at him and smiled. He grinned back at me, and said 'You know, don't you?' and I nodded. There was no need for words...

20 comments:

  1. This isn't exactly the same, but driving here in north Georgia I have come upon places where I am suddenly aware of the Cherokee Indians whose civilization preceded ours.

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  2. Looks like a great place to explore--thanks for sharing. I would have missed the clock tower if you did mention it.

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  3. Looks a alovely place Jinksy - and it obviously holds lots of happy memories for you too.

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  4. Quintessentially English, a delightful building. I don't often hear of churches called St Faith's - what a very appropriate name. Thank you for the tour round this pretty corner of England :-)

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  5. A good pub is always a treasure !
    And some places seem to "vibrate". I don't believe in reincarnation and am quite sure I wasn't Cleopatra or Joan Of Arc in a former life . But perhaps certain spots meant something to an ancestor and there is such a thing as family memory , a bit like folk memory ? Who knows .

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  6. This is what I love so much about England, Scotland and Ireland.....everywhere I looked I saw history.....I love your country.....:-)Hugs

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  7. Getting the lines right is pretty hard. I often have to correct the perspective in post-processing.

    What history. I'd love to visit your pub.

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  8. So... either you've been visiting the pub before taking the picture or the pub is leaning due to old age. I'm going for the last option. (I never get my verticals nor my horizontals right, but know how to adjust them in Picasa.)

    What a magical connection you have with your brother. Nice :-)

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  9. this sounds like a wonderfully fascinating place...love the look and your description...nice.

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  10. Sometimes I miss the sense of ancient history that can happen in the rest of the world. While there have been people in my part of the world for some time, for most of it most places there has been a timelessness rather than a history. And on top of that, the overlay of European civilization wiped out the legacy of the First Nations so that much has been lost. It is only in New England that I found a sense of the legacy among the graves of our Revolutionary War period. Still that did not compare to climbing the hillside at Delphi toward the site of the oracle. I wonder who I might have been had I been born to a culture with a heritage of thousands of years rather than hundreds.

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  11. There are so many of those Time out of Time place in your country. What a beautiful pub!

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  12. A picture postcard spot for sure, Jinksy, and if there's also an other worldliness about it, so much the better.

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  13. So, when are we going there?

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  14. Dear pen,
    I (otherwise almost slightly tanaphobic :) LOVE your English graveyards! They are somehow more "natural" and so much more peaceful than ours. They show beautiful irregularity, imperfection, and are forgiving the strive after perfection - and thus show the power of Time.

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  15. Gorgeous, Pen!!! Makes me want to paint!!! And love the story...seems like you and your brother are very close!! Love it!! Love, Janine XO

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  16. I like that it is not vertical or horizontal. Adds depth and perspective.

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  17. Edward Hopper would have loved your composition, the way the street forms a diagonal line add drama to an otherwise quaint scene.

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  18. Merisi- now I have to go and Google Edward Hopper!

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