I have joined these two houses together as both look the same & wanted to hurry up the house series a little!!
House number 8 on the left up to the middle chimney is the black sheep of the lane.
Always rented out by the owner we have had some rum tenants over the years to the despair of the neighbours. I think a few drugs & wife beating ...you get the drift & the police have been down on occasions. All OK now though as the daughter & partner are living there & all is quiet, we never see them but they keep the place tidy.
House number 9 on the right is occupied by Dorothy & her cat Peach..only recently moved in she is in her eightys but very spry & a sweetie.
I had to go in the garden opposite to take this photo as I couldn't get far enough back in the lane to get both in that's why you can see house number 4's washing line across the picture!
We have rain today so the sky is not this colour at the moment.
Three good things:
1. A lovely visit away overnight & meet up with friends.
2. Had a taste of things to come seeing all the hedges out in further south Cheshire...it looked grey & brown in Lancashire!
3. I have seen the exact colour of soft white I want on my bedroom walls & a soft matt paint to go with it.
My step father would have called this "terminally quaint" with the thatched roofs, the leaded windows, and the daffodils. I am trying to figure out what makes the pattern in the thatch near the roof ridge. We have had some rough tenants in our own house..I can sympathize!
@bpaquette Not too acquainted with thatch Barbara but the pattern on the top is an extra layer of thatch which is shaped ...extra cover on the ridge I presume in place of ridge tiles. If you look closely you can see a pheasant on the right hand edge.
@jgpittenger Well thought it was rather drawing it out doing two identical properties in two separate postings!! I am liking this series but it's not very challenging....two more to go!!! Thank for your comments too Jane.
Ooh well my friend Anne who loves in a gorgeous house in a lovely Leicestershire village with sympathise with 'rum tenants'. Her neighbour's rent out their house and the tenants had some very dodgy friends (drugs etc) who came round one night, fell out over a board game (!) and set fire to the garage - which then set fire to Anne's house!! Luckily her house is stone and slate and the back door is very old oak which took a lot of burning and the fire brigade managed to put the fire out before it got through the outer layers. Scary stuff though - they had to evacuate in the freezing weather. These thatched cottages are lovely though so I'm glad they have nice residents now.
@judithg well it sure adds a bit of excitement to our quiet roads....poor Anne, fire is something else!!!!! I think the worst was when Tui was bringing back dirty nappies & putting them on the lawn!!
You have joined these two houses so well - seamlessly! How did you do that? Photographically? Not of course by climbing up a ladder and sewing them together! I know they are high maintenance but so Englishy!
Oh these houses are so quaint and pretty, what a lovely lane you live in. Agree that those thatches are a nightmare to maintain though. 3 great good things too!
These two houses are just what I would expect when traveling down an English country lane. They are so quintessentially British. So glad for you that the riffraff neighbors in house #8 have moved on. You'd think that in a house so charming, life would be idyllic.
Yes, I've stayed in similar places and they often have stairways leading to the upstairs right off the main room, the equivilant of a unheatable hole in the ceiling. No wonder people had to huddle around the fireplace. Very unpractical for the winters. Plus, they are often dark in the inside as the windows are often tiny and let in sparse amounts of light. Still, having said all that, they do look look very picturesque and charming on the outside with the thatch and the beams.
