These photos are specially for Jim, who asked what the ancient farm illustrated in my last post looks like now that it’s a pub. I wanted to take some photos of the inside too, but the camera’s batteries died.
The first photo was taken from the same position as the old one: on the footbridge over the railway line. The second shows how the pub looks from the road that runs between it and the houses.
The swinging pub signs and crest show that Peacock Farm is a “tied” pub, supplied by Hall and Woodhouse, the Dorset brewers of Badger Ale. I ought to point out that that this new pub built from old components is no sentimental pastiche or travesty of the English Alehouse. It’s real. The waggon nonchalantly posed under the barn overhang is the genuine rotting article. Looking inside I saw that it had been botched up with various modern boards inside to stop it falling apart. But the use of such a piece of farm machinery to decorate an inn is a venerable tradition.
Actually I am working on a new post, but it is of such potential profundity that some light relief is needed. Working title: “the God-question”. May have to be in several instalments. Well, God and the drinking of ale go well together: that is certainly the principle of Olde England, though the Non-conformists (Wesley brothers & George Fox for example) quite rightly worried about drunkenness and its effect upon the poor.
a wayfarer’s notes 
Vincent, thanks for the pics, I especially love the sign, the figure sitting reclining, love that pose and idea..that is what I was doing in Dallas, making pic signs by hand for small businesses, not enough of that around here, too sterile and boring.
I would love to build a real English or European oldstyle cottage, roof, windows, all, right in the middle of some neighborhood here to show people what houses should look like, lol, but I would never be allowed the zoning permit, again, sterile and boring is the rule of the day, has something to do with high profit and low self esteem I think, maybe no history, just real short lives, sad really how one dimensional most of America is.
Alas, hope for change.
Thanks, I look forward to your coming works, thanks again Vincent, I took copies of the pics.
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Btw, you are using a digital camera aren't you Vincent?
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yes, digital camera. the rechargeable batteries last so long there is no point in carrying a spare set because they wouldn't be fully charged by the time I came to use them. But I wished I had taken more photos. I could have done a close-up of the rather fine picture of the boy reclining in a patch of hay from his labours. Van Gogh has done paintings on a similar theme. Hayden, the blogger of Lyric Flight, is very interested in building according to old-style principles – adobe and so forth, or cob in the English tradition, though I learned the word from her.
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Thanks Vincent, I hope to get one before too long, maybe within a year, the camera I mean. I used to have a dark room in this studio, 35mm, developed and printed up to large sizes black and white, plus did color slides, but that has gone the way of much of the past. I would tend to go crazy with a digital, lol, wouldn't do to have one right now!
I know about Haydens' idea, good ones and she has done her homework, I hope she goes thru with it whatever she decides on, there are many options. She tho will be more rural I think, most of these cities don't allow such things.
Hope your health is better, Vincent, take care of yourself.
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Vincent,
It is always so interesting to me to see the architecture around the world, and how like Jim says we get fit into our boxes much of the time here in the US, and it would be nice to have some more color and variety. There are pockets of here and there, but you have to go out of your way to find it.
I too look forward to the God works you are producing 🙂
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