There are places that, once you've stepped inside, start 'speaking'. This is not one of them. Strawberry Hall - a somewhat preposterous name for a two-up two-down gamekeeper's cottage with a kitchen extension - is located on the edge of a woodland and adjoined by fields on the other side. The forest track leading past here is a public bridleway, and when I walked along this path several years ago, the rafters on the extension were still in place.
The interior has long since been stripped bare and no longer contains any traces of the people who once lived here. The rooms are empty and the floors are covered with rubble and rubbish, littering what appears to be an old carpet that was left behind. The fire surrounds have been removed and no glass remains in the windows. Water has trickled through gaps in the roof and the wooden floors below have started to rot. Remains of another old carpet of unidentifyable colour and pattern cover the steep narrow steps leading upstairs, they are still sound and safe, for the time being.
The roof on the extension has now collapsed. Sadly, Strawberry Hall is nothing more than a dead and empty shell.
Speaking of shells... I was just about to leave when I noticed a small rectangular patch of white, contrasting with the red brick of the exterior wall, just below what once would have been the kitchen window.
White sea shells, arranged so that they form a rectangle, have been affixed to the wall here. Perhaps this was done by a child who grew up in the cottage in order to commemorate a trip to the beach, or a sea-side holiday. The people who have lived here did leave something behind after all, and it is this little shell patch on the south wall that they will be remembered by - at least for as long as that wall remains standing.
The interior has long since been stripped bare and no longer contains any traces of the people who once lived here. The rooms are empty and the floors are covered with rubble and rubbish, littering what appears to be an old carpet that was left behind. The fire surrounds have been removed and no glass remains in the windows. Water has trickled through gaps in the roof and the wooden floors below have started to rot. Remains of another old carpet of unidentifyable colour and pattern cover the steep narrow steps leading upstairs, they are still sound and safe, for the time being.
The roof on the extension has now collapsed. Sadly, Strawberry Hall is nothing more than a dead and empty shell.
Speaking of shells... I was just about to leave when I noticed a small rectangular patch of white, contrasting with the red brick of the exterior wall, just below what once would have been the kitchen window.
White sea shells, arranged so that they form a rectangle, have been affixed to the wall here. Perhaps this was done by a child who grew up in the cottage in order to commemorate a trip to the beach, or a sea-side holiday. The people who have lived here did leave something behind after all, and it is this little shell patch on the south wall that they will be remembered by - at least for as long as that wall remains standing.
