Sunday Pic spam. I bring you... daffodils and decay...!

[curiouswombat]

This week I took some pictures of a few places that I pass regularly when I take Mum's wee dog for a walk.

When I was a child I used to love some of the cottages at Cranstal, an area between Bride village and the Point of Ayre - they were what my cousin called 'houses with hair nets on' - and I finally took pictures of a couple of them to share. Also there is one taken in the church garden this morning with flowers!

This picture set also contains another 'interesting gateway' - which brought just_ann_now to mind!

Also some variants on natural roofing...

The 'houses with hairnets' were those thatched in the local style - with straw or bent-grass from the shore, laid thickly, and then covered with a network of suggane rope (rope made from twisted straw or similar) to help hold it down - the 'hair-nets'. here is a picture of a cottage thatched similarly in the south of the island.

Now there are only two of the Cranstal thatched cottaged left that have not had their roofs replaced with slate. Thatch is pretty, but needs to be replaced regularly - so is not cheap in the long term!

You get some idea of why you need to replace the thatch regularly when you look at these pictures of Cranstal Cottage -



As you can see there is grass growing in the thatch - not a good sign...

You can also see that attempts have been made to 'extend' a little - the concrete building with the modern window, between the original house and the original outhouse, seems to have slipped under the planners radar at some time...

This is Cranstal Cottage seen from the front -



It doesn't take lying empty long to get to that state - this picture was taken when it went onto the market a couple of summers ago. And why is it still on the market? Well would you pay over £200,000 for it? Even when the estate agents picture was taken it was pretty obvious that it would need re-thatching!

It does have a nice shiny name-plate though -



I think that's my favourite picture of the set! I must do a post of just gates - a Gate Post - sometime!

Only about 50 yards away is another of the thatched cottages - this one has been re-thatched in the past ten years or so - and had work done on the stone walls that it is built from, as well. But whether they couldn't find anyone local to re-thatch for them, or whether they thought to go for something more durable, this one is actually thatched in an English style that uses, I think, reeds.



It has a new garage/outbuilding too - which has an even more eco-friendly roof - this one is meant to have the grass growing on it!



I think I rather like turf roofing.

Whilst I was down Cranstal I also took a few pictures of an abandoned farm - Kerroodhoo. Perhaps I should post them on rural_ruin...







A rather out-of-place small craft -



Although I suppose the sea is only about 1/4 mile away.

And finally the dub (farm pond) -



Abandoned farms are sad - but strangely haunting.

Finally - I took this picture in the garden at church this morning -



At last - proper clumps of daffodils!



There isn't much else going on in life at the minute; work is reasonably busy and my manager, after a year off through ill-health, has been back for a week of half-days and realised that she cannot cope, so she is off ill again and has applied to take early retirement on health grounds. So soon there will be changes.

D-d comes home for two weeks next Saturday, which will be lovely.

And, with any luck, I might finish The Winter Tale before midsummer even if I haven't got it finished for the beginning of spring!

Comments

[jerusha]

Really cool pictures. Thatch is very rustic looking, and lends a nice aesthetic, but I could see how it could get very expensive over time!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Thatch was warm and cheap - when the people who lived in the cottages all knew how to re-thatch for themselves - but not so much now. Although I would guess it must have been something of a fire hazard.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Thatch and daffodils - very spiffy.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Some time I must take some pictures down at Cregneish, where the thatched cottages are preserved as a heritage thing.

[gillo]

Lovely pictures. The abandoned farmhouse is particularly sad. Is the farm no longer worked?

We finally have daffs out here, but only the tiny, early ones so far.

Most English thatching is done with reeds, I believe, but in some parts of the country they use straw. Our local thatchers put peacocks on the roof of every house they finish!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Ballacallow run sheep on the land of the Kerroodhoo but it isn't terribly good land - it's just about good enough for sheep and turnips.

For a while there were plans to take some of the land for land-fill but the village has had the all-island land-fill site on its doorstep for the past thirty years or so and finally won this one at planning.

I'm not sure why the owner doesn't sell the house for redevelopment - although perhaps he is just waiting for a very good offer.

My tiny daffs are opening by the day -but it is so nice to see the big ones finally out.

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

Wonderful pics, as always. Educational and pretty all at the same time. That abandoned farm could be a show place for someone with enough money to fix it up, and the cottages are just lovely.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The owner also owns the next farm over, and runs sheep on the Kerroodhoo land - I really don't know why he hasn't sold the house, and possibly the barns too, for redevelopment. The place was blighted for a while by plans to put a land-fill site in the fields at the back, perhaps the owner still holds out hopes for that, as the land would then be worth a lot, and he would also get compensation for the house then being unsaleable...

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

*nods* Ah, well that explains it then. And the house would be hard to sell if the prospect of a landfill nearby is still out there.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

What wonderful pictures. Even though the financial aspect of the deal would make no sense, I long to buy that cottage and live in solitary rural splendor. *sigh*

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It is not a terribly practical place to live - 2 buses a day in either direction to get into town if you don't have a car, and you'd have to park out on the road about 20 or 30 yards away if you did have a car as there is nowhere to park on the site and no garage...

But, of course, you could buy the farm house in the other pics and set up a whole animal sanctuary in the outhouses...!

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

I can singlehandedly populate the island with sugar gliders!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Just think how many you could have gliding around in that big cow-house.

[evilawyer.livejournal.com]

Very pretty, but no, grass growing on roof is not a good thing.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

See, now you're a sensible woman after my own heart!

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

What evocative photos... love the thatched cottages. We don't have anything like that here in the US, or at least in my part of the US.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I wonder if they thatch anywhere in the US? They must have done at some stage as people would surely have taken the skill with them, and it would have been a quick and cheap way to roof as you built houses.

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

I think the early settlers did, in Jamestown etc. And some Native Americans have as well. I've never been to Jamestown but there may be some examples there. It's definitely not a widespread practice anymore, though.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It isn't here either, to be honest - the Manx are a fairly practical people and slate is much longer lasting!

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

I imagine most thatched cottages are listed now and so they HAVE to have a replacement thatch??

You are so lucky to have daffodils. I have lots of greenery but still no actual blooms yet!!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It is a registered building - and so it will, almost certainly, need to be re-thatched - but I reckon that would be a good reason for it to be a lot cheaper than it is!

Suddenly, in this last week, we have daffodils all along the hedgerows - by the middle of the week I think it will be quite glorious.

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

These are just gorgeous photos. I'm looking forward to your gate post very much.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you - you can see why that little gate made me think of you, and gateway stories!

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

Oh wonderful pics! I just want to move into that farm RIGHT NOW THIS MINUTE it's so gorgeous! Thatch looks beautifully rustic but the upkeep can be expensive. My uncle used to have a thatched cottage as a weekend retreat but, while it was lovely, is was also a money pit.

And yay for daffs!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The Kerroodhoo would be quite good for sheep...

If you go to Google Earth and put Cranstal in the 'go to' box it homes in onto the house about 20 yards away from this farm - there are two dubs visible - the one in my picture is the right hand one, and you even can see the abandoned rowing boat beside one of the outbuildings! Sadly it also looks as if there is a rather large hole in the back of the roof... But you can see that the farming around there is almost all sheep.

Thatch should, I think, make houses cheaper not more expensive - imagine spending over £200,000 on a tiny place, smaller than the average flat, because it has a picturesque roof!

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

Oh thanks for that. It's a very traditional farm then, no modern outbuildings, so probably not at all viable but a lovely place to live. Yes, looking at these cottages is one thing, living in them, quite another!

[appomattoxco.livejournal.com]

Wonderful pictures. We have a group of miniature cottages in the trap. One says it that the original was in Bride on the bottom. I sold a set of gold plated fairies yesterday and moved the house to fill the shelf. My dad has the habit of buying boxes of odd gift stuff. There might be two or three things in a box of of knicknacks he knows he can make his profit on and the rest may sit for years.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I think I know the very miniatures that you mean! They were made by, or possibly just for, a company called Kelly Souvenirs in the 1960s - 1980s. It is possible that the Bride one is actually modelled on Cranstal Cottage if it has only one window on either side of the front door; the other thatched cottage down there has two windows either side of the door, I think!

You could put the picture of the original with the model... how cool would that be?

[appomattoxco.livejournal.com]

That's the company, I'll have to look at the windows when I'm in the shop Monday!

I would've never noticed it if I hadn't moved them yesterday. IIRC they were thrown in when dad got some pewter Robert E Lee keyrings.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

How weird is that? They were quite classy souvenirs in their day - quite a lot of them the roof lifted and they were little jewel boxes or even little music boxes.

[cbtreks.livejournal.com]

Beautiful photos. It's so nice to see the daffodils. (None here yet.)

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you - they suddenly began to open over the past week.

[bojojoti.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for these photos and explanations. I learn so much from you.

When you say that Cranstal Cottage slipped under the planner's radar, are they prohibited from adding on to the residence because it is a historical building?

On the Great Plains, whole houses used to be made of sod. It could be dirty, and too much rain could cause holes in the roof. To keep out the dirt and bugs, often newspapers or cloth would be glued to the walls.

http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/stories/0501_0108.html

Love the daffodils.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the link - that is fascinating, especially the two storey one! I knew that sod houses were built on the Great Plains (possibly from reading 'Little House on the Prairie'?) - but not how they built them exactly.

As for the odd extension - it isn't totally forbidden, but should be made of the same materials and in the same style as the rest of the building - and I don't think that quite meets that.

The sudden appearance of the daffodils has certainly brightened the place up - it really does feel as if winter is past now.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

These are very atmospheric pictures. Thanks for sharing.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

My pleasure. Gosh, you were up early... or very late!

[melegyrn.livejournal.com]

I love the pics of the cottages. So picturesque, with the thatch and all...but then it's easy to say that. One tends to forget about the practicalities of living in one. Or maybe I should say, the impracticalities!

That poor boat! So lost and lonely now. Maybe it used to get outings on the pond...

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thatched cottages do look lovely - but it was the roofing material of those who couldn't afford slate - so it is amusing that it now means that somewhere will cost a fortune because it is thatched!

I guess the boat may well have been used on the dub, or possibly taken down the shore which is within easy walking distance.

[melegyrn.livejournal.com]

Ah. I must have been more bleary-eyed than I thought I was last night. I read 14 miles, not 1/4...

I was thinking more of the modern day impracticality of tHe thatch- but I do take your point!

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

My favourite of this batch is Kerroodho through the tree trunks. Trees on your island do seem to twist a lot!

It's sad that the cottage is still empty. It has much more character in its deteriorated state though...

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I think the number of tortuous trees we have owes something to what sort of trees they are, but more to the winds that blow for much of the winter.

The cottage does look rather picturesque - I think it is really a one person size, or two who like to be cosy and don't have an awful lot of 'stuff'.