This doesn't really count as a lost cottage, but it could have become one. It was only lost for a small period of time, caught in inheritance wranglings and left to its own devices. It feels personal to me because I knew the men who lived there. Ozzy and Idris were brothers who had lived there a long time. I'm not sure if it was all their lives, but it was a long time. They would drive up and down the lane in their Vauxhall Astra van. They would talk to us about old times, like how, as boys, they caught fish in the stream before the leat was built up on the mountain. They were part of the old guard, the farmers who are slowly disappearing. When we came here there were still aged farmers driving around on open tractors without roll cages. There were two old women who wore headscarves, who would walk up the road carrying buckets with feed in them. There was the elderly farmer, with apple cheeks and an impossibly high pitched voice, who would always stop to chat.
First Ozzy died, and then Idris. Finally, when the place was put up for sale, I went and looked around. The cottage had been barely altered for years. It was poignant and tragic to see their caps still there, knocked to the ground and not picked up, a walking stick hanging on the pegs. To see their old car emeshed in weeds. To see all their possessions left strewn around.
At last, the house was bought, and is now being lovingly restored by a good person. It's wonderful to see after the ruin of their deaths.
The back of the house, on a very wet day.
Front of the house, and barns.
Staircase, carpet, and original floor tiles.
Old and new side by side. The back wall is against the built up land behind, with damp seeping through.
Their caps left on the floor, by the front door.
Front window.
Partition by the front door. At least one of the calendars post-date the owners.
Tea time in the kitchen.
An old candle holder.
The tiny kitchen in the back of the house, complete with slate worksurface.
Lovely wooden shelving and partition.
The kitchen window, pretty much at ground level when you're outside.
Colander and tea strainer.
I don't know what these are.
Broken plates.
The little sitting room.
Walking stick and chair.
Memories.
Many telephones.
Leftovers on the bed in the front room.
Some kind of almanac.
The bathroom, upstairs.
Poignant reminders of aging.
An old jug, and medicine.
Old glasses and watches are the saddest things.
Fireplace upstairs.
Wooden partition upstairs.
Chair and hangers. There's something Van Gogh about this.
Looking out to the valley.
A wedding.
Bed remains.
In the bathroom.
In the bathroom.
Rather a fine armchair.
We had exactly the same vacuum cleaner when I was growing up. I used to ride on it.
Time stopped.
Piles.
Looking back down the stairs.
Driving licence.
Driving licence.
Rusted keys.
A single cufflink?
Outside, in the front garden.
Front window.
The front door.
Old hay racks and troughs.
Spare bed above.
Scythes.
Barns, old and older.
The old Astra.
The old Astra.
The old Astra.
The old Astra, nature taking over.
Deterioration in the barn roof.
Barn door. So typical of around here.
Slit window, again, typical of these barns.
Generations of initials are carved into this barn door.
This little mobile hut.
Mobile hut.
Apparently the mobile hut is on Spitfire wheels. At least, some kind of aviation wheels. The local legend is Spitfire.
The house from the end.
