Coscote Manor

I have been in love with this house for more than two decades. I wouldn't like to guess how many 1000's of times I've driven past it on my way to work, to visit friends, taking Catie to Nursery or School, taking the dog for a walk etc etc and yet every time I pass it I slow down and drink it in. It's not the best preserved 16th or 17th century house nearby, nor the biggest or the most historic but it has a certain magic about it. I love the unpainted half timbering, the sagging roof line, the scruffy ageing window frames. It has always had a shabby artistic neglect about it that makes my imagination run riot. When Catie was very young I used to spin stories about it - I doubt she remembers now but they were magical times. If anywhere ever deserved to have a magic wardrobe in a dusty old room with a dead bluebottle on the window sill, this is the place. I came by here shortly after I started taking my photography seriously again, to take a picture of the weathered old door in the garden wall - only to find it had been repaired and painted for the first time in God knows how long. I was outraged! to me this door was The Door in the Wallthat H G Wells' character longed for all his life, a door that led to a magical world beside which reality was but a shabby, pale disappointment. Its just a door now. Its not the only thing that has changed since the new owners took possession, the gable end and its chimney used to bulge out toward the road in an impossible way, as if it was only still standing because the house itself refused to let it fall. as you can see its straight and solid now but it saddens me to see that they have succumbed to the black and white olde worlde colour scheme for the restoration work which makes it look like all the other half timbering, old and new, in this half timbered county where we even used to build half timbered cars. When it was up for sale a few years ago I cursed my poverty but its probably best for the house that it has more practical owners, ones who have the means and inclination to ensure its survival. I loved it as it was in all its bulging, sagging, weathered perfection but if I'd bought it I might have loved it to death.