Built like a brick house

Back-blipped for Mono Monday.
This house in Pilgrim's Lane Hampstead is notable for the fine figure of a woman attached to the front of it. She's sometimes referred to as a mermaid but she's not, she's a curvaceous ship's figurehead complete with (draped) legs.
No explanation is provided although a plaque on the same house informs the passer-by that it was once the residence of William Johnson Cory (1823-1892) a schoolmaster at Eton who penned their famous Boating Song. Was it a joke, I've often wondered, connecting the schoolboy rowers on the Thames with a nautical dame of the high seas?
No. For I have now discovered that the figure came from Norway and was placed here by the owner of the house Ms Ingeborg Lane, who died in 2009 just short of her century. She seems to have been quite a woman too, and married four times.
For the whole thing see here.

The Commodores

She's a brick house, she's mighty mighty
And just lettin' it all hang out and she's a brick house
And like lady's stacked and that's the fact
Ain't holding nothing back, she's a brick house

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