The tiny thatched building in the centre of the above photo stands at a crossroads just the far side of Lavenham, and was built for a very specific, but, to my mind, a rather enexpected - purpose; so that this is an architectural 'Mystery Object'. Can you guess what it was built as?
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I really reopened this blog, because I had forgotten a small piece of news I'd intended to put in my last blog entry. On Sunday, as we were coming out of Aldham Church, a lovely great barn owl - a white owl that is, flew over the duck decoy near the church. We all saw it, and one or two of the locals explained that three large nesting boxes have been installed in the area with the express purpose of encouraging barn owls to breed. They were obviously successful, but another lady in our group said that another pair of barn owls were breeding in her barn - these, I suppose were more tradionally minded barn owls. Anyway, it was good to know that white owls will be around in our locality again- it's been a few years since we've seen one of these beautiful birds in this area.
8 comments:
How lovely to see an owl!
Could the building be a leper sanctuary/hospital? It's situated at a cross-roads to give some spiritual comfort to social outcasts perhaps?
I think that it was a Staging House, as in a place where your horses could be changed for the next leg of your journey. Otherwise I go with Crowbard. Or, hold on a second, could it be simply a giant pile of well weathered hay.
Hi Paul,
I see what you mean about the giant pile, but I've yet to see a brickwork staddle-stone with a window in it ~ and I think that looks more like reed than hay ~ but apart from that I do believe you've cracked it!
I think Paul Cully has got nearest to the right answer. I was shown round this little building some twenty five years or so ago, when it was still fully furnished with a forge, anvils and a vast set of bellows. It is a small forge (at a crossroads and with a stream flowing near it). The really unusual thing about it is the fact that it is heavily thatched, the thatch reaching to about five foot of the ground. It seems to me that it is remarkable in that it has survived. By all the laws of chance it should have burned down a century or two ago. If we drive by it in the near future, I'll stop and try and get a more detailed photo. I'll also check whether it's reed or straw thatched (although from memory I should think it's reed. There are three types of thatch in East Anglia :- reed, straw, and sometimes in the fen, and the Norfolk Broad- sedge, although, nowadays, sedge is more often used for the ridge of a thatched house, I'm told.
Well done Paul, you won that fair and square ~ it was for changing horses ~ shoes
We've had an owl box for years on a tree on the field, the Owl Trust people came last week to look in it but there are stock doves nesting in there - again. Owls do sometimes use it, but not for nesting, unfortunately. Though there are barn owls about here, one can hear and occasionally see them.
Hello Z. It makes me wonder why owl boxes seem to work well in attracting owls in some areas but not in others. We have a small nesting box which Sarah gave us last Christmas, in a quiet corner of our garden, and blue tits raised two broods of young in it this last spring, which pleasantly surprised us all.
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