I'm not sure if the Soldiers Cottage is Soldier's or Soldiers', either way it was considered a safe area between Marslands Hill Barracks and Fort Niger during the Land Wars. The current owners kindly invited us to sketch and had it looking very 'House and Garden'. Typical white batten board construction of the era. They showed us part of a partition wall which had flowery wall paper on one side and the front page of the 1859 London Gazette glued on the other.
89 Pendarves St
It was six years earlier since we had sketched three of the five 'Chickens' of 'Hen and Chickens' fame - directly across the street. Early setters Thomas and Grace Hirst arrived in 1863 and built their home (the Hen) in Cameron St. In front they built five identical houses for their four daughters and one son. Our Soldiers cottage pre-dated all of them.
84 Pendarves St
One other early item, not quite of early setter vintage is this 1950's Austin Loadstar flatbed lorry - its final days as a tow truck but now living out its twilight retirement years with gorse and fellow rustees at an abandoned petrol station.
I sketched one of his companions 5 years ago - Mr Ford Thames. The slow motion rusting process is fascinating to follow along with the growth of vegetation.
Your Tombows do a great job of capturing the rust and decay on that old Austin flat bed Scott.
ReplyDeleteThanks Murray, there are several rust colours amongst the 99 colour kit :-)
ReplyDelete