Simon English
England Revisited

On door of deserted but unused farm house on A34. 2 miles east of Chipping Norton Chalford Oaks Farm.

On a bus stop on the roadside outside where the front door of the ‘farmhouse’ has, for privacy and noise, had a garden wall built.

The modern, 'text for info', bus stop is for the Chipping Norton to Oxford bus serving the inhabitants of Chalford Park Barnes. In 1971 this collection of buildings were mysteriously new but abandoned. In my memory I see windows with new galvanised frames but into which no glass has been fitted and big rooms, unplastered, with pigeon nests on the floor.

Many years later I learn that there is a story that a Birmingham engineer commissioned a builder to construct a group of luxury houses. They were all nearly finished but with a falling out of the parties work stopped and was never resumed. Decades passed. Their state did not go unnoticed in so prominent position, questions were asked in Parliament, but it was only after the death of the owner that they were released to be purchased, renovated and sold on to the current families and businesses.

The views around here are much the same but the run down greenhouses and garden business on the south side of the road have gone, replaced by a new house and an unclipped lleylandii hedge.

Points 55, 56 & 57