Sometimes it's fun, isn't it, to travel your own country but to try and see it with a visitor's eyes. Just a small distance from home can become 'a foreign country'. I lived on the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border from birth until I went away to university aged 18, and it now seems both familiar and strange at the same time. As I said a couple of days ago, the countryside is gentler and more lyrical than my part of Yorkshire. But the landscape is also scarred by years of deep coal mining and the spoil heaps that produced. Away from the towns, in the villages and hamlets, there is evidence of the older agricultural way of life.
This cottage is in the tiny settlement of Ault Hucknall, which is supposedly the smallest village in England. (It's a village rather than a hamlet because it has a church.) Nowadays there is nothing there but the church, a farm and this cottage, though at one time it was believed to be a considerably larger community and I'm not sure why it dwindled. Anyway, I looked at this cottage with a traveller's eyes and decided it was just as photogenic, in its own way, as any I might see on my wider travels.
It certainly is! I know that part of the world well having lived in South Normanton for a time.
ReplyDeleteThis one would suit me. It reminds me of the cottage we had in Cornwall, many moons ago.
ReplyDeleteI love this picture! very "english" to my eyes, and therefor, very atractive! I'd like to live in such a house!
ReplyDeleteYou are right about the differences - and similarities - between West Yorkshire and the Derbyshire Peaks. As ever, lovely photograph.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right Jenny (or would you rather I called you jennyfreckles?)- looking at your country through a visitors eyes is so interesting. It's one of the reasons I so enjoy taking visitors from abroad around "my territory"; they see things I take for granted. You found a lovely cottage, one that would perfectly suit a friend of mine who is desperately looking for just such a cottage in the English countryside. Apparently they are not easy to find to buy or to rent. I haven't had much time for visiting blogs either these past few weeks... and I do miss this kind of travel too!
ReplyDeletethe blue door just makes it!
ReplyDeleteHello! I happen to come here through Betty's blog! Thats a dreamy cottage...loved all the pictures here!
ReplyDeleteExtremely photogenic indeed!
ReplyDeleteLovely photo, love the blue door. Now you really are close to where I lived as a child as Ault Hucknall church is now joined with Scarcliffe under the same Vicar who lives at Glapwell. I used to work in Mansfield and lived there for a while when I first got married - isn't it a small world?
ReplyDelete… and such lovely warm stone. Very attractive shot.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely little place. Nothing like country living.
ReplyDeleteI am totally smitten with anything stone! ~Lili
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