6: Car Port for Mr D lark 19/10/1966

Site: Car Port for Mr D Clark 19/10/1966
Amenities: None
Parking: Street (good)
Public Transport: 750 yds
Access: View from street

Notes:  Pent roofed car port.  Original structure now subsumed.  Turned, at some point, into self-made garage with raising of roof and closing in of front with trapezoidal wooden panel and doors added.

Further Notes:  A bit like a 17th century house with wings added in the18th and 19th, or an example of outsider suburban folk art.  The breeze blocks and pressed-wood front panel have been fairly recently updated, showing that this is a work gloriously still in progress.

5: Homemade Weather Vane

Site:  Home made weather vane (wood & metal)
Amenities:  None
Parking: Street
Public Transport:  Yes (100 yds)

Notes:  Small homemade weather vane situated on apex of garage.  Sail in orange painted wood (offcut), metal otherwise.  Working.
Garage noteworthy in itself for trained clematis and original 4-paned window to side.

Further Notes:  A-top a rustic, clematis covered timber and asbestos roofed garage, I spotted this weather vane.  The garage and vane survive, but for now, in the garden of a house that has been rented out a few times; although that's maybe its safeguard; against the decking instinct of the suburb.

Long will the breeze turn its offcut-wooden sail; and point its crude, vice-pinched arrow!

I also note the elongated wooden diamond covering the join in the garage.  While a traditional shape, I find it a dismal shape of the British 50s.

4: Lane between X Avenue and Y Avenue

Site:  Lane between X Avenue and Y Avenue, 6 November 1953
Amenities:  None
Parking:  Street adequate
Public Transport:  Yes (250 yards)

Notes:  Asphalted lane still in use.  Built to provide access to garages at rear of houses (on right), and, later, a small electricity station.  Initial section runs between far older brick walls, now crumbling.  This, with fact that a wildish area, equivalent exactly to the width of the lane, extends beyond Y Avenue for a while, leads to supposition that the space was already in existence as a border, and was only later formalised into a lane for part of its length: the lane runs like a moat between the 'new' suburban area covered by these guides on the right, and a far older area of housing to the left.  The divide is starkly evident to the pilgrim.  Surface uneven and severely potholed in places.

Further Notes:  With a wintry sky above, this lane was quiet, bare of plant apart from pale yellow grass resting, and the tall leylandii hedge at the end.  The semi-wild spot was thick with longer grasses matted, and great tits and twists of bare purple-brown bramble stem.  The divide between the old housing and the not-so-new, passing into picturesque, was stark; though the scene was somehow bereft of magic.  The monkey puzzle tree dulled.
Appearing quietly midway down a street, cropping blinding squares of streets, it's entrance almost invisible and overhung with thick ivy and bramble, dark and elder-stench cool in summer, in memory the suburban lane is a wyrd place; of summer.  Wider or narrower, shortcuts in a board game: to library, park, clinic and grandparents.

3: Garage in brick and render

Site:  Garage for D.M. Grieve, 28 May 1964
Amenities:  None
Parking: Adequate street
Public Transport: No

Notes:  Garage still in existence.  Doors replaced - estimate 1990s - with white uPVC door. 
Garage no longer in use, (judging from bins kept in front of door and car parked in drive), but render in good condition.  High rendered brickwork area above door, screening lower flat roof, not stepped as some other local examples are, or finished with capstones.  Capstones often painted white.
Garage noticeably small, fitting only small car.

Further Notes:  This garage is hidden, largely in front of a high beech hedge, and is dull seeming in comparison with next door's shed and new brickwork screen.
At the time of my visit in the late afternoon, the winter's sky was just beginning to turn to purple and blue and yellow, behind the tall trees of woods long existing before the suburb.
The garage survives; crows laughed sounding, at what is quiet below - the purple and blue of televisions flickered.  And they prepared to roost in the high trees.  Silence.

Coming Next: Lane, joining X Avenue and Y Avenue, 6 November 1953

2: Garage In Asbestos & Timber

Site:  Garage in Asbestos and Timber for Mr N.J. Hamilton, 3 May 1966
Amenities:  None
Parking:  Street (very limited due to Nissan Qashqais)
Public Transport: Yes
Access:  No view from the street as new garage and extension completely screens garden.  Restricted view from rear (footpath is the access to a primary school and may not be used)

Notes:  Nothing remains of the garage, save possibly for two areas of old paint and cement on the dividing wall from the next door property.  One is sloped, possibly suggesting a roofline.
the boundary wall may be contemporary with the old garage, if judging by the type and age of render (of local type) and the existence of the possible-building 'shadows'.  Surviving examples of local timber garages indicate that these tend, on the whole, to be set back at the end of the drive, behind the house.  The new garage and extension has, here, entirely screened off the back of the property, obliterating the drive.

Further Notes:  On the late afternoon I visited, ice was prevalent on the pavements, and the branches of the birch tree pointed to a clear moon in a cold, clear sky and lamps were lit in the extension.  The only movement was that of a television.  There was a great stillness.
On the return, a group of six migrant redwings fed from the red berries of a holly, flying on my approach.  The possible ghost shadows of navy blue paint and old sky grey render, pointing to buildings past, made this visit worthwhile.  Mr Hamilton, and his ideas for his garage and life, live on in the dusk.

VG Suburban Guides: 1 Folk Suburb

Having been reading about the old Shell guides, 'Recording Britain' and John Piper's and J.M. Richards work recently, I though that we'd have a shot at a gazeteer in the spirit of these things - getting out and about in the neighbourhood like the neighbourhood oddball.

Built between 1953 and 1962 on one of the last of the dying landed-estates, I was interested to discover that the developers continued making ad-hoc additions to their ordinary suburb, largely in the form of small buildings (garages, sheds etc), well into the 1960s.  Records of many of these remain, and it is the search for and recording of what remains of them that will form the backbone of this guide.  I am expecting disappointment in most cases.

Hopefully, other sections will deal with hidden areas I come across on my searches where the past was not developed, and the old folk magick can survive; and also with examples of Suburban Folk Art.

I hope, all things being equal, to have the first entry up soon.

Important Warning
At virtually all sites, the visitor on foot is likely to be the only pedestrian.  Special care must be taken to avoid arousing suspicion.