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.