Praise Indeed

Alain de Botton, the distinguished writer and philosopher, has said this about my blog:-

"Thanks so much - and what a truly wonderful site you have, combining two of my favourite things, Lutyens and Lego.
All best
Alain"

Deanery Garden

Deanery Garden is a wonderful Arts and Crafts house which Lutyens designed for his client Edward Hudson, the founder of Country Life.
In the village of Sonning, on the Berkshire side of the River Thames, Hudson found an old orchard bordered on two sides by an ancient brick wall. Lutyens's design incorporated the wall, adjacent to the village street, where two doors in the wall provide the only access to the house.
It was the first Lutyens house I visited, though strictly speaking it was only the Jekyll-designed garden that was open to the public. There have been several subsequent occasions when I have visited a Jekyll garden with at least equal interest in the adjacent Lutyens house!
It was in the early 1960s, and my friend Jonathan and I had walked down from Woodley where we then lived.
Here is an early Country Life photograph of the house and its beautiful brick and tile terrace:-

A very simplified version of the terrace steps appears  in my Lego version:-

This view shows the house from the street side, with its courtyard giving access to the wonderful passage, vaulted in brick and chalk blocks:

Few photographs seem to have been published since the original Country Life pictures were shot soon after the house was completed in 1901. Hudson only kept the house for a few years, and subsequent owners appear to have guarded the privacy that the house seems to encourage.

A few years ago I took a series of photographs from the street side, but have not yet scanned them.

The present owner is Jimmy Page, guitarist with Led Zeppelin

The Diary of an Ageing Lego Builder

After many years of building what I euphemistically describe as Architectural Models, rather than "playing with Lego", as my wife Jane prefers to call it, I have at last decided to come out, and start a blog on the subject, in the unlikely event that others may share my interest.
I first bought a Lego set for my young daughter, in Oslo of all places, in the mid 70s. It was a table and two chairs in blue and white, and I still have some of the blue and white tiles.
I think the next set my girls had was a London bus, and it just grew from there.
Becky, my younger daughter, who is now 37, used to build models with me when home from uni, and we once made a house based on the old farmhouse in the television adaptation of Cold Comfort Farm.
Since retiring, I have expanded the collection of Lego that the girls had built up, buying bricks, windows, roof tiles and storage boxes on eBay, and sometimes from the on-line Lego shop.
I have even sold off some unwanted bits - though Becky was rather indignant when she found some of her stuff listed on eBay!
Although I do occasionally play with the grandchildren and step-grandchildren when they visit, building spaceships and little houses with gardens, most of my own buildings are architectural, and especially models of houses by my guru, the late Sir Edwin Lutyens.

I'll include photos of some of my Lutyens models in later posts, but for now here is a street of houses I built some time ago - ostensibly for the amusement of the children.