Ah yes, just as I remember, continuous stone walling to West and North, sandstone velveted by soot. To the East, high-whispering beeches hide sight of the stone, castellated manor house. Clustered at their feet, a nursery of young apple trees, showily bedecked in lacy pink and white. My father maintained the original usage of this garden for many years, cultivating row upon row of peas, runner beans, Spring greens, and Savoy cabbages, highly nourishing but unpalatable to the child conscious of their caterpillar inhabitants. A large garden to feed a large household, including indoor and outdoor servants, when the house was first built mid-nineteenth century. Because of its size my father used a hand-held motorized digger, the phut-phutting engine producing a plume of inorganic-smelling fumes as he dug his furrows.

Of course it was made over into a paddock once he got the riding stables established. The white painted one-bar fence marks the boundary, inside which we practiced the basic technique of staying-put, novices at the trot and the more proficient over jumps. In front of us where the northern wall climbs into a high arch are the stables. The roof, as you can see, is made entirely of doors which, at only a shilling each during slum clearance, were a bargain.