End of an Era

So, I had just cycled to Sconce Park for a cup of tea when my landlord's son came up  to me and said hi.

Only he wasn't the landlord's son  anymore, he was now the landlord as he had bought my place from his parents. This now explains why there was all those irritating survey visits a month or two ago. The upshot is that he wants to turn my place into one house along with the vacant downstairs flat, and I am going to have to move out.

I'm not hugely surprised to be honest, the work needed to bring my place - which I've lived in for nearly 14 years now - up to standard was always going to need me gone. The place needs gutting. But it had a nice quiet location with a little garden, and I shall miss that.

It  won't be too hard to  find another place, I hope; already seen a couple of good ones online that have things like, you know, working boilers and non crumbling doorframes. But it's a distraction to my routine, and I don't like that.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.04.19

Is Tiny, or Micro, Desirable?

Container City 2, London. Photo by Cmglee under creative commons license

Regular viewers of this blog will know that sometimes, when work and early sunsets prevent me getting outside exploring, I write more magazine style, or dare I say it "lifestyle" (AAARGGGGGHHHH) entries about subjects close to my heart.

I'm not brainy enough to explain the gravitational waves shindig to anyone, so I thought I'd take a look at another subject that interests me. Housing, specifically, alternative housing.

I have often expressed how I find the idea of recycling shipping containers as affordable housing really appealing, and was excited to see that the city of Brighton had put up a development of container housing for vulnerably housed people in the city.

I'd always wondered how that development went, and found an article yesterday that initially identified problems with cold, rusting, drug addict tenants and a feeling that perhaps the development was a PC foothold into an expensive city to get developer hands on some cheap city centre land rather than a genuine social project. At £650 a month rental, it was hardly cheap either, and architects expressed reservations in the structural integrity of any container building that wasn't a simple stack.

However, within their limitations, it seems there have been successful projects made from container homes, although only as short term residencies.

New York has been experimenting with micro apartments but the rents on these seem even more horrendous, and the whole set up looks like accomodation for laboratory animals.

However, Sweden has shown that you can come up with far more attractive micro dwellings that offer personable living at a far more reasonable cost.

Here in the UK, the concept of tiny housing has now caught on from the states, which try to offer small scale living on perhaps a more investable basis - a fully fitted out micro home can be available for little more than £10,000 and transported on wheels to your place of living, a home that could perhaps be sold at a profit later on or rented out, rather than the first time fledgling sinking all their money into the black hole of rent.

Yes they are impractical in many ways, and actually situating one in a city near your workplace might be rather tricky. But surely, there are brownfield sites in cities where little tiny house villages could spring up, with a sense of place and community. For it is the space without, rather than the space within, that is important in many ways.

It all seems crazy, but for me, and thousands, probably millions more in this country, it seems like it could be the only option to ever own any kind of small piece of real estate close to a city workplace. I'd have one like a shot if I needed to. We are far to wed to large footprint bricks and mortar housing in this country, and we need to think differently if many of us ever want to haul ourselves out of the long term rental trap.

Si

All text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.02.16

The Kirkcudbright White House

A return now to Scotland, and a visit to a local landmark that was recently featured on "Great Houses of the Coast" or some such More 4 type propertygasm show, although thankfully not one of the ones where someone gawps at a house and says "I never thought THIS would as cheap as six hundred thousand!"

At least I'll never have hateful hipster yuppies being shown round my flat by Amanda Lamb.

I'm not sure what the inspiration for the design is; there is something slightly naval and militaristic about the three turret design, like a Victorian battleship with its white upperworks. I believe the building is owned by a Russian sculptress or something rather exotic like that, although I hadn't realised sculpture was ever that financially rewarding unless you were Anthony Gormley.

Reaction to the building from the rather conservative local community  - OK,  the one person that I spoke to about it - is not positive. Said person said it was a monstrosity and added with satisfaction that its foundations were sinking.

Situated as it is, right next to one of the estuary lochs with its very boggy, muddy shore, I wouldn't find this too surprising.

The building certainly stands out among the deep red sandstone and pebble dash of town, and seems to be a popular spot for teenagers to visit. This is because it would appear that it marks the only spot in town you can get mobile phone reception on certain networks.

No wonder Kirkcudbright can't hold on to its younger population.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 28.10.15

A Little of Newark's Housing Heritage

I took an early ramble this morning, away past the London Road Pond - with a magnificent heron hiding in the trees - but instead following the track, I turned off onto Barnby Gate.

Barnby Gate is a long drag, leading from the very edge of town on its eastern side, right to the very centre. Predominantly it consists of Victorian terraces, built for the workers of the railways, the breweries, and the makers of bearings and boilers. They are uniform and yet characterful, the views of them in their long lines heading downhill from London Road, through Barnby Gate and down to the railway line, is a fabulous sight from a clear vantage point.

Occasionally butting in along the walk are the modern housing developments, erected on the graves of demolished schools and factories; horrendous, boxy and jaundiced. This town, as does so many, needs affordable housing, but the hideous cop-out modernity of these new homes. In the year 2015, we should be doing better and providing modern designs that are cheap to buy or rent, efficient to run, and look like someting actually of this century.

Then, as you get nearer town, you leave Victoriana behind, and find yourself in Georgia. Tall, symmetrical, houses with the occasional bricked in window for 18th century tax reasons. The most impressive Georgian buildings in town are of course on London Road, or Millgate, but at least you can see the change in style.

In the Market Square of course, you are in real mixed territory. Victorian, Georgian, with the addition of Tudor and even Plantaganet in fragments. But none of the fancy stuff on Barnby Gate.

It's a working street, for working people!

Si

Barnby Gate, leading to the church

Victoriana down the hill

Ghost signs on a ghost pub

The hideous shock of the new

Three storey here

And now, we go Georgian

The church grounds and its impressive house at the corner

posted from Bloggeroid