Thursday 11 November 2010

Scorched Earth Policy.

When my people retired, they moved from their beautiful thatched house in a small Sussex village, to the above house in Shropshire. It came with a small coach house, a few brick-built sheds, greenhouse, paddock, large orchard, pond, well, formal gardens, vegetable garden, and a netted soft fruit enclosure (which contained goodness knows how many rare varieties of gooseberry).

Their residency didn't last too long, and sadly my parents are both now resting in the neighbouring churchyard.

I sold the house to a local farmer who I knew. He had two major hobbies; owning racehorses and flying his helicopter.

I heard later that the gardens didn't suit his needs, and the 44 tree orchard, which contained many very rare varieties of apples, had simply been bulldozed and levelled.

There are few things in life that make me mad, but this was certainly one. On reflection I should have asked him what plans he had for the place. Had he mentioned anything about destroying the beautiful ancient orchard, I would have looked for another buyer.

I recently looked at the house on Google Earth, and noticed that a second house has been built in the paddock. No doubt the racehorses have gone, which somehow makes the orchard's original destruction even worse.

Grrrrrrrrrr!!!



Posted by Picasa

13 comments:

  1. What a buggar Cro!!I think when we sell our homes or that of our family we think the new people are going to have the same mind as us,sadly it does not work that way..Shropshire is the most beautiful area,I visited there when I came to your country as my close friend up the road still has all her family there and has just come back from visiting ,sadly this time without me lol..I have promised myself to take Bob next time and although we will be far into our 60's i am hopeing we have good enough health to meander all over he countryside.At least the people you purchased from in France must be happy that you are lovingly enjoying what is there and adding to it not destroying it. Carole

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, how sad! And that house is so beautiful, right out of a magazine. My MinL who lives with us, when she sold her house we went back and they had taken out all the fruit trees and lovely rows of grapes. ouch.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A road servicing about 5 houses runs through our old garden now, but - alas - I can only blame my brother for it, who persuaded my parents to sell up to a developer when they left. Shame about your orchard.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The lovely house they left behind in Sussex also has a couple of new-builds in the once splendid garden. Developers eh. Doncha luv em.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Helicopter, indeed. He should be in Kansas.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kansas is the US equivalent of the UK's Shropshire!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Don't developers and politicians have a name for this? Don't they call it progress? Who needs 44 apple trees, anyway?

    The answer is, of course, all of us.

    My late father's tiny 12-tree orchard is now a four-house ugly street.

    Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Looks like it happens to us all!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Destroying all those lovely fruit trees was just sacrilege! A little nursery near us (the old man and his wife died last year) has just been totally flattened - his glass houses, his plants, shrubs, his whole life's work - everything just gone. I feel so sad every time I go past now!

    ReplyDelete
  10. When was that photo taken? I had a look via Google maps - perhaps I shouldn't have.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I think it was taken about 10 years ago. No 1 son was passing through the village; luckily with his camera. At least the house hasn't changed!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'll never undestand why people want to destroy all the good things left on this earth. Too sad.

    ReplyDelete
  13. A beautiful home, Cro. I hope it remains complete in your memory. When we left our previous home, a farmhouse with large, productive gardens, I took just a few favourite plants, careful not to spoil my years of loving attention to borders, pond and rose walk. I should have dug up the lot because a year later there were four five bedroomed houses for sale where my garden had been and each house was being offered for sale for the price we had been given for the whole lot!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...