IMAGES OF BLAKENEY WATCH HOUSE

MAY 2005

I last came to this place 40 years ago, this year, as a Girl Guide. Over the years I've seen the cottage countless times on the horizon and revisited it in my photograph album. On the verge of reaching my half century I felt it was timely to go there once again. It felt like a pilgrimage in a strange kind of way. You start thinking about all the things that have happened to you since that time, so many changes, so many forks in the road with decisions made for good or bad. And so, on a hot May afternoon I decided to go and commune with the ghosts.........

And now, through the magic of the internet, I discover that there exists a Blakeney Watch House Trust, and it's possible to stay there. I also discover that an artist received two grants to be resident there, and produce a body of work which she exhibited in Wandsworth. So these decaying remnants are, perhaps, hers. The pebbles in the whiskey bottle. The dead flowers. And the dreamcatcher. And maybe she, too, has revisited this place in her dreams, and wondered what became of it. It has that effect on you.......

Some images from around the outside of the house. I bet we scraped our boots on that boot scraper.

Was it painted blue all those years ago? My old images are in black & white.

Now I finally understood from whence my fear of marshy ground had come . However did we pick our way across the marshes that first time? False memory? I think not.

some nice local background info