A wet morning in Dorset, trawling about the exquisite hamlets in the Cerne valley between Charminster and Lyon's Gate. Everything brooding in a very Hardyesque manner, except this is more Rogue Male country, at least for those who frequently return to the pleasures of Geoffery Household's novel. Oil lit churches, flint-walled cottages under hoods of thatch and then this, leaning precipitously in Minterne Magna. One can only hope that your phone call isn't violently interrupted by the whole thing finally toppling down the grassy bank, trapping you like Sleeping Beauty in a glass coffin. The missing sign from the the back wall is fastened into the hedge of a nearby cottage with what looks like those tags you use to tie-up freezer bags. But at least it's all a timely reminder of when a telephone company leaned over backwards to help you.
4 comments:
The temptation to see if you could help it on its way must have been huge - did you have a little shuv ?
I would have done but a bloke came out of the cottage with a bloody great alsatian straining at its lead.
What must it be like to make a call whilst mad with drink? I've been in plenty of perpendicular 'phone boxes that appeared to lean like this one, only to discover the Combo Curse was playing games with my inner ear.
I love this! There is something anarchic about things that don't conform to society's penchant for perpendicularity. There's a huge water tower in Groom Tx, famous for leaning at about 15 degrees, and of course the Leaning Tower of Pisa. If the village "Council" had any sense, they would promote it as a tourist attraction (it worked for Chesterfield which doesn't have much else in its favour).
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