How much space will we have ? Space maths has been blowing my mind all week.
I love maps and plans. When we got the estate agent details a plot plan was sent through showing the borders of the house. I started making my own hand drawn plans and measuring and turning the space in my head - The pictures below are from the curtilage area of the new house that I drew the plan for above - the picture was taken by Jane. I have not yet seen the house or stepped on it, Its a long story but needless to say I am confident I will love it - I have seen the details and a plan. I can "see" it.
Essentially the barn is part of a complex attached to a manor house. We have our own driveway entrance from the main road which leads to a circular gravel "turn" with an old mature oak tree at its centre.
There is about 50 x 20 m of garden facing the front of the house with its porch. Up on the bank is a sizable pond which has been fenced in to avoid accidents to the last owner's grandchildren. There is paving right around the barn with another strip of garden at the back with a large lime tree.
There are two largish 15 m lawns in front of the house as well. The barn is orientated so that the front faces East. To the South on one end is a large conservatory which then takes in a view down the garden,
The main garden itself stretches off for a good 80 m until you come to a wall of trees - our wood ! Almost in the shape of a fish hook or a tear drop on one side - maybe the toe of the boot of Italy - the wood extends as a block for about a further two acres. Walking around the edge of the wood would be a 500 m walk - more.
The whole plot is about about 4.3 acres in total so the 5 acre claim in the blog title is a stretch but who doesn't exaggerate on occasion. I am beginning to contemplate how much space that is in any event though. It's more than enough for any couple who want to garden, grow some food and cut some logs. I have a tiny plan for a bio-mass boiler fermenting in my head.
We have lived in Dubai for the last 10 years but (until next week) also own a lovely victorian end of terrace house in Hale, Manchester (Cheshire if you are a Hale snob). That house is small - you go up and down in those houses with a cellar and a loft conversion. The garden is a a normal strip type terrace garden. Everyone I know seems to have lived the first part of their lives in these Victorian terraces. We had one in London in Balham when we first got married - a little more garden there but not with room to run ! I
n the Hale house the old outside loo is now a shed. From the kitchen side door and the "patio" doors at the back you open up onto a tiled yard with a wooden deck (now removed). Down one edge we had a small strip of border which Jane would grow shade loving plants like ferns - that sort of thing. We had abandoned the thing for ten years - tenants will never really care for a garden. We do in Dubai - we even make gardens where they should not be !
A small gate led into the garden proper. The top end of that was covered in bark chips - the children used to have a swing there when they were small. I built a couple of raised beds and we put up an arch leading to the bottom of the garden. This was little more than a small lawn with another raised bed on one side and borders along the back fence and the other fence with our neighbor. I grew vegetables for a couple of years - no more than a row of potatoes and a few beans. Jane grew climbers on the fence and flowers. It was at one point a neat pretty garden. We planted a crab apple that I never got to see grow; we moved to Dubai with my work after 4 years.
Jane cam back for 50 % of the time a year ago and the tenants were moved out. We set about doing up the loft. There never really was a plan to sell - just a sense that the pace was too small. Perhaps the boys would like to be in Manchester ?
A conversation about the countryside and retirement and use of time grew. We always had the plan, Suddenly our lovely house in Hale was written out of the immediate future. It "sold" in a day after the first viewing and with it my three small raised beds and memories of a few potatoes. We had outgrown the place in our minds. It was such a lovely place when the children were small. Walks in the Cheshire countryside and a log fire. A lovely dining room with stripped floor boards - a ginger table and anpea green Farrow and Ball - never to be repeated but loved. I could walk to the metro to go into the office. I love victorian houses ! Now for a victorian barn !
Taking the house out of the equation the garden was no more than 6/7 m wide in Hale. I measured the length on Google Earth yesterday. The yard and garden were 24 m long.
I am thinking endlessly about the house at the moment - writing in my journal - looking at books. Jane is much quieter and I know just wants to sit and let a plan unfold. What becomes evident though is that we are bound to start with the space around the house. A few pots, shrubs, borders ? I have no idea - I have to allow the "head gardener" autonomy (I have other plans for myself which I will explain in later posts). I have been mapping and drawing plans of the grounds. Blowing things up to A 3 size. A recent plan that I thought Jane could have fun scribbling on was just an A4 section of the ground immediately around the house. All to scale taking in the first 70m x 50 m of the property if that makes sense.
I had one of my "moments" yesterday and decided to cut out a tiny scale plan of the Manchester garden out of a pink accounts docket - the yard, shed, beds etc. I then just nonchalantly dropped it on top of the house plan to get some idea of the space. I sent it to Jane with the heading "You will need a bigger shovel".
In essence before we even get to the main sweep of garden just the green area opposite the front of the barn could swallow several "9 Cedar Roads". The whole plot is 80 times the size of our Hale yard and garden. If you want space to live sell your house in London, Manchester, Birmingham, the South East and move to the edge of things. The reality is that once you get to the stage that you do not need to live close to a job a house swap will deliver up acres of room. We always thought as much - our first viewings were on the Welsh coast. A huge view across the estuary of the Dovey. The house had issues though with rights of way and a Welsh farmer, Jane spent some time looking down through Shropshire - all along the Welsh marches. Damp Georgian rectories, victorian houses with acres of land but rotting window frames, rambling farms with outbuildings. It wasn't a long search - it was efficient. Within a week she ended up near Leominster - I can make out Monty Don's house at Ivington about a twenty minutes away on Google Earth ! It feels like a lovely full circle as Jane grew up near Malvern the other side of the Malvern Hills from where we are. Her Dad was a proper country vet. We were married in the small church at Castle Moreton in Worcestershire (I could drive there from our new home in less than an hour). Our wedding reception was at Eastnor Castle which is a stones throw from Ledbury - thats Herefordshire. Ledbury, Ludlow, Leominster, Hereford, Hay on Wye, Malvern - those will be our farmer's markets. This is where we are washing ashore as I turn 50. She has childhood friends parent a shortchanged drive away.
It feels very right. I am from rural Essex/Suffolk essentially. The same rolling farm land - no hills where I am from but plenty of Southern oak woods - and now we own one. This week cannot finish up quick enough.
Its prayer time in Dubai - Friday prayers and I can hear the local Imann giving his sermon over the loud speaker. This time next Friday we will be waking up on a blow up mattress (if we get any sleep) at the new house in Herefordshire - waiting on a few pieces of furniture and books, kitchen equipment and that sort of thing. A few gardening tools. The start of things is such an exciting time. Its like having a giant canvas and a new set of paints. Once the Hale furniture arrives the house will be livable. All I then want to do is to walk up and down the plot and take it all in. Sit in the wood and listen - will I hear a woodpecker ? What birds are there ! I don't know what we have - we have a lot of ideas of what it could be. We have spent 20 years thinking about it. The garden, a vegetable plot, some space for nature, a life spent around the kitchen door. A study to write up nature notes. Somewhere for Jane to paint what she has grown. A fire to read around. Seasons, food, hard work, health and space.
So to compare with the ridiculous...
In Dubai we garden in our car port ! This year I have invested a little more time. Playing at farming a car port. Thats how I am getting ready to lay out my vegetable plot !
The scale up then to what we are undertaking is huge ! I have literally no idea how much work is needed to plant up a full vegetable garden or tend a long border. I understand a few pots in a car port. That's watering twice a day (The maid does that for me - how very `Dubai) and potting on, a mornings sowing. An hours play with compost here and there.
You can grow quite a bit of food in a 6m x 6m carport. The concept now is entirely different. The plan of the house and garden I made (without the 2 acre wood) on an A3 scale shows the leap.
From the gate of the drive to the edge of the wood is 150 m and the bottom edge of wood itself is 100 m across. Simple maths makes it 312 of my car ports before you add the wood.
Essentially Jane can make the garden she has always dreamed of - I can pretty much "farm" in terms of growing food. I haven't begun to understand what you can do with 100 m square block of mature wood. It is a new ocean of possibilities. A week away. I am off to harvest Kale in car port. A 3 m walk from the front door.
So the space maths has been blowing my mind all week. I even worked out that if I stood in each 2 x 2 m square for one minute to appreciate that spot it would take me 50 hours to survey the whole plot. I know it is not Chatsworth. Its just a lovely barn with 4 and a bit acres. What it does though is "pay" the promise we made 20 years ago in full. That one day new would find something in the country with a bit of land - lay out a garden (thats Jane) and grow our own food (allegedly thats my job !). First Job done - it took 20 years to find the place/to afford it. We now have perhaps 20 years (touch wood) to see what we can make of it. Whatever you do when you get married have that conversation on your honeymoon of where you want to wash up - what sort of things do you want to do ? Where do you want to be. I think it keeps things together in an odd sense. Things have a direction even if the timing is unclear. I didn't think this move would happen for another 3-5 years but now its here. I can see out my last 5-7 years at work in Dubai and take a couple of weeks holiday each year with a shovel in my hand or a hammer. This post is no overly long and without too much of a point, Filling time until next week.
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