The House as an Expression of Identity

Yes I know that we all display our identity in all sorts of ways: the clothes we wear, the products we buy, the places we go; and I also know that most of us devote a lot of time to fixing up our houses so that they reflect our tastes and aspirations. But you have to tip your hat to someone who will boldly decorate the outside of their house to demonstrate their interests to the passing world.

Yesterday I discovered this rather wonderful house when out cycling. I love the moulded panels. They look so much like illustrations from a Victorian comic I can imagine the way a line drawing would be embedded in a story of sporting valour (probably involving a public school and self sacrifice for the sake of the team). I have no further information about them - there was no one about to ask and I have found nothing on Google. I don't know if they are original or added more recently. I don't know if they were a one off or there are more houses like this. I know nothing apart from what I can see from the road.

It is however something I can add to my list of Hertfordshire curiosities. I can put an X on the map at Bricket Wood (which deserves another mention because it is the home of the UK's oldest nudist resort: Spielplatz).

P.S. Until I wrote the last sentence I had no idea I had a list of Hertfordshire curiosities but if I worked on it, such a list might even bare comparison the Anthology of Huntingdonshire Cabmen

It can hardly be claimed for the newly published Anthology of Huntingdonshire Cabmen that it is, in the words of an over-enthusiastic critic, 'a masterpiece of imaginative literature'. The Anthology consists of the more striking names (with initials) from each of the three volumes. It is a factual and unemphatic work, and the compiler has skinned the cream from the lists. Here are such old favourites as Whackfast, E.W., Fodge, S., and Nurthers, P.L. The index is accurate, and the introduction by Cabman Skinner is brief and workmanlike.