Stopping off in Chipping Norton for some lunch on the way back from a photo shoot last week, I couldn't resist a quick look around Gill & Co. a traditional hardware shop. A proper "Four Candles" sort of place that smells of wood and glue and seeds and lots of good stuff.
Emerging with some Revell paint (how are Revell so good at getting their paint into these places, the one in Bourne stocks it too?) and a roll of (hopefully) good masking tape, I find this wonderful corner behind the high street.
Three types of brick (or is the wall nearest the camera stone?) and some wooden walls - scruffy, but full of character. Close study, by someone who knows their stuff, would be able to work out how the building has evolved over a long period of time. Ironically, this sort of evolution would now be prevented by planning and conservation laws, but I love it!
(Click on the image for a larger version)
Reminds me of trying to put up cupboards in my grandma's kitchen: not a flat or vertical wall in sight! That wall on the left seems to start leaning back quite a lot after the first floor.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely stone on the left hand wall. I lived around Chippy for five years and the local stone is poor stuff with walls and buildings are often built with brick sized and smaller blocks. I agree that Gills is like a throwback to shops of our youth.
ReplyDeleteQuite a challenging building to model! The rather curious middle section with the timbering and brick infill feels to be seventeenth century? I find it remarkable (and reassuring) that structures like this still exist and are cared-for.
ReplyDeleteI think there used to be a Gill & Co. in Oxford, that has since closed? Thanks to Hornby’s indifference/ineptness, Humbrol enamel paint does not appear to be easy to find, even in the UK. My local hardware shop sells a selection of Revell enamels, as did an amazing hardware shop in Tenterden that I discovered last July. Surely there is still a demand from “non-collectors” for small quantities of oil-based paint? (Do people still repaint their garden gnomes?… ;-) )