City and Suburban
BY JOHN BETJEMAN IDO not think appeals sent through the post ought to contain articles of value for which the recipient is expected to pay. It seems to me a form of moral black- mail which is contemptuous of the generosity of the British public. This week I received, and I expect many other people did, a sheet of gummed stamps for which I am expected to pay five shillings. The choices before me are to send the five shillings and use the stamps, to send them back with a note, or to keep them and have a guilty conscience. I shall choose the middle course and enclose the cutting from this column if the Editor sees fit to print it. I am told there is nothing illegal in sending an unsolicited article for sale to a stranger through the post (would that there were a law against the sending of manuscripts to literary gents like me 'for your frank criticism,' i.e., unstinted praise). There may be nothing illegal in such behaviour, but however good the cause I think there is something immoral in it. and I wish appeal secretaries would confine their literature to facts and demands.
CASUALTY LIST The following adornments to the landscape have been demolished : DEVONSHIRE HOUSE, SKIPTON, YORKSHIRE. Late eighteenth century. STOKE EDITH, HEREFORDSHIRE. An eighteenth-century house of distinction, which was burnt out and not repaired.
The following buildings are threatened with destruction: WISETON HALL, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. Built 1771. The contents of this fine house have just been sold before demolition. BOURNE PARK. BISHOPSBOURNE, KENT. A Queen Anne house in perfect condition. HOWSHAM HALL, MALTON, YORKSHIRE. Jacobean with Georgian additions.
THE MANOR HOUSE, WROUGHTON, NEAR SWINDON, WILTSHIRE.,
Sixteenth century with contemporary panelling. KENYON PEEL HALL, LANCASHIRE. Fifteenth century, timber framed with later additions.
TRELAWNE MANOR HOUSE, NEAR ST. AUSTELL, CORNWALL.
Early seventeenth century. SOMERSET LODGE, NORTH STREET, PETWORTH. 1653. WOODLANDS, WISBECH, CAMBRIDGESHIRE. Georgian; to be destroyed for road-widening.
in CHURCH STREET, WALTON-ON-THAMES. This and four adjoining houses forming a picturesque group are to be pulled down to make way for a car park. 228-289 HIGH STREET, BRENTFORD. This famous Georgian shop-front is to go from the capital of Middlesex, regard- less of the fact that through traffic is now carried on the Great West Road.
SIC TRANSIT
One of the many attractions of the Dorset town of Bridport was its churchyard, planted with well-grown beeches not yet in their prime and well away from the church, and a yew avenue whose over-arching branches protected wor- shippers from the rain. The beeches have been sawn down so that they look like the skeletons of trees at Bapaume in a Bruce Bairnsfather drawing. The yew avenue has been very severely pruned. A friend of mine met a local lady who said of the yews, 'Oh ! but they used to meet at the top,' and seemed to think that any objection to their doing so was a matter of taste. The Georgian graves which adorn the churchyard will no doubt soon be removed and ranged like playing cards along the churchyard wall so that the liddiz' may have one more place to play in and this little reccy ground will be quite in keeping with the absurd new house for the incumbent which has been erected alongside the old one. The old one, instead of being repaired, will no doubt be allowed to decay. Ars Tonga vita brevis est. Sic transit gloria Bridport.
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