Building for the Future?

The house which for the foreseeable future is still only going to have me living in it has been the focus of attention of late, both official and unofficial. The latter came in the shape of a gentleman, and following him a lady who couldn't quite believe the information he gave her, so came to check for herself (I suspect it was the information I gave him that was wrong). They are compiling a survey of all the buildings in the area constructed from Bargate stone, a rather lovely honey-coloured sandstone widely used in Surrey where its main reserves lay. My house is one of these. It has quite a complicated history, beginning as a Victorian cottage, then doubling in size thanks to an extension which I thought was 1930s but is probably 1950s, and finally a second extension in the mid-90s which brought the kitchen to its current unnecessary size. To the rear of the older bit the stone courses are laid evenly and regularly like brick, but I hadn't noticed how even on the side of that portion they are all higgledy-piggledy like the more recent extension. Has that wall been taken down and refaced? It certainly has un-Victorian windows.

So much for the unofficial visits. Recently the diocese has become aware that it doesn't have a proper list of the property it owns and not unnaturally would like to rectify this, so a young man from a surveying company popped round before I was confined with covid to measure the house, a task which these days, notwithstanding my picture here, is done with lasers and cameras that measure things as they take photographs of them. Then yesterday a lady from an energy inspection firm called round to assess the house for an energy efficiency certificate. She didn't have a laser, or at least I didn't see her use one, but unlike the surveyor did need to go into the loft to check the insulation (she was quite pleased it has some, not that it seems to make a lot of difference to my chilly residence). I've always assumed the house was dreadfully inefficient energy-wise so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.

A couple of days ago someone on the big LiberFaciorum holy wells group asked about the Churches selling off assets and yet not being able to keep churches open or holy wells nearby them kept up, in the context of lovely Gumfreston church in Pembrokeshire which I happened to have visited last October. I briefly described the Church of England's financial issues and the fact that historically it's been lumbered with a number of unwieldy properties which it makes perfect sense to offload - even if clergy are left living in less picturesque houses as a result, they ought to be a bit more practical. For instance the incumbent of the parish next to Swanvale Halt when I arrived rattled around (after being widowed) in a ten-bedroom nightmare of a house, built by an Edwardian Lord of the Manor keen that his rector should live in a style befitting a gentleman; there was a decorative plaster frieze around the sitting room. It was no surprise that when he retired the diocese sold it, rented a cottage for his successor, and then built a sensible four-bed house for hers.

It could be that the diocese's current survey is the prelude to a further rationalisation of property. I assume that my freehold tenure here applies to the house as well as the church and I cannot be turfed out without agreement any more than I can be sacked. I did suggest a long while ago that I could move somewhere smaller and less embarrassing to live in, but if that were indeed to happen, could I come back and check on the fish? They seem to be doing quite well at the moment.