The Old House

Posted on 25th October 2026

Exploring places, whether they be woods, moorland, old quarries, derelict buildings or locations which exist only in the imagination, fascinates young and old alike. Most of it is inquisitiveness, but there’s a sense of adventure too, and, to the more inventive at least, an element of escapism.

It’s the latter sentiment that made me want to paint my mural, and it at least had a part in the above picture, which I completed in 1987. It was commissioned by a mate of mine, who, along with his girlfriend, had just bought a house. It was in need of extensive renovation before they could even move in, and the lad, Robert (who sadly died of cancer some years ago), asked me to paint an appropriate picture for him. He wanted it to be of a ‘big old house set back among gardens and trees’ and with a drive leading up to it from between a pair of stone gateposts which should bear the name of the house, ‘Shambles’.

Rob had been a good friend over the years, and, despite my strong disinclination to work of any kind, I was willing to take on the job. The idea appealed to me. I was somewhat reminded of the famous opening lines to Rebecca, the Daphne du Maurier novel:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.

No smoke came from the chimney, and the little lattice windows gaped forlorn. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done, but as I advanced I was aware that a change had come upon it; it was narrow and unkept, not the drive that we had known…

I love opening descriptions like that. How can you put down a book which starts in such a way? Though the painting Robert had asked me to do wasn’t quite the same, it gave the same urge to explore, albeit initially in my imagination. The transition to a painting (poster paints on paper, for those who are interested in such things) lost some of the detail, as these things do when one’s skills don’t match one’s ambitions, but it still contained the essential feel. He wanted trees for example, but since a traumatic experience with a painting done at school which had featured a large tree in full foliage I have never done one since. I still feel uncomfortable talking about it, despite years of therapy. Well, there was one in my mural, but that was dead and almost without branches, so it didn’t present me with the same difficulties. He also wanted it to be in autumn, with dead leaves over the ground, but by the time I’d got to the foreground I felt some yellowing grass to be sufficient. Painting the individual leaves on the rhododendrons lining the driveway had exhausted me and my initial zeal was beginning to wane. I won’t dwell on the painstaking care needed to do each stone on the house itself, but I was reminded of an episode in the BBC series Dad’s Army, in which the WW2 Home Guard group are trapped at the top of a building, the local lighthouse I think. Their spirits are not improved as Fraser relates a story – in his lugubrious Scottish accent – of how two lighthousemen are similarly stuck at the top of their lighthouse when the stairs collapse; the only way they were able to escape was to take it down ‘brick b’brick’, a process which, if my memory serves me correctly, took several months. But I’m wandering again…

Incidentally, before anyone should be tempted to make any jokes about the big balls on the gateposts, I should like to point out that these came from the entrance to Errwood Hall, an old ruin up on the moors a few miles away. The turret housing a spiral stair (a spiral staircase is essential in a Mysterious House, even though you can’t actually see it in this case – please use your imagination) came from several church towers in the area – there was even one in my old school, though it was no longer in use when I went there. The ivy-covered wing of the house was also a feature of my school, but the burnt-out upper room in the other wing was, I am anxious to assure you, a product of my mind. The pool which reflects the house is there because I couldn’t think of what else to put there; there would have been a large tree beyond it but for the aforementioned Problem I have. The central dormer window with the bits of broken glass conceals a deranged relative, because a madwoman in the attic is also an important thing to have in an old building. She was probably the one who started the fire, now I come to think about it. The front door in the centre can’t be used because the hallway behind is blocked with old furniture – the solitary occupant (apart from the madwoman, who is either his aunt or his wife) uses one of the back or side doors on the rare occasions when he leaves the house. He himself is a lonely, embittered man, made hostile and rancorous by years of abuse by critics of his writing; he is an Englishman of a semi-aristocratic family, probably with a dark moustache. The ground floor room on the right contains a library, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with musty old books which no one has read for years. This is where the owner spends most of his time, dwelling on the past, morosely poring over critical reviews. His bedroom is directly above, the ceiling of which is constantly damp because of the hole in the tiles which allows rainwater to stream into the attic. The house is haunted of course, by the ghost of a young woman who walks the length of the corridor across the front of the first floor – no one knows why.

I was quite pleased with it on the whole, despite it failing to match my original ideal. When you only do a painting every few years it’s a relief simply to get anything completed. Robert was certainly happy enough with it, which is what counted.

Aha! Saying that reminds me of something. A minor excursion before I leave. About four years after completing the painting… well, I’ll let my diary tell you:

Rob said he’d taken that painting I’d done for him down town to have something fixed – I think it had slipped down in the frame or something – and when, after a week, he still hadn’t heard from them, he went down to see what had happened. He found that the shop had put it on display in the window! Bloody cheek!

I’ll leave you now. Please feel free to customise the house to suit your own tastes, and possibly do some repair work on it while you’re there. But whatever you do, take great care before opening the door to the cellar…