It doth suck, and verily doth it blow
Here’s a nicer bit of architecture: the Landgate Arch in Rye. There were originally four fortified gates into Rye, of which the Landgate (1329) is the last survivor. Unfortunately, it’s still the main route through Rye, and satnav keeps sending buses and trucks through it. They don’t fit. It’s been chipping away at the stones for years.
Worse, there’s no roof. So the council hung netting up across the top to keep birds out, which didn’t keep the birds out at all, but does occasionally tangle one up and kill it. Hence the arch is full of shit and the whole top is festooned with rotting birds. Nice.
Oh, also the clock stopped working because nobody was willing to wade through birdshit to fix it.
The town council finally needled the county council into doing stuff. These guys turned up in moon suits with a specialized truck. See that tanker? It simultaneously blows water out one hose and draws it up with another. They have hoovered up 25 tons of birdshit using this process!
I don’t know what they’re going to do to keep it from filling up with birdshit again. A roof is a possibility. I can’t help thinking that whenever we visit a ruin — if you put a roof on that thing, it would last a thousand years longer! (And you could live in it, too).
Anyway, there you go. As private owners of a listed building, we could go to jail if we neglected this place or fixed it wrong (in theory — it’s a criminal, not a civil, offense). But when government does it…
February 26, 2015 — 9:10 pm
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