I haven’t done a Thursday Doors challenge in ages! I do have a few doors hanging around in my photo collection (which sounds an odd thing to say, I know), but just haven’t got to them each week. However, this week I’ve remembered in time and so, here are two rather lovely doors I found locally.

Both are from cottages, one Victorian, one rather older than that, given the listed building symbol on the side, plus the fact that the entrance is a couple of feet below current street level. For those of you who don’t know, a listed building is one that has been deemed to be of national importance in terms of architectural or historic interest and is included on a special register, called the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. To live in a listed building is to live in history – however, it comes with the slight caveat that any change or renovation is done under strict supervision, in order to maintain the original architectural integrity. One example of this would be replacing something like-for-like. If your windows need replacing, you can’t just call your local window person and get them to install a couple of double glazed units. Instead, you would have to get replicas of the original windows made, which is usually quite a bit more expensive. However, it means that we have some wonderful buildings preserved for posterity which, after the smash and burn mentality of the fifties and sixties, is not a bad thing.

One of the things I love about both doors is the flowers outside. The British do colourful floral arrangements like no-where else I’ve seen, and the basket and planter display are prime examples. By contrast, the hollyhocks next to the second door are are wonderfully wild, giving it a fairytale air.

And I have a small update to my Wednesday Wander post last week, about the Belarusian Memorial Chapel. On the day I published the post, I received a tweet from the architects – the building had just been voted as the Londoner’s Favourite in the New London Architecture Awards! So that was a nice bit of serendipity 🙂

This is my response to Norm 2.0’s Thursday Doors Challenge. For more doors, or to add one of your own, head over to Norm’s blog and click the link.

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