Topsy turvy

The photo isn't upside down - but the graffiti is. How so?

It's not too hard to guess, and my neighbour (it's her gate post) confirmed it. This part of the wall was knocked down a few years back. The builder who repaired it reused the original bricks, just not quite in the same order.

Indelible pencil

This is one of my favourite pieces of graffiti in Linton:

A.C
A.D
1877




It's on a garden wall just down the lane from my house. Written in pencil, somehow it has withstood the elements all these years.

I've scanned the census from around that time but not found any likely candidates. A pair of initials suggests love, but who knows?

The owner of the house with the wall has lived there more than thirty years but had never spotted this tiny testament. I suspect I may be the first person to have found it since it was written - and so I feel fond of it, and protective. I stop to look at it sometimes and imagine a hand writing so carefully with a stub of pencil, nearly 140 years ago.