ODD SHORT DREAMS – 2021 -
Sarah Hartwell
These are just odd short dreams which made an impression on me through very vivid scenes or strong emotions.
TRUSSELCOTE
Dream - October 2022
It’s funny how the old and the new can rub shoulders, barely aware of each other. If I walk along the cycle-path between the 19th Century red-brick wall and the canal (yes, the cycle-path used to be the tow-path), past 2 passing places and crossed the bridge, where the wall ended, to my left I was on a path between the untidy back yards of a terrace of buildings. And if I continued along this path, through the covered alley-way between two of those building, I was in the village of Trusselcote.
With the multi-paned, whit framed, bowed windows of the knick-knack shop to my right and the large pane of the greengrocer to my left, with the step, doorway and shop sign all in dull blue, and the half-timbered buildings opposite, this appeared to be a lovely village. It was spoiled by the busy road through the village, being on a main route towards London. A little further to my left, the main road turned to the left. A narrower road branched off of it to the right and into the quieter part of the village. At the junction was a small triangular green area with a sign proclaiming this to be Oak Ash Green, the official name of the village everyone called Trusselcote.
A short stroll to my right took me to the old church, now disused and fallen into disrepair. Its main doorway was framed by large black oak, of which only the lower parts remained. It was older than Trusselcote, the village having been built up around it. Sometime in the past someone had carved the face of a cat, three-quarters profile, into the right hand door post and added the legend Maulnificent. To the right of the old church was a small glass-roofed arcade made of elaborate wrought iron; in a quieter age it offered a dry place for a weekly market. Above the entrance to the arcade, on a half-moon of glass was picked out the word “TRUSSELCOTE” in black.
Back through the covered alley between the back yards, used for storage by the shops and rooms above them, over the bridge which spanned the lazy stream that had once been the main route of the river before it was straightened into a canal, and I’d left Trusselcote and was back in town, full of its more industrial architecture and concrete buildings.
Trusselcote was a village that wasn’t really a village. In the 1800s, two competing developers had built housing estates either side of the canal. Each had designed a housing development that looked like a village. Oak Ash Green, built by Mr. Trusselcote (hence it was known by both names – Oak Ash Green and The Trusselcote estate) was built with a mix of styles to make it look like a village that had grown up over several hundred years. The old church, which had once stood on the common outside town, had been incorporated into the new “village.” Across the greensward, on the other side of the canal was the Danforth estate which was more uniform in style, with more redbrick housing, a cricket or athletics green and no pretence at being a village that abutted and expanding town.