Grey card model from memory – scale 1:25 2012
Exhibited: Tiff Oben exhibition – Trefforest 2012
My Grandparents house, “Northfield” stood at Brookwood crossroads; it occupied a particular and curious location – equidistant between the crematorium and asylum. To either of these places my Grandfather would take a daily constitutional, walking in the grounds between the tombstones, mausoleums and statues or among the manicured hospital lawns, where strategic benches gave temporary resting places to troubled souls in pyjamas, dressing gowns and slippers.
Many years after “Northfield” had been left empty, overgrown, derelict and finally demolished, I was away teaching in New Zealand. One evening, in a small Maori community on the North Island I was working and chatting with one of the students, I discovered she had for a short time lived in Surrey, in the village of Brookwood.
She remembered the exact house – its state of decay and her complete fascination … a longing to explore the place she and the other children always called “The Haunted House”. I drew each room as I remembered it had looked – so that finally she could see inside.
christinemarfleet 