My father loved a good natter and I was born & grew up in Hull (a major sea-port in the East of England); these are two of my excuses for being able to talk the hind legs off a donkey. I do find it, however, to be a major asset whilst mapping as long as it is married with active listening (as we shall see shortly).

It was perfectly normal in my youth to strike up a conversation with a perfect stranger at a bus-stop. Or rather, normal for Hull. Indeed, on one of my first visits to London as a teenager (late 1960s) I was blanked by someone when I asked for directions, and was so upset by their ignorance that I chased after them & said in a loud voice “EXCUSE ME ..!”. I quickly learnt that such stand-offish behaviour was normal for London.

Nottingham is halfway between Hull & London and is capable of displaying either kind of reaction (warm or cold, with Hull as a warm place & London as most cold) (which makes Nottingham a bit tepid, of course). Nottingham folks have proven to respond very readily to my questions about their neighbourhood and have indulged my nosiness (another vital personal asset) without a qualm once they have settled themselves to my reasons. Intelligence supplied from householders is the very best asset for every mapper.

Today’s small snippet of such intelligence concerns a rockery protected by CC&R (a small bet: that this is the only one like this on the UK map).

CC&R:

Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs) … the rules of your neighbourhood (as found within House Deeds)

I was paying a second visit to a service road at the bottom of Anne’s Close, Porchester Gardens. The householder from the end-of-terrace house was busy with a couple of others hauling wheelbarrows along a footpath that I’d mapped on my first visit. The state of that walk at the back of the houses had to be seen to be believed:

It was therefore natural for me to ask him “Oh! Are you clearing out the walk?”. He gave me a hard stare for a few moments, then said that no, he was emptying stuff from his back garden. I explained my purpose & previous experience. He explained that for a time the walk had had gates fitted at either end & thus ended up in the state it was now in (because no-one ever walked it). I took the opportunity to ask him about the front garden.

The three end-of-terrace houses extend beyond the service road. There is a walk-up in front of those houses (the terrace ascends a slope; the hill falls away steeply below Anne’s Close). On the other side of the walk-up are concrete steps that climb steeply up to… something, presumably their garden. The top & sides of the steps were covered in so much brushwood that access was impossible. My spider senses were tingling.

The chap explained that there was a rockery on top of the steps. It was part of his & his neighbour’s land but was subject to a CC&R in the Deeds which said that it could be kept clear, but could not be removed nor built on; it was part of the house. Most odd. I knew in that moment that I was going to add it to the map. Most excellent.

Why on earth was that codicil added to the house Deeds? What was so special about that rockery?