LASSCO Three Pigeons in the snow

8th January 2007: Overnight sees a significant snowfall at Milton Common and The Chilterns. It is enough to halt work in the gardens. The villages look beautiful in the snow.

The facade of The Three Pigeons: the lack of snow on the roof betrays a woeful lack of insulation as the heat escapes during the improvements in the attic. The replacement of the decrepid water tanks, the cleaning out of years of detritus and dust and the replacement of some rotten rafters and purlins is underway. The attics are currently being re-insulated and boarded. Weather allowing, the entire pub will be repainted. The awful stippled render is nearly impossible to remove without damage to the brickwork so will be re-painted a more suitable colour. The laying out of the Pub Garden and Tower Garden is under way. The Tower Garden is pegged out and the centre of the Pub Garden is still a mass of pallets still to be unpacked. With four inches of snow overnight work stops.
The Uffizi Boar, now lined up with a pair of gate-posts sits resolutely wih a faceful of snow.
The "Main Drive" ends with "The Octogan" centred by a sundial and backed by the stone Oculus window that used to look down on Threadneedle Street. It seems essential when laying out, to define your roads and give them names ... otherwise you're lost.
Lola and her sister Bola enjoy the snow enormously.

Early Days

It's a dry day but note the puddle at the front of the pub ... a short shower and this quickly develops into an impressive lake that, given half an hour breeches the cellar trap door and a waterfall ensues!


The two Black Poplars overshadowing the Coach House. Rycote Lane used to run through where the building now stands before its route was moved in the 1930's. Three Parish boundaries meet at the gate to the right between the Coach House and the pub itself. The Coach house is in a different parish to The Three Pigeons. It is likely that the Milton Common gibbet stood on the intersection just beyond the two trees.

The main gate. Ant appears stage right.

The scrub in the foreground conceals layers and even pits of rufuse. The bushes to the left have grown up around dilapidated sheds.

Jarek (l) ant Ant (r) atop the flat roof contemplate the mess.

View from the roof towards the water tower

View from the Main gate across the wasteland that is still being promoted out front as a "pub garden".
The East facade of the pub and the kitchen door. The chef is not one to go far from the kitchen door when it coms to hurling kitchen waste into the undergrowth. A beautifully constructed well has since been discovered just the other side of the fence.
The Coach House.
Once Upon A Time in South Oxfordshire, Jarek (l) and Ant(r), having seen the condition in which the cellars and kitchens are kept, don't stop for lunch. The pub is still open until the end of October when LASSCO takes possession.