Whilst driving around the country on other jobs and projects, I looked at the types of materials being used for house building. It was no use looking and photographing houses built since the Second World War because they tended to be of brick, or breeze-block rendered with plaster and either scribed with a crazy-paving pattern or painted. To get a true picture of the local materials it was necessary to look at the cottages and farmhouses as well as a local church and rectory.

I seem to remember at the time that the poorer or richer the occupant the more original the fabric of their abode... it was the middle-classes, or the nouveaux riches, who changed any vestige of originality they were fortunate enough to own, into something which they hoped said something better about their new status in the community.

However, I saw and photographed many different types of stone throughout my travels and for the past couple of decades have satisfied more than one photo request per year as a result. It seems that subjects such as this, and several of those covered by my “20 Photo Themes” are thought by most photographers to be too banal to bother with. So be it... but I have found that apart from the financial rewards of being able to supply a good selection of images of “banal” subjects... looking for and photographing them has opened my eyes to all sorts of things from appreciation of building styles, local craftsmanship, regional colour combinations, the encroachment of nature from lichens to creepers as well as the destruction of solid structures by the forces of nature. Not all of it was beautiful or attractive, though much of it was photogenic... like any photographer with a good eye, one had to be selective, as the above selection hopefully shows.