The cottages on the green

[Marlborough_Nan]

I dont know if this is the right board but it didnt feel like chat. There are three cottages dark on our green now, curtains down, gardens gone to nettles. The Pratt place and the two beside it. A firm bought them, solicitors, the letters come from London, nobody you could put a face to. Nobody local. They just sit there empty. It gives me a cold feeling, three houses with no lights, and I cant rightly say why.

[Cherhill_Bill]

its land agents nan. london money buys cheap in the quiet villages and sits on it, holiday lets or waiting for the planning to turn. depressing but it aint a mystery, its just money. half the county's going the same way.

[Avebury_Janet]

It is very likely money, Bill. But Nan's cold feeling is the right one even so. A village is its lived-in houses, and when they go dark one by one and nobody new ever comes, something is being lost that the money does not show on paper. I am sorry about the green, Nan.

[Marlborough_Nan]

Nobody knows who the firm is, Janet, that is the part. You write to the address and a different name signs the reply each time. I asked at the post office, and even Brenda couldnt trace who is behind it, and Brenda can trace anybody. There. I have said it and I feel daft. Probably just money, like Bill says.