On the way home..........

[Stuuullaaa]

Do any of you lot ever pass through a town or village on the way or way home from work that reminds you of the general period of which The War Of The Worlds is set? I pass through a village called Avebury, which is famous for its medieval stones (a bit like Stonehenge), it also has a lot of old, small barns & Tudor looking houses. By looking at these buildings & country side, it makes me imagine of how a place like this would look, for instance, cover in Red Weed or Handling Machines ransacking the buildings for food or humans!!

[Topaz]

ogilvy said:

Do any of you lot ever pass through a town or village on the way or way home from work that reminds you of the general period of which The War Of The Worlds is set?

Well, no. Finding a home or building more than about thirty years old is a bit of a chore around here...

[Commandingtripod]

Nothing like that in Hastings or the Mornington Peninsula that I've spotted so far.
I'll keep looking.

[FALLINGSTAR]

I've been to Avebury Stuuullaaa and it's a great place. I actually prefer it to Stonehenge as it's more mysterious and picturesque. I remember this spooky kids programme called The Children of the Stones from many years ago and I think that was filmed there.

[malfunkshun]

well growing up in the backwoods of the US, we didnt' see a lot of stone houses or tudor style architecture, but i have seen a lot of water towers that remind me of martian tripods

[Stuuullaaa]

Nice

[Stuuullaaa]

Just imagine JW's 'Red Weed' picture - well the setting at Avebury isn't to dissimilar to that - not so much the stones, but the period buildings & barns & rolling fields etc...& also, I think there's some pylons dotted around, so Poyks, you'd love it!

[Lensman]

No, very few parts of of U.S. suburbs look like southeastern Victorian England...

[Stewymartian]

Surely Tudor buildings are too early? I always picture the scenes in the book against a backdrop of red brick victorian terraces. Here in Wellington there are a lot of houses (mine included) that were built in the 1890's. Many of these homes remind me of the buildings that the narrator and the Curate used to hide from the Martians. I often find myself imagining what it would be like to be walking down those roads, looking out for the silouette of a fighting machine above the houses, or breaking into one of them to escape the black smoke or the eye of a roving Martian.

[Stuuullaaa]

yeah, I suppose you're right Stewymartian, but I suppose I was thinking in terms of the Red Weed picture - I see what you mean though

[Lensman]

stewymartian said:

Surely Tudor buildings are too early? I always picture the scenes in the book against a backdrop of red brick victorian terraces. Here in Wellington there are a lot of houses (mine included) that were built in the 1890's.

In the U.S. there is a great deal of tearing down the old to build the new. In England houses tend to last longer. In Wells' time there would have been plenty of Tudor style houses, as well as Georgian and Queen Anne (aka Tudorbethan), and then-modern Victorian designs.

[mctoddridesagain]

lensman said:

No, very few parts of of U.S. suburbs look like southeastern Victorian England...

Very few parts of southeastern England look like southeastern Victorian England...

I've been through Woking on the train a couple of times in recent months, and the view from the railway line looks like any other small town that's been taken over by crappy office buildings and crappier shopping centres.

[Luperis]

Pretty much the whole of the Isle of Man is Victorian style housing... Ok, that's a little bit of an exaggeration... but there is a lot of it. Many of the buildings on Douglas promanade are the well-maintained and renevated old Victorian ones, and we even still have working horse trams and steam trains from the Victorian Era. Some areas have been used in period movies. I guess we just can't be bothered to change it.

[Stewymartian]

lensman said:

stewymartian said:

In the U.S. there is a great deal of tearing down the old to build the new. In England houses tend to last longer. In Wells' time there would have been plenty of Tudor style houses, as well as Georgian and Queen Anne (aka Tudorbethan), and then-modern Victorian designs.

Not really. Most Tudor buildings were made of wood and were not intended to last and were mostly gone by the Victorian era. The only ones that survived were the grander manor houses and palaces that were built of brick or stone, and even a lot of these would have sufffered during the civil war and were substantially rebuilt.

The tudor population was also smaller, so even if those structures had survived they would have been outnumbered in the 1890's by the amount of building that had gone on to cope with the population explosion of the 1800's.

[Mr Death Ray]

I live in Shepperton


I'm actually right next to the church mentioned in the book.

[Thunder Child]

Do you have any pictures of the Shepperton locations from the book?

[Mr Death Ray]

Heres a photo of the church taken in 1890.



The old church square.



The river, 1890.

[Lensman]

stewymartian said:

Not really. Most Tudor buildings were made of wood and were not intended to last and were mostly gone by the Victorian era.

Please note I did not say "Tudor era" houses. I said Tudor *style* houses. Altho perhaps some or most of what is commonly called "Tudor" style is actually Tudorbethan.

[Thunder Child]

Thanks for the pics GH!!!

I must admit that the tower and the river are much smaller then I've imagined ;D Do you have any pics of Shepperton Lock?

[Thunder Child]

Just found this one with Google: