Photograph by Edwin Smith

Farmhouse, Devonshire, 1954

I forgot to record the exact location of this when I printed it. If this house still exists then I don't doubt that it has been extensively 'modernised' and is now home to an expensive 4x4 that rarely gets mud on its tyres.

Edwin's excursions through the English countryside in the middle of the last century allowed him to capture a domestic architecture and rural existence that vanished very quickly in the years that followed. The cottages and farmhouses, their interiors and occupants' way of life are now just a part of social history. Pigs and chickens still graze though - if they are lucky.