After I made Lavender Hill my home in 2012, I slowly began to discover its beginnings including finding a storyboard of photos taken between “October 1990 – July 1993”.
Developed and built by Frank and Elizabeth “B”, when they first viewed the property, Lavender Hill was nothing but bare land but they fell in love with it and had a vision for its future.
I thought it would be interesting to try to recreate some of the storyboard photos from the 1990s today in 2012 ….
More from the storyboard:
However it wasn’t until early 2015 when I met Frank B who introduced himself as Barney at the 2015 Durham Herb Fair. It was my first year at the Herb Fair and I had had taken a table inside the back door of the Community Hall. Towards the end of the Fair and while engaging in friendly banter with a ‘local’ I discovered that Barney was Frank! Well from that point forward and continuing to today it was like we were old friends and we chatted and chatted long past the Fair’s closing time. Not long after I had the pleasure of meeting Elizabeth (Liz) and their gorgeous Irish Wolf Hounds (Hoover and Betsy).
They are lovely people living off the grid. Barney and Liz have been generous with their time and we’ve formed a great friendship. I invited them to visit Lavender Hill not long after the 2015 Herb Fair and I had the most wonderful afternoon listening and learning as they reminisced over cups of tea about their time @ Lavender Hill.
We had many more visits and chats over the years; conversations about the land, about solar panels, inverters and battery banks, about dogs, about lavender and about “Lavender Hill Organics” under which they grew and sold lavender plants at the Durham Herb Fair where Barney and I first met.
In addition to growing and selling lavender plants, Lavender Hill Organics was well-known for its Lavender Marmalade. And in Spring 2015 Barney and Liz gifted their Lavender Marmalade Recipe to me. Today Lavender Hill Hippie is honoured to carry on the Lavender Hill tradition of making and selling lavender marmalade using Lavandula angustifolia harvested from the Lavender that still grows on our land today.
In 2017, on March 26th, I had a lovely afternoon with Liz and Barney the original owner/builders of Lavender Hill as together we marked Lavender Hill’s 25th Anniversary…our friendship continues…
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