ABSTRACT
The year 1964 began for us with the excitement of building at Frilsham. We had been working on the site by ourselves for more than a year. During my absence in Africa a bulldozer had carved out the course of a driveway winding down the steep upper slope of the hillside and cleared the dense thicket of thorn trees growing on the natural ledge where we meant to build. Hitherto, the outlook from it had been a matter of guesswork. Now we could see the view that we would soon have from our windows, and it proved more splendid than we had dared to hope. Two more days with the bulldozer sufficed to broaden the ledge and throw out the spoil in two levels, one for the house and terrace and another for the surrounding lawn, both overlooking the adjoining parkland, which falls away gently into the valley of the little river Pang. We had already designed the house, which was to be prefabricated of Canadian cedar shingles and was to have two French doors opening onto the terrace and three large oriel windows facing the view. With the exact position of the house fixed, a local firm needed only to install the drainage, lay a concrete raft for the floor, and build one brick chimney. The house was delivered on a single articulated truck and erected in about ten days. It then needed to be decorated and furnished. The astonishing thing in retrospect is that it could all be done on about three years’ savings from an academic salary. It could certainly not be so done today.
