Austin Village Stories

Harry Blondell

Harry has lived in the village since 2001. He shared the process of building a scale replica model of an Austin Village bungalow, as it would have appeared in 1917. 

"I retired in ‘98 and we moved here in 2001. There was plenty to do, I done it all through like, that took took two or three years by the time I’d finished the house and garden, got everything how we wanted it. I was at a loss then, I can’t sit around not doing anything. I’m not a television person, so I thought, I’ll have to find something to do. 

I don’t know what actually made me do it, or think of doing it. I was in the shed one day, and I was messing about, I’d got my wood and all that in there. And I thought, I wonder if I could. Anyhow, it went from there and I started making it from scratch. I’d got one of the old books with the measurements and the plans of the original thing and I started, it snowballed then. As things went on, I got different ideas of how to do it. It took about eighteen months, two years to do it.”