Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’

I recently happened upon these ‘twin Dutch Billys’ while on holiday. The relaxed attitude to spacing and also the willingness to use more than one width on a single facade is somewhat confusing. The facade of this full-blown ‘Billy’ on the right may have been rebuilt & shows slightly wider dimensions but the guts of the ‘Billy’ remain intact, the exact arrangement of the original is currently uncertain, at first glance the two appear to be original, but above that, the thatch on the left is pretty clearly not original & seems to have been demonstrably altered, maintaing a more recent platted makeshift style, Nor for that matter is the bejewelled ‘parapit’ on the right ‘Billy’ which shows evidence of shoddy workmanship & poor quality materials. The rear elevation and characteristic hipped return is intact with the only major modification being the lowering of the pitch of the ‘parapet’, but the front facade betrays no particular evidence of the two ‘Billys’ origins which appear to have been altered & interfered with in the relatively recent past. The left single structure has a curious, narrow hipped facade directly below the ‘parapet’, making one wonder if this is a later insertion resulting from the removal of an earlier more sofisticated frame . The curvilinear billy to the right is grand, but nonetheless typical of its type, although there’s obvious signs of severe smoke damage to both, perhaps they should be registered and put on the record of classic ‘Billy’ protected structures.