We’ve been looking into the history of the Velarde gallery building and its surroundings and have discovered weird and interesting things about an extraordinary construction called the “Timber House” (and it’s unusual occupant) which was built apparently upside down by a local man called Mr Lavers in the early 19th century. This, alas, lost building, was directly connected to what is now the Velarde Gallery.
The erection of the Timber House apparently “reversed the usual order of things by beginning at the top and building downwards. How this extraordinary feat could be accomplished, we will not undertake to say, but will leave the problem to be worked out by those who might be curious on that head.”
Whoops. Perhaps this is why the building did not survive to this day.
Even more odd, and somewhat apt, considering the construction of the building, the Timber House had a rather unusual resident:
“Once upon a time there was a man residing in a part of this house, who kept a donkey. Although not remarkably up in the world himself, he took care that ‘mulley’ (donkey) at least should occupy an elevated position in life; and so he had his stable on the flat roof, at the very top of house, which is a high one…”
Extraordinary. So this gentlemen keeps a donkey on the roof of the building, and everyday walks it up and downstairs to the street. “The eccentric owner of the donkey also had a garden laid out on the house top.” It seems like a pretty cushy number for the donkey; he could relax, and on a good day look out across his garden at the view including his neighbour next door in what one day would become the Velarde gallery.
Velarde wishes to celebrate this bizarre piece of local history, and possibly make an ass ourselves, by placing our own donkey on the gallery studio wall so it can cast its gaze upon 86 Fore street again. The least we can do is pay due respect to Kingsbridge’s past.
Quotes from a local Kingsbridge estuary document in the Cookworthy Museum archive