Heritage asset and liability simultaneously The poor old Church of England is getting bad press again. And in this case it certainly deserves it - or at least some individuals on Parochial Church Councils (PCCs) do. Apparently around 250 PCCs are using a medieval law that allows them to register 'Chancel Repair Liability' against properties that have this provision in their deeds. This anachronistic law requires the owners of certain houses to pay for the upkeep of the local church - sometimes it can be  single household that in principle is responsible for this liability. This is appalling, ridiculous behaviour, which to be honest I don't blame the Church of England as a whole for, but rather those PCCs. I know something of these, as I was on one accidentally for 3 years when I was in my 20s (don't ask) and sadly PCCs, like parish councils (think Vicar of Dibley ) all too often seem to get frequented by the kind of committee-loving person who really hasn't...

You may remember Stig of the Dump . I have a feeling that some of the small children who live near us think that we live not in a rubbish dump, but in our garage. It's not a totally mad assumption on their part. Our house backs onto a sort of mews lane, and our garage is situated on this lane, rather than the road our house is on. So when we go out in the car, rather than on foot, we walk down the garden, pass through the garage and emerge through the garage door. This makes it quite a reasonable hypothesis that we've spent our time sitting in the garage before we opened the door. It would certainly explain the strange looks we sometimes get from the smaller children. However I ought to stress that they are wrong. We do not live in that garage. No, really, we don't. (I must move that lawn mower, it's getting in the way of my computer keyboard...)

A while ago I blogged about Clegg Hall near Littleborough, where I grew up. All my lifetime it has been a ruin, a sad remnant of what it once was. When I was young I fantasized about making my fortune and one day coming back to restore it. The 'before' photo to the right here is what it looked like in 1999. Thanks to Nick Pickvance for sending me photos including the one below of the hall in its shiny new 2009 state - remarkably, someone really has restored a building that has been abandoned for decades. It does look rather splendid, though it has lost a couple of its best architectural features - and there still seems to be a row of weavers' cottages right next to it - though given the history of the area, this isn't inappropriate. So I raise a virtual glass in honour of whoever undertook this remarkable effort. You can find more about Clegg Hall, its history and its boggart in this article .