IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Minster Way, SLOUGH, SL3 7EY

Seen from the churchyard. I don't know who manages these almshouses these days, but they seem to be in use as sheltered accommodation for active old folk - not so very different from their original purpose. This is the porch at the middle of the row - I can see a red umbrella, and it looks as if somebody likes a bit of gardening. My only reservation is this: when you get old, would you choose to wake up each morning looking out at the churchyard ?

These little 17th century cottages (they date from about 1680) still serve much their original purpose - as accommodation for old people. Architecturally, the red-brick parts are vernacular in style, much as they would have been if built a century earlier. The chimney stacks are set diagonally, as they would have been in Tudor times. But the doorways and the two-storey porch are a bit more 'architectural' - there is some Classical influence. Those down-pipes seem a bit out of character - mightn't it be better to paint them black ? In earlier days there may have been chutes projecting from the eaves to throw rainwater clear - as at Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire: Image For a view from the road see http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2309314

These almshouses stand on the north side of the churchyard, while the somewhat older Kederminster almshouses stand on its south side http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2309292. The two sets of buildings are generally similar - redbrick cottages, with gabled dormers. An inscription on the Kederminster buildings dates them to 1617, while these are said to date from the 1670's and 80's http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-38733-12-14-16-18-20-22-slough. For a view from the churchyard see: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2310827

Viewed from the north.