This is a picture in the Imperial War Mueum by Australian-born Henry Lamb. He was born in Adelaide, where his father was professor of mathematics at the university, in 1883.
On Friday we had lunch outside in the square at La Romieu. The village gets its name, likening it to Rome, from its magnificent church and the Collégiale St. Pierre, a 14th-century cloister with a tower (above).
The Boileau Arms sat on the south side of Hammersmith Bridge at the beginning of Castelnau Road. Since the 1980s it has changed hands and name many times and is now The Castelnau. All this is terrifically relevant to Gascony where Castelnau is a common place name.
It is a few years since I visited Auch and its magnificent cathedral. It has eighteen windows by Arnaud de Môles. If I saw this glass in an English church I would label it Victorian but I’d be wrong, big time.
The French are better at preserving their architectural heritage than the English. Gascony (aka the Gers) teems with bastide towns built from the 12th to the 14th centuries.
I expect you have had some bad experiences with builders. Cobby found that they had built the fireplace off-centre in his drawing room. (He is the sort of person that could never have a lounge or a sitting room.)