Mystery Wall in Village

As you wander around the village, I wonder if you have ever noticed the 'Mystery Wall'?

No ideas what I am taking about? (Now you know how my wife feels on a daily basis.)

The Mystery Milford Wall
click image to enlarge

Well, coming out of The Red Lion the other night, I turned right, and walked smack bang into a brick wall. 

Picking up my dazed head & broken body, I could hear my wife's concern as she said; "Only an idiot like you could not see a wall coming". "It's OK love, nothing's broken, I'll be fine" I replied sarcastically, and then managed to get out of the way just as her handbag whizzed past my head.

I thought I must have walked into a building by mistake. ...But, I hadn't, I had walked into a random wall sticking out on to the pavement.

Still smarting, I took a mature approach and made useless statements like; 'Who put that there then", "What a stupid place to put a wall" and "If I had seen it, I could have used my SAS training and vaulted over it". 

High Street Shop
with Mystery Wall on right

I kid you not, I suspect you will have walked past this 'Mystery Wall' in the village many times, and not even realised it was even there.

On closer inspection the wall obviously has no structural purpose, it is definitely not holding anything up. (Apart from me, the split second after I walked into it.)

One side of the wall is rendered, whilst the the other is plain brick, ...how weird.

So, why is it there?

Well, your intrepid reporter decided to don his deerstalker hat, and to disguise our dog as a bloodhound, in order to resolve the mystery. 

However, ...I couldn't find the deerstalker, (probably because I never had one), and our dog just looked at me with doleful eyes as I fitted her with a brandy barrel around her neck. She had realised, much sooner than I had, that it is the St. Bernard rescue dog that has the brandy. (A bit of luck that she can't talk, I bet she would have had a great time gleefully telling my wife.)

click image to enlarge

As I did not have a pipe to make her into a real bloodhound, to her relief, I gave up.

Plan B. Forget dressing up to go out investigating, grab a whisky and settle at the keyboard for some desk research.

click image to enlarge

After a few painstaking hours, and a few pleasurable refills, I sort of cracked it. By saying 'cracked it', I actually mean I have made up what I think may be the most logical answer.

The early 1900's pictures to the left appear to show a shop front, where now only the 'Mystery Wall' remains. So, it appears that when the shop front was removed, someone decided to just leave part of the wall standing lonely and proud on its own.

It might have been left to stop people blindly walking, and then falling down The Red Lion's cellar hatch which is about two metres away. Not much of an explanation I know, but best I could come up with.

I suspect it will only be a matter of time before someone corrects me with needless facts. (Then again, when have facts made a story interesting?!)  As Mark Twain said to me when we were at school together: "Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story."