Kensal Rise mum creates 'fairy house' on a chopped down tree stump

A "lovely" tree outside Thelma Doyle's home in Hardinge Road had to be cut down due to subsidence on her property last year.

But rather than leave it there as a sorry reminder of what came before, the mum-of-two has decorated it.

Passers by are invited to find a pier and lighthouse on the Hardinge Road Fairy Stump House (Image: Thelma Doyle)

The Hardinge Road Fairy Stump House has its own Facebook page as the scenes change with every season.

The stump currently has a seaside scene made from "random odds and ends" and "recycled bits".

Passers by are invited to find the pier, the lighthouse, the shark, the fishing boat, the ice cream stall among other things.

"I had the idea, instead of leaving an ugly stump for years and years, to make it into a Fairy Stump House based on a book from my childhood, given to me in 1955 when I was five," Thelma said.

The book, Story Time in the Land of Nowhere, is still in her possession.

"I can remember every word – almost of it. It's a real 1950s style book, based on two children who find an old map of the local woods in their attic.

"They follow the trail till they come to the last oak, where they knock on the door and an elf opens it, takes them inside and they go down into the roots to the Land of Nowhere.

"My two daughters and I think of the themes as the seasons go by and update as necessary.

"We buy hardly anything but just craft things from random odds and ends in our house – mostly recycling bits.

"The things stay not too bad condition in the elements but eventually things become a bit tatty.

"We try not to use paper," she added.

Thelma said she lives opposite a nursery school and "many children come to visit the stump at 9.10am".

"We get great happiness for the fun it gives as we love children and hope to give them pleasure by something simple that costs nothing.

"We just hope that the council don't take our stump away."