SHELF LIFE
t the age of 12, John Wardle went exploring the banks of the Barwon River in New South Wales, Australia. He stumbled across a building site. An old farmhouse was being torn down. But, in the centre of the demolition stood, like an oasis, an ancient home. ‘I remember seeing, right in the middle, this beautiful, original, timber-shingled, single-room cottage,’ Wardle says. The farmhouse had been built in stages over generations around the timber cottage, like a Russian doll. ‘They must have been adding and building around it again and again
