Golders Green and Hampstead

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Wigan and Warrington

Warrington (Cheshire) is nicer than Wigan but quite frankly there's not much in it. Wigan was more red brick and Warringtom more stucco but that was about it. Both had fine town halls but Warrington's had nice gates and looked like an old mansion. Wigan's was red brick and looked like a town hall.

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As far as I could see Wigan had no museum although there was a 'school of mines' sign above one of the doors of the town hall. Warrington had a museum, a real victorian gem with mummies shrunken heads and all sorts of things relating to Warrington and the wider world. Stuffed animals abounded in a recreated curator's office. It was worth going to see.

Eastbourne and Berwick, Sussex

A visit to Eastbourne with an old friend from a long time ago!

Firstly to Seaford head for the finest view in Sussex - the seven sisters.

Eastbourne is a pleasant seaside town where I havent spent much time, being more aware of brasher Brighton. But Eastbourne is rather pleasant and I think I might try spending a bit more time there.

Finally a visit to Berwick church - decorated by the Bloomsbury set who had a farm - Charltons - nearby. I wonder what the farming community thought when they came to church one Sunday and found their church redecorated?

Luton Beds

Luton is not a place to inspire one. The home of CWS Lutona cocoa and chocolate, the straw hat industry and lately the the Luton Bedford Van. Even though the inhabitants burnt down the Town Hall in 1919 - yes 1919 - it's not marvelous.
So Town Hall Riots: a penny pinching council had a peace celebration. Unfortunately the banquet was for councillors only with no ex servicemens organisations or others involved in the war effort. No wonder they rioted. The town clerk - in a despearte attempt to avoid blame, blamed drunkennes. I suppose he might have been drunk.



The church is interesting - charismatic and lively in a meadieval building with this curious baptistry standing 20 ft high!

The beautiful magnificat window is a fine example of stained glass art.

At Stockwood park with a very fine carriage collection there is a sculpture garden. All the sculptures are unlabelled and allowed to be come upon by chance in the garden. The picture shows one of the finest of these.

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Epping Upland Church

A short walk from Epping station to Epping upland to see the picturesque church, unfortunately it was not open. This is the ancient church of Epping.

On the way there I disturbed a small flock of goldfinshes- I don't think I've ever seen so many.

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It was well worth the trip and maybe I'll go back on Sunday for tea there.

London Open House

This weekend is always a rush around to see some great places and, of course a weekend’s never long enough to see what you really want to see. I spent my weekend in the North East corner of London, Barking, Havering and Redbridge boroughs.

First port of call was Barking Town Hall where there was access to the council chamber Mayor’s parlour and committee rooms. Designed in the 1930s and built in the 1950s it was opened by Dame Evelyn Sharpe. After this I went to see the Barking Parish Church dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch, which incorporates the ruins of Barking Abbey in its churchyard. There was a lot going on here and I was taken into the only building left standing of the old Barking abbey – the curfew tower. This tower incorporated a little chapel and on old stone reredos. I went back to have a look at the church with its new extension as cafe and bookshop. This new extension looked exactly as the church must have looked when it was new and was a marvellous addition to the church. The friendly members of the congregation took me round to see the high points, including a window dedicated to fishermen and some carvings of figures from Barking’s history. I followed that up with watching a demonstration of bellringing.

I eventually left the church just after 11 and walked to the East side of barking to see St Patrick’s church. I was expecting a Roman Catholic one but it was Church of England, with a very unusual tower that reminded me of a gun emplacement!

The glory of the church was the reredos which was beautiful. Three bands of ornament run up to the ceiling and the paintwork in blue was glorious.

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The outside was similar to St Saviours Eltham and the clergy and congregation very welcoming.

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After seeing the ultra modern church it was back to the past with Eastbury Manor. A fine Tudor house in the middle of a council estate. There were some wall paintings and a turret staircase that was made of large blocks of ancient oak. All the Tudor stuff was there with chimneys and bottle glass windows in the turret, some old rafters in the roof space etc.

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After Eastbury off to Romford to see the Havering Town Hall. The council chamber here had been modernised but still pleasant but the Mayor’s parlour was a bit better than Dagenham, with lots of gifts presented on the opening of the place in 1937.

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After that I went off to Dr Barnardo’s Childrens village in Barkingside. Built in a cottage homes style it looked rather like a well ordered model village complete with childrens church

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with small pews and good examples of biblical children in the stained glass including David, and Moses being found in the reeds. There are even bells in the church rung by a chiming mechanism and very nice they sounded. The church was given by an anonymous donor whose name is now lost to history.
The village is no longer a childrens home but does house retired or sick Barnado’s staff and is their main head office. A display in one of the cottages gives information on the village work and shows the rather spartan living conditions the children had although this was no doubt much better than the living conditions they would have had if they were not in the home.

Another visit this weekend was to St Mary’s church Wanstead with its 18th century box pews and stained glass Royal Arms. This was a great treat to see.

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Museum of London in Docklands

An interesting and huge branch of the Museum of London in the heart of Docklands, that tells the story of the Port of London from Roman times to the present day. Definitely worth a look.

The pictures are of St Peters Barge, St Peters barge the church on a boat and another boat in the dock.

Ruxley apiary

A visit to the outer edges of Greater London to see an apiary in action.
Ruxley is almost as far away from London as you can get without being in Kent, and it is there that the Ruxley Beekeepers (the Association was founded in Eltham) have their club apiary. They meet on most Saturday afternoons and this Saturday the work to be carried out was treatment for the varroa destructor mite with thymol. Visitors were split into two groups - those who had never seen a beehive before and the more experienced. I was with the newbies who went of to have a look at one of the hives having donned a veil and tunic. The hive was an amazing colony with workers, and a queen and literally a hive of activity. It was fascinating to see the bees, who contrary to popular belief did not attempt to sting, not that they could sting me dressed up in the tunic and veil.

I couldn't taake pictures of the bees all veiled up and wanted to listen to the talk anyway but here is a picture of the apiary in its rural setting

Hall Place

Another visit to Hall Place, Bexley. Since I was last there the place has been done up and is rather more of museum than a function suite. There was also rather more interpretation.

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When the last occupant died, Bexley council were expecting to get a house they had already purchased and the contents which they hadn't. The tenant had instructed in her will that the contents were to be sold in aid of Coventry Cathedral, and they duly were sold to assist, no doubt, in the rebuilding. Most of the furnishing these days comes from Anne of Cleeves House in Lewes.

Lammas day and some lammas lands

A lammas day visit to Leytonstone. Lammas day is the first of August and is a commemoration of the first wheat harvest. Traditionally where there were lammas lands the local peasantry could graze animals from lammas day until 25th March.

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St Andrews Under Gherkin

St Andrews undershaft in the city was so named because it used to be underneath an enormous maypole. Maypole dancing was the rave of its time, ruthlessly supressed because of illegal drinking, perhaps substances and almost certainly sexual shenanigans. At the same time, just like rave, when the authorities turned up it was usually almost over.


Today the church nestles in the shade not of a maypole but the gherkin, and is used by St Helens, Bishopsate.

Morden to Crystal Palace

Morden is the terminus of the northern line and the begining of the st Hellier Estate named after Lady St Hellier, of the London County Council, not the capital of Jersey. It's a large interwar cottage estate with fairly generous cottages and flats, mostly privatised. There's a big co-op at Rose Hill.
The other end of St Hellier is Carshlton Village. It's much posher here and they go rather a bundle on Anne Boleyn whose family were the local nobs. There is a well next to the church (All Saints) called Anne Boleyn's well but it is dry and completely obscured with planting. It is said that where here horse kicked, a spring welled up. A plaque states that this is unlikely and it is probably more likely to be Bullen's Well, after the Lord of the Manor.

Beyond Carshalton (allegedly pronounced case horton although I don't know anybody who does) is Croydon. It's easy to be sniffy about Croydon but the library is good with bound copies of Punch from first to last and other bound journals, like The Builder from the twenties and thirties. My goal was shopping which was frustrating.
Journeys end was the Crystal Palace, Norwood, via anerley.

London E3

Fooled you - this post is not about Bow, it is rather the route of the E3 'bus as it wids its way through the Borough of Ealing from Greenford to Acton where I got off in the middle of a very violent electrical storm where I got soaked to the skin.
Don't confuse Greenford with where the tube sation bearing that name is. The tube station bit is all rather industrial, but the centre of the suburb is quite pleasant with shops(including charity shops) including one very disorganised one in support of dementia. The library was a refurbished building of 1934 and sat next to the Police station and clinic in a little civic group with Greenford Hall (four rooms available for almost any function). Ravenor park was green with a play area and not much else although it was home to the London Motorcycle museum closed when I called, although Diamond Geezer calls it a gem.

Enough already! Time to get the E3 to Greenford Avenue for the photo that appears on the other blog and walk through the dignified housing estate perhaps called castlebar park. On to Hanwell with its unrefurbished Carnegie library dating from 1906.
There was even a picture of Andrew Carnegie in there but it looked as though refurbishment was needed. Hanwell had a curious clock surrounded by workmens barriers
and was home to both the Westminster City and the Kensington Cemeteries. The Westminster cemetery was brash and austentatious as befits a cemetery serving both Soho and theatreland (one and the same really) and the Kensington cemetery was much more discreet as befits a cemetery serving royalty.

I took my lunch in the KFC in West Ealing and walked to Northfields
with a park called Lamass Park and an unusual and early cinema converted to an Elim Pentecostal Church. It was here that the heavens opened and hail, lightning and thunder ended my journey soaked to the skin.

Bethnal Green - Globe town.

A visit to Bethnal Green to see a presentation on the Stairway to Heaven Memorial to the people killed in the Bethnal Green tube sttion disaster. I found this so moving that I don't really want to describe it here but you can take a look at stairway to heaven memorial and donate something if you wish.

The rest of the day was spent walking in Bethnal Green and Globe town with a guide to walks in Tower Hamlets. I wasn't sure what the producers of the guide were trying to show me, unless it was a general look how nice it is here, because there were some pleasant squares and courtyards and some innovative housing, although there were a lot of flats. Of interest was the first ever block erected by the William Sutton Trust, now celebrating 100 years since building.

The trust began in 1900 but only built its first estate in 1909. William Sutton allegedly let his £80million fortune (at today's prices) for housing for the poor because his second wife turned up after their honeymoon with a daughter he didn't know about! Be that as it may the trust is still going strong although like most housing associations they have had to merge with others.

More modern flats can be found nearby. These were the first cluster blocks and the architect was Denys Lasdun and was an attemp to induce a sense of belonging and a street in the sky. I'll leave it to you to decide which of this or Sutton you'd prefer, although I must say I would be torn.


My walk ended in Weavers fields where the surveilance cameras are mounted on a sculpture. Ater this I returned to Bethnal Green Library to meet a friend to search for the mouth of the Hackney brook, one of London's lost rivers as spoken about by Iain Sinclair at Gresham College last month (http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=45&EventId=886) and we discovered it! Quite impressive, although there was a British Waterways barge right in front.
Not the best picture I've taken.

Norfolk and Norwich.

Great Yarmouth to be precise - a run into the deep wilds of Norfolk's seaside. At Great Yarmouth there is a pirate themed mini golf course, with elaborate pirate ships, treasure caves and facts about pirates to help you along the 18 holes. It's rather jolly although I was about 18 over par.


Coming back to Norwich I watched Treasure Island in my hotel.

On the way back we visited Waxham great barn, a great big very old barn by the sea at Waxham.


The next day had a walk along Norwich's river, the Wensum, to Pull's Ferry

then afterwards to the Castle Museum which is pretty good with artefacts from Norwich and a very fine art collection.

Long Live Henry our King 21/06/1509

A visit by carriage to Teddington Lock to see our king sail down the Thames after his coronation to his new palace at Hampton Court. Gadzooks the King looked athletic- we have a fine igure of a king this time!
No pictures 'cos photography hasn't been invented yet.

Beaconsfield

A day trip to beaconsfield to see what it was like.

Unfortunately there was a wedding in the main church so I couldn't see in there but I could see the outside!

From places of worship

Beaconsfield is a crossroads village but moved somewhat towards the station with the new town being north of the station including the model village of Bekonscot. Built in the 1930s it has raised a lot of money for the Church Army and other charities. Not cheap to get in though...

Crouch End Hornsey

A visit to Crouch End, because I've been before but not recently and not knowing about the grade 2 listed library

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There is a commemorative fountain which I dubbed 'the whore in the shower' commemorating the work of the Hornsey borough Council.

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When I called it was turned off, like the other fountain in front of the town hall.

The town clock told inhabitants and travellers the time of day.

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Southampton's pretty front garden competition

And if you object to your garden being shown on here then GET IT TIDIED UP! SHAME ON YOU!

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The clear winner! The dustbin collection just gives that edge!

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Weymouth in Dorset

Yes' I'd recommend it to anyone!

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