Well I'll go to Putney Bridge!

Great Dunmow - another long way to church

Another meadieval town with a bad bus service: I had to change at Stansted Airport. My mate was also being Mr Grumpy today. After lunch in the Saracen's Head - the chefs interpretation of nouvelle cuisine for the value conscious we had a look round the town.

There is a Tudor town hall and a pond on the village green, which was used by a Mr Lionel Lukin to test lifeboats. Funnily enough the vicar of Romsey from 1860, a Mr Edward Lyon Berthon also designed lifeboats.

I saw an old house at the end of the village with gables and a cupola, but the bust of a woman that Arthur Mee mentions as being above a window has gone, or it is not that house. The church is set a long way from the village but is well worth the little walk. Well proportioned with a fine chancel arch, the church is a lovely space, although the vicar expressed regret that the church had been, as he put it, vandalised in various periods in its history.
There is a unique south gallery over the door (as you can see in the picture) which was originally a guild chapel and then a family pew. Now it is just a chapel in the church.

Southampton (Weston) and Netley

The Weston part of Southampton is across the River Itchen from Southampton, crossing the Itchen Toll Bridge which some see as a barrier and others as a quick and easy crossing into town.
If you're walking you go free. Weston is trying to be a seaside resort with shelters on the rather stony beach on the rather polluted Southampton Water. These have recently been done up with scenes from Southampton's history including the second world war bombing (!) although they lack the old (1980s) slogan of the city 'Southamp-tons more'. My usual walk leads from Sholing to Woolston, down to the shore, up to Netley (more later) and back via Mayfield Park. mayfield park has an obelisk in it bearing the legend 'The earth is the LORD'S and the fullness thereof'. It is a memorial to a whig politician although you'd never know it, mostly just an eye catcher in a bleak part of the park. Mayfield park always seems as though it has a time warp in it because walking through it seems to deliver me with speed to my destination (Thanks Jon and Ray!). It's always much quicker than walking towards it.

Netley is a little village on Southampton Water with a ruined abbey, not as fortunate as Romsey - perhaps they couldn't afford the price if it was the same. Closed at all times except Sundays from 1300-1600 due to antisocial behaviour among the ruins (my mind boggles - What on earth are people doing there?).


The ruins are quite intact as is Netley Castle, once a convalescent home but now a private block of flats with the gardens suitably fenced. Once they were open for all to wander at will.

Romsey - Another prosperous market town

Romsey in Hampshire is dominated by its abbey, remarkably intact for a Romanesque church as it was bought for £100 at the dissolution for use as a parish church for the town. As a consequence of this it has no endowments so no money for rebuilding over subsequent centuries.

With only time for the briefest look at the church, including the saxon woman's hair that was found in a lead coffin, all the rest of her having decayed, and the briefest time to look around the town, which is quite dominated by the Mountbatten family (formerly Battenburg)Romsey would no doubt repay another visit.

Tottenham Walthamstow and Ilford

Tottenham has Bruce Castle museum within its boundaries, however the opening hours are not for early birds. Wed-Sun 1pm-5pm. So when I arrived at 1100 on Saturday I was disappointed and not really prepared to hang around for another three hours. So I went off to Walthamstow to the William Morris Gallery, which proclaims itself as the only museum dedicated to the life and work of William Morris. William Morris had his childhood home in Walthamstow, when it was nice, and this has been transformed into a museum of his life’s work. This includes furnishing, fabrics, stained glass and wallpaper. The museum also contains pictorial art and a room for temporary exhibitions.

I also went to have a look at Walthamstow Town Hall a 1930s sub totalitarian style building with a pool outside, similar to Rugby Town Hall but bigger with a clock tower and in Portland stone. The technical college next door has sculptural panels depicting activities such as music and swimming that take place (or once did) in the college.

The weather was not promising so I took a bus to Ilford where I got rained on and heartily sick. The Redbridge Borough Museum, which wasn’t bad, displayed a lying notice stating that it’s lunch hour was from 1pm-2pm. On this occasion the museum did not open until 10 past.


Having become sick of Ilford I got on a bus to go back but then noticed that the chapel of St Mary’s hospital, Ilford’s oldest building, was open that day. St Mary’s Hospital was founded as a leper hospital and became an almshouse after the lepers moved out on the dissolution. The flats were made new in 1927, and the chapel was in use as a tea room and market. It wasn’t very interesting.

A long walk to church in Reigate

Reigate is a small town in Surrey, which I have visited a few times but been unable to find the church. This time I decided to ask somebody and a very unhelpful woman dierected me first to the methodist church in the High Street. I told her I wanted the Church of England Church and she replied that if I hadn't an address... I would have thought most people would have known where a church was. I eventually found it in Chart Lane, not Church Street, but it was locked up and the church office was closed.

The Priory museum was also closed although the priory park was open. The old Market House is now a cafe nero.

All in all Reigate was a poor mans Godalming

East Tilbury: Bataville

East tilbury is a tiny village on the thames Marshes. In the 1930s Bata Shoes built a factory and some dwellings for the workforce there in the modernist style. However, one of the ideals of modernism is supposed to be for form to follow function and for any buildings built in that style that isn't a style to be a model of efficiency for the tenants. Now, according to a planning application in the street of houses, there was a desire to move the bathroom to the bedroom floor, it previously being next to the kitchen. This is not a model of eficiency. The houses look great though.

There is also a statue of Thomas Bata and a Thomas Bata memorial park.

Whitstable

Whitstable oyster festival was in full swing as I went there but I don't really like slippery things going down my throat live so I didn't participate in the oyster eating competition. Whitstable has an old fashioned look for the discerning visitor, although they'd have to be to tune out the industrial plants round the harbour, used for the processing of oysters. The Church of St Alphege was running a tea shop when we called and a very good tea it was for under a fiver. The weather was perfect and the stalls enjoyable.
The castle at Whitstable was inaccessible due to a private function but the grounds were pleasant. Tankerton lawns gave a fine view out to the Thames estuary where the windmills were turning to generate miniscule amounts of power. Actually they were not turning at all in the stillness of the day. Picture not too clear though.

Godalming - gardens and rabbits

Godalming is a pleasant little market town on the way to Portsmouth just outside Guildford. It is full of buildings from the 17th century when it made its fortune from wool and later from knitting stockings. I didn't feel it was very welcoming to visitors. When I said I'd never been there before most people looked with incredulity, although I have to admit that the staff in the museum were pretty good.

Godalming has had several famous residents: one of the first was a Mary Toft, a servant girl looking for the sort of notoriety that the present day version of serving girls seek on Big Brother. She did her own version of the trick where somebody pulls a rabbit out of a hat although she pulled them out of her... well lets say she gave birth to 16 rabbits. Maybe she had lots of eminent doctors fooled - maybe they were just there for the sight of something so freakish - just like big brother really. Anyway before too long she was exposed as a fraud: a porter had been smuggling rabbits into her room.

Other famous people were Jack Phillips, the radio operator on the Titanic and Gertrude Jekyll, the famous garden designer. She also lived in the town and designed the memorial to Jack Phillips. It is a pleasant cloister with lilly pond, but the planting scheme is rather the worse for wear at present.

Another place in the town is the Royal Court, a modern building built from the materials of old cottages previously on the site. I must say it did have me fooled.

The place is attractive and prosperous and must be a fine place to live.

I took part in the walks around the town, seeing the fine church and old stocking knitters houses etc.
The pictures show a former coaching inn, the Jack Phillips Memorial and Royal Court.

Guildford - mostly the cathedral

Guildford is not the county town of Surrey, that honour falls to Kingston, but it ought to be. There is a fine guildhall, and the impressive church of Holy Trinity built of red brick in the 18th century inspires awe in those who see it for the first time. The church has a light and airy feel with a painted apse that is in contrast to the rest of the building. It must have been refurnished in the 1980s and the woodden chairs do not dominate like bench pews must have, and even those would be an improvement on the 18th century box pews in this space, although not in every space. This church was the pro-cathedral.

Guildford cathedral dominates the town from the nearby stag hill. It's worse getting to than Linoln, and that's saying something. Building began in the 1930s using the clay from Stag Hill for making bricks, the cathedral literally has grown from the ground it stands on, but was not consecrated until 1961. It was in use by the University of Roehampton which states it is in London, so why they use a Surrey cathedral for graduations I do not know. I couldn't get in to the cathedral until later but the place was very impressive inside, pale stone with marble floors in direct contrast to the brick outside. Nice modern glass. The golden angel on top shows the wind direction.

Epping to Ongar - and Berners Hall Farm Berners Roding.

Setting out from Epping station to walk to Berners Hall farm seemed like a good idea at the time. I had plenty of time to do it and the weather was perfect for a fairly long distance walk. I would take in a couple of old (one extremely old) churches and be at the farm by the appointed time of 1500. However the walk was slightly longer than I had anticipated and I had to get a taxi for part of the way.

The Essex Way runs from Epping to Harwich and goes for 81 miles through some of the Essex countyrside. The first part crosses a railway bridge and soon enters open fields. The natives were friendly with several calling cheery hellos. Coopersale Street had some attractive houses and I later found out it is a conservation area. Essex fields are very enclosed, where there is livestock with electric fences creating hazards. The worst of this was in Toot Hill Village where an electric fence had been placed across the path, so that travellers had to duck it. I had a shandygaff in the Green man at Toot Hill (more a restaurant than a pub though) before walking quickly on. The countryside was quite ordinary, but on the route was Greensted Church, a saxon church built of wood, that had survived from those days, although much altered. It must be marvellous for the congregation at their Sunday worship to know they are sitting in a building used by saxons. The wooden walls were preserved from decay in Victorian times by having a brick wall placed underneath them - similar to a footing. They also added three dormer windows. The nave roof was tiled in Tudor times which was when the chancel was built in brick. The Tudors also installed three dormer windows. The church is a remarkable survival, and to touch the timber is to touch history.

Eventually it was time to move on past the invisible Greensted Hall (I could only see its garden complete with lake) and walk across the fields to Chipping Ongar, which was known to passengers on the Central Line of the London Underground as Ongar. London Underground seem to have an aversion to the word 'chipping' as the station at High Barnet really serves Chipping Barnet.

Chipping Ongar was where David Livingstone lived for a while, but I missed the United Reformed Church where he preached. I did see the old church of St Martin of Tours. This church had an anchorite's cell next to the altar and remains of ancient work including roman bricks. The 15th century font was dug up in a garden in the town, and restored to the church in 1963.

By the time I had finished in the church it was time to go to Berners Roding, a tiny hamlet and location of the Coöperative Farm.
The Farm Manager spoke about the history and current production of the farm and showed fields of wheat and peas as well as a shiny, new combine harvester. People of my generation and older will now be thinking of The Wurzels!

We were also shown the former church of Berners Roding, completely empty except for two memorials, a prayer desk, stool and pulpit. The church was clearly old (although hard to date) and clearly in a state of decay with the floorboards lifting and cracks in the walls.

Hoddesdon to Cheshunt on the Lee Navigation Towpath

A visit to Hoddesdon and Cheshunt in the lovely Lee valley. Getting off the train at Broxbourne, which I passed through on the New River path I went North to Hoddesdon, to find the high street turned into a vintage car rally. There were some interesting cars there including the only half timbered car ever made – the Morris Minor traveller. After a good look at the cars and the elderly band playing popular music of the 50s and 60s it was time to look at the shops and the rather uninteresting 19th century church. Hoddesdon had been divided between two parishes until the 19th century when it became a parish in its own right. Hence the red brick church that I couldn’t bring myself to photograph.

Rawdon House was built in 1622 but was surrounded by trees and hard to photograph. Classic Jacobean house with dutch gables and the coat of arms of Marmaduke Rawdon over the front door. Marmaduke Rawdon was an investor in the New River Company and had a fountain in his garden fed from a conduit, as did several other Hoddesdon houses. Most of these seem to have been removed. There is a sundial on the wall of Rawdon House.

Having escaped the cars and the rain I headed down to the station again to walk by the Lee Navigation.

Having escaped the cars and the rain I headed down to the station again to walk by the Lee Navigation. My intention was to have a 2 ¾ mile stroll to Cheshunt, although Cheshunt as it turned out is a long way from the Lee and its railway station.

Walking by the lee is pleasant and less boring than the New River as there are boats going up and down. There are locks, including a lock on an aqueduct which was interesting.

When I got to Cheshunt the station is located a long way from the main shopping area. The shopping area was dominated by a fountain which was in full play. There was a pleasant court of almshouses on Turners Hill and a typically Festival of Britain block of flats on the High Street

But despite walking up Church Lane I couldn’t find Cheshunt Church, which was a bit of a disappointment. All in all a good day out.

Regent Street Polytechnic

Founded by Quintin Hogg to give a muscular christian education to the working classes, where physical and mental development had equal priority, it is now just a university. The pictures show the old cinema and St George and the dragon in mosaic.

Lesnes Abbey, Blackheath and Greenwich in the sunshine

A visit to Plumstead and Abbey wood, to see Lesnes Abbey (now how is that pronounced?). I've never been to Lesnes Abbey before, although I've been to the old suburb Abbey Wood which is named after it. I walked on a sunny Sunday down to Deptford, calling in at the Parish Church of St Paul, which is well worth a visit if you can ever get in, and catching a bus to Plumstead. I then walked to the Abbey via the Green Chain walk which passed through several commons and up Bostall hill. My streetmap of London seemed to consider that the public lavatory and parks depot were actually abbey remains. This rather confused me. However the door of the gents was stainless steel with six or seven bolts and a high security lock. That's a bit of overkill to protect a few toilets. I got a bit lost hereabouts and walked off in the wrong direction past Goldie Leigh a former(?) hospital, now a childrens home(?). I retraced my steps and crossed the road near the Greenwich and Bexley Cottage Hospice. The land for the hospice was part of the Co-operative Woods and was the site of the Co-operative Education Centre, Shornells, which had burnt down and was surplus to requirements. I think that the co-op caravan and camping site was also sold but not to the Hospice. Inside the hospice is the plaque from Shornells.

I continued on the Green chain, assisted by a person I met who told me how to find the Abbey. In fact, he took me almost to the door. The Abbey was perhaps founded as a pennance for involvement in the murder of Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Cannterbury. It's job was to drain the marshes and maintain the river wall, and these tasks meant that the abbey never attracted great wealth or large numbers of inmates. In fact when Cardinal Wolsely closed it it had fewer than seven. The remails were uncovered in the late 19th century after the Abbot's lodging that had been in use as a farmhouse was demolished. There has been a lot of repair work to the remains of the walls and the church is still quite impressive as marked out on the grass of the park. The tower blocks of Thamesmead Town provide an interesting backdrop to these ancient remains.

After lunch in Woolwich I went on to Blackheath, and visited All Saints Church, a model village church on the heath that just looks so right it has got to be contrived. And so it is. The church was celebrating its 150th anniversary with a flower festival (rather uninspired I thought) but the rood screen in memory of the fallen of the first world war was beautiful to behold. Blackheath is full of trendy boutiques and restaurants which I didn't visit but I did have a look round the far reaches of Greenwich Park.
The fine Ranger's house (pictred) houses a collection of artefacts but I didn't go in and Queen Caroline's bath (also pictured) is the last remnant of Montacute House and was previously covered with paving stones.

I ended the day in a pub in Greenwich with a philosopher a photographer and a teacher in cheery fellowship and conversation that lasted for four hours!

A very balanced day followed by a bath but less luxurious than Queen Caroline's!

St James's Palace

Brandy Nan

No photography allowed in St Paul's Cathedral so you can't see the mosaic of Christ Pantocrator, but here is Queen 'Brandy' Nan. Queen Victoria was inconvenienced bt Queen Anne's Statue when she visited and those responsible asked her if she wanted it moved. The Queen replied that she would hate it if one of her statues was moved, so the statue stayed where it was.

Queen Anne was fond of a drop and died without issue, so ending the Stuart dynasty. The Stuarts were bad kings though so nobody was too upset except the annonymous author of the following lines:

Brandy Nan, Brandy Nan,
You left us in the lurch,
Your face towards the ale house
your back to the church.

Colchester

Colchester, the oldest recorded town in England, is an army town, full of fit young men with decent haircuts and today with the sun out proved no exception. The Romans used Colchester as their capital city but soon found London more convenient. It was also home to Old King Cole of nursery rhyme fame, although as he lived long before Sir Walter Raleigh so I suspect the pipe that he called for was a musical one rather than one for Virginia tobacco.

The walk from the North Station to the town is long, and not very interesting. You do cross the river which runs at the bottom of the hill that the town is built on and there are some half timbered houses there. The first church I came to, St Peter’s, was open and still contained galleries, the ones in the North Aisle did not reach the arcading, whereas those in the South Aisle did, the whole effect was a little peculiar. The church was nothing special, typical of town churches in many parts of the country, although it is the only church in Colchester mentioned in the doomsday book. There was a little drama in the grounds of St Botolph’s Priory where four policemen went to see some people sitting in the grounds. Don’t know what it was about as I kept away. The ruined priory of St Botolph uses recycled roman bricks in its structure and has a fine Norman doorway, although the new church of St Botolph of 1836 has nothing fine about it from the outside even though it is Romanesque in style. After a bit of wandering and Coöperative and charity shopping – there are some fine shops in Colchester including an East of England Coöperative Department Store – it was time to hit the Colchester Heritage Trail. This led from the castle, which is the largest Norman keep in Europe. It then leads into the Dutch quarter where Flemish weavers settled in the 16th Century. There are lots of half timbered houses here and a tiny church dedicated to St Helen, now used by the Orthodox church. I went in and found myself surrounded by icons and confronted with a large chandelier. The Orthodox have a screen between nave and chancel so could not see the holy table/altar but the church was interesting. It occupied part of the site of the Roman Amphitheatre.

The next church, St Martins, had a person giving a reading of Moby Dick. It’s a shame there was nobody there to listen to him really, but I got a smile. St Martins church is redundant but has some badly preserved wall paintings and a Norman tower all fallen down due to damage during the civil war siege of Colchester. The Royalists held out here.

Colchester has Roman walls and the town heritage trail leads past these, including the Balkerne Gate, the oldest surviving Roman gateway in Britain. In front of this gateway is ‘Jumbo’ a massive brick water tower built in 1882. The builders crafted a weather vane in the shape of an elephant and the name stuck. The mercury theatre proves that not all buildings in Colchester are from medieval times.

Tymperleys, now a clock museum, is most firmly from this era. It is a lovely half timbered house.
The rest of the trail was up a rather boring residential street, but by the castle I met a former work colleague, who had driven up to Colchester to escape house painting. It was good to see him, and most unexpected. By then I was exhausted so went for a drink in the George, which looked very old, but may not have been. Colchester - recommended!

The pictures show St Botolph's Priory, the Balkerne Gate, a 16th Century House in the Dutch Quarter and the Mercury Theatre with Jumbo in the background.