Members 1

HM1. I first noticed the projected changes to the fare structure at Hampton Court back in May, at reference 1, and attentive readers will recall that we bit the bullet and became concessionary members, more or less by chance, at the Tower, at reference 2. Then last Sunday we thought to exercise our membership. Which membership does not extend to parking privileges, so we parked in the station car park and walked across. Noticing on the way that the prime corner site, derelict for years although tidied up for the visitors to the bicycling olympics, remains inactive. Perhaps, just like at Heathrow Airport, we have spent huge sums on planning inquiries but remain unable to decide what to do. Not at all like our new strategic partners, the Chinese, who just get on with things. See gmaps 51.402914, -0.342478.

First stop the royal cabbage patch, looking a bit tired for the winter, with most of the cabbages looking very tired, especially the brussels sprouts, mostly burst in the warm damp weather. But the cabbages illustrated left were not doing too badly. I think the idea is to pick by the leaf rather than by the head. We also spotted a grey wagtail, the second of the season, the first having been back in Ely, unnoticed.

Past the rose garden where a few flowers were left from last season and into the wilderness where we were greeted by the first daffodils of the new season. Pressed on, exercising our members' rights, into the Privy Kitchen for tea, coffee and cake, in my case one of the 'Maids of Honour', one of the specialities of the house. Very nice it was too.

Out from there through Fountain Court where we were treated to the heritage dilemma of the roundels. painted in the eighteenth century by one Louis Laguerre. These have faded, more or less to the point of invisibility and the heritage team are pondering what to do with them. My solution would simply to have them replicated new. And if one was really fussy about the heritage angle, cut out what is there now before replication. The cut outs could then be flogged to some Chinese billionaire to adorn some fine new museum in the depths of China, while also helping to pay off the national debt. And us members would be able to see the roundels in the way intended by the artist - and whoever commissioned the roundels in the first place.

Plenty of energetic children bounding around outside, as was one Chinese girl, whose friend was trying to capture her on an iPad in full bound, which took a number of tries. But the privy garden was quiet and we were able to enjoy the green symphony in peace. We were also able to try out the newly restored wooden steps at the southern end of the east terrace. Those at the southern end of the west terrace remain to be done, the whole project having gone on for some time now. The two flights of steps are clearly visible in the satellite version of gmaps, the eastern ones being at 51.401373, -0.336985. See reference 3.

From there to the Chapel Royal where Louisa Haggerty was offering a free recital of a Christmas Medley: the hoops that wannabee sopranos have to jump through on their way to fame and fortune. The audience was a mixture of the gray brigade and tourists, an audience which did not understand about it being better not to clap between numbers, especially in a church. While the trusties did not think to stop people bustling around the entrance and the gallery. But Haggerty was good nonetheless - and dressed to kill, despite it being a church. She gave me the impression of being a rather immature person with a very mature voice - the price one pays, I suppose, for being a musical prodigy. The lady sitting next to us was from Carmarthen, spoke Welsh and knew all about the salty yellow bacon sold in the market there. See reference 4.

We learned in passing that the carol 'In the bleak midwinter' was set by no less a musician than Gustav Holst.

And so to lunch of meat pie, back in the nearby Privy Kitchen.

Wound up with a visit to the trees along the long terrace running alongside the river. Altogether satisfactory.

PS: the illustration will probably be one of the last to be posted from the Lumia 630, now retired.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/hcp-1.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/towered-1.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/hampton-court-1.html.

Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Carmarthen.

Nostalgia

Yesterday to the lido at Jesus Green, my first visit for maybe thirty years. Poor, considering that it was where I learned to swim more than fifty years ago, at which time I was paid 3d a time to cycle down there for a swim before school. Bribery maybe, but a useful adjunct to the modest pocket money of those times.

The place has changed very little over the years. Wooden changing sheds still along one side of the pool, gents. on the top left of the illustration, ladies top right. The smell of damp creosoted wood had not changed. The same sort of wire baskets to hold one's clothes, although not, I think, actually the same baskets. Some concession to the years in the form of penny in the slot lockers, useful perhaps for a long visit when the place is crowded - which it certainly used to be when the sun was out. The diving stands in the middle of the pool were gone, presumably on grounds of health and safety - and I do remember the odd case of people coming down wrong and doing dreadful things to their stomachs. Water cleaner than I remember and not as cold - perhaps because it has not been long since we were in the sea.

I managed four lengths, that is to say 400 yards, nearly all breast stroke, being rather put to shame by the other seniors there at that time in the morning (around 1100) who were clearly clocking up a lot more.

Run by an outfit called 'Better', who seem to run a lot of what used to be local council facilities, certainly in London and at least this one in Cambridge. Something called a charitable social enterprise, a newish variety of charity. Perhaps this is the way forward for this sort of thing, along with the National Trust and English Heritage. Talking of which last, being members, we found it convenient to pull into Audley End for a pit-stop on the way to Cambridge; a much pleasanter place for a picnic & comfort break than the alternative Birchanger Green. And they can even feed you if you forget to pack a picnic. See reference 2.

Rather a scruffy collection of house boats and such drawn up on both sides of the river.  Rather too many for comfort, looking benefit & substance abuse flavoured rather than cuddly. No doubt they attract voluminous correspondance in local media, print & otherwise,

The iron bridge for pedestrians and cyclists by the locks was still there, off the left of the picture, and was little changed apart from having changed from its former green to black. The adjacent weather station in its white slatted wooden box on legs was empty and derelict, which was a pity as the two rotating drums of paper, brass apparatus and needle pens which used to record temperature and pressure used to fascinate me as a child. A large and handsome house for the lock keeper, presumably now sold off cheap to somebody with friends in high places, after the way of such water authority housing in the London area.

Reference 1: http://www.better.org.uk/.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/audley-end.html.

Derelict housing

From time to time I comment on the various bits of derelict building in Epsom, for example at reference 1, although, as it happens, a rehabilitation of that particular building, probably once staff housing for one of the mental hospitals, is now nearly complete.

We found that they have similar issues on the Isle of Wight where the large holiday camp behind Appley Walk, right on the handsome sea front esplanade at Ryde, has been derelict for some years now. The chalets illustrated, at gmaps 50.726173, -1.133746, are very similar to those at reference 1, and in a similar state now to that that those were in last October, before they got started on them.

One can only suppose that the council have the same sort of trouble coming to an agreement with developers about what to do with this prime but presently unsightly site as we do here in Surrey. And as it happens, the island council is dominated by independents, called there 'Island Independents', just as we are here in Epsom, although we call ours 'Residents Association'. The balance is nearly all conservative, which is odd considering the number of people who were clearly on minimum wages that we saw about the place. The sort of people who smoke on the street and maybe even have children as part of a bid to get onto a housing list. Perhaps their independents are really Labour, while ours are really Conservative.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/housing-crisis.html.

More Shanklin

On the way back to the station, we came across Shanklin Town Hall, yet another reminder of the glory days when local authorities had authority. The building did not look derelict so perhaps it still had occupation.

Earlier in the day we had also come across their theatre (see reference 1). The mainstay of their offering, at least for the moment, was a legendary show called 'Best of West End' from Spotlight (see reference 2). This appeared to be a medley drawn from West End musicals. Not really our thing, but we were tempted, perhaps by having seen the 'Funnybones' several times on television, where they had been intruded into Agatha Christie's story 'Sleeping Murder'. Decided against on the grounds that a 2015 start was a bit late for us. We could have gone by train but we would have been out of the house for perhaps 5 hours, getting home around midnight. Not tempting enough to get us out that late.

At the time of writing this, they had sold maybe 35 out of 350 stalls seats. I did not check the balcony, but I imagine that would be much the same. Not the sea of smiling faces we had seen for the 'Funnybones'. But I remember as I type the saying that whacking it out, every night and with enthusiasm to a near empty seaside theatre is one of the finest trainings to be had for the West End. Perhaps best not to use the chemical mood enhancers resorted to by at least some of the Funnybones. A bit depressing that a sing along to Frozen - which, assuming the title means what I think it does, sounds and probably would sound really grim - has sold rather better.

Looking at the Spotlight web site this morning, they look to be an enterprising bunch with their activities including doing a version of the West End show in the summer of every year, a pantomime in the winter and various drama school stuff. It would be intriguing to be a fly on their wall and find out how their tone compared with that of our own Laine Theatre Arts, the proprietrix of which does have tone. Or at least she did, the last time we came across her, some years ago.

Reference 1: http://www.shanklintheatre.com/.

Reference 2: http://www.spotlightiow.co.uk/.

Palace of Westminster

I was interested to read a piece by Simon Jenkins about doing something about the crumbling Palace of Westminster in yesterday's Evening Standard.

As he rightly observes, if you hire expensive accountants who go on to hire expensive architects to tell you what to do about a large old building, you should not be surprised that they all get the smell of the trough up their nostrils and go on to suggest that £10 billion or so of public money needs to be thrown at the place.

Building on Jenkins, my suggestion is that they kick all the riff-raff out of the near derelict vegetable markets at Nine Elms and build a smart new parliament building there, very handy for Sainsbury's and, as a cynic might say, for consultations with their masters in the shiny new US embassy going up nearby. Move parliament into the new building.

While all this is going on, decide what to do with the old building - which might be parliament or it might be some combination of conference centre, tourist attraction, museum and stately home. Maybe hand it over to one of the heritage outfits. Or to Merlin Entertainments (see reference 1). Or to Boris, who could make a splendid vanity project out of the place when he stops being mayor. He might even get to live in what is presently the speaker's tied cottage, so expensively redecorated for the current incumbent.

Then once you have vacant possession, get the builders in and make it fit for whatever its intended purpose has turned out to be.

In due course, if that is what the decision was, move parliament back.

Reference 1: http://www.merlinentertainments.biz/.

New horse

A view of the field attached to what was the house provided for the superintendent of what was West Park Hospital, aka Hollytree Lodge, but not to be confused with reference 1. Now derelict, status unknown.

But the field has been occupied by horses for some time, and to judge by the arrangements illustrated I would guess that the owners travel.

I had not noticed the foal before, which I would judge to be just weeks, if not days, old. Did it come into the world in the field, or did it turn up in a van? Do horses need to be looked after when they are foaling, or are they best left to get on with it?

Reference 1: http://www.hollytreecare.co.uk/.

A Surrey church

Last week to Ripley, a small & old village which grew up on the old Portsmouth Road on low lying land just to the east of the River Way, just south of what is now the Wisley Gardens. At one time mainly notable for the nearby Newark Abbey, now mainly notable for the Talbot Hotel, one of the few buildings I know to sport a full on entrance for a carriage, high enough that the footmen riding behind would not have to get down. The other two being HM Treasury and Buckingham Palace.

There is also a village hall complex which includes, as well as the hall, a car park, the village school, a recreation ground and a dinky little mock-Tudor shed serving as the headquarters of the Send and Ripley History Society, which, despite name and appearances, was actually founded in 1975. See reference 1.

The church was interesting, an old foundation but heavily, and we thought rather well restored by the Victorians. We were shown around by the incumbent who happened to be there, getting ready for a wedding later in the day. Following on from recent musings about roofs, I rather like this one (which looked better in real life than in the snap above), white painted boarding on top of brown rafters, slightly softened by additional beams, but all in all a roof in which the inside was much closer to the outside than is usual. Some interesting stained glass, including one good quality replica of a 19th century original, stolen some years ago. Apparently the stealing gave rise to some correspondence with the insurers. who needed to be convinced that a fitting of this sort was covered for theft, with the clinching argument being to do with the iron work which held the thing up. Perhaps to do with the fact that the iron work was seriously attached to the building, in a way which the glass itself was not.

A memorial to some of the many cyclists who used to cycle out from London and who came to take evensong at the church before cycling home.

Some interesting vestiges of the original church in the chancel, including something called a string course, a sort of elaborately carved stone dado rail. Although at the time it was put there the floor was four feet lower than it is now (then prone to damp & flooding). so perhaps more of a carved stone picture rail.

The most famous person from Ripley is Eric Clapton, a war baby of the parish. Pevsner, as is his wont, is rather snooty about the whole place - but I don't suppose he knew about Clapton.

But what actually drew us to Ripley was an advertisement in the 'Surrey Downs' magazine (published by Sheengate Publishing) for an open afternoon for the tulips at Dunsborough Park. See gmaps 51.3047727, -0.4930586 and references 2 & 3.The park now seems to consist of a large house, an even larger farm yard, with an elaborate garden in between. Not really open to the public but they do do weddings, conferences and garden open days. The garden included a large range of near derelict glass houses, apparently built just before the second war, for reasons unknown, and used more recently to store & display a large collection of garden sculpture. A number of small, box edged beds containing some very handsome tulips, mainly just one variety to the bed. Older tulips were retired to mixed beds in grass, which looked really good. Fake natural at its best. A very handsome garden which must have cost a great deal to create and continue to cost even more to maintain.

Tea & cake supplied by village ladies from trestle tables, but not the sort of ladies who would be married to villagers of the old sort.

Reference 1: http://sendandripleyhistorysociety.co.uk/.

Reference 2: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/mug-shot.html.

Reference 3: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/translation.html.

Clarinet

Earlier in the week to hear the Brahms clarinet quintet, last hear in 2012 (see reference 1) with a couple of outings for the Mozart version in between.

Kicked off with the near-last Bullingdon from Kennington Lane Rail Bridge and from there over Lambeth Bridge, up Whitehall, up Regent Street and so to Broadcasting House, the one in London that is, not by some derelict canal south west of Manchester - although a quick peek at gmaps suggests that the place would be well worth a visit with plenty for the tourist to do. What, for example, is or was the St. Francis Basin?

Tracked a young lady (on a bicycle) in the vicinity of Parliament Square, who, for once, did observe the Highway Code, with only the one lapse when she overtook me on the inside when I was only a couple of feet away from the kerb and thinking about turning left. Luckily she got away unscathed. And then tracked a lorry from the vicinity of St. James' Palace to Oxford Circus, a lorry from no less an outfit than Kent's Transport (see reference 2) and carrying a small load of mixed building materials. This driver had manners enough but did not seem to know London very well or be terribly sure about where he was going.

Arrived at Broadcasting House early enough to take a little something, a Riesling (my pronunciation of the word being quietly corrected by the waiter), once again at the Langham Hotel, where the waitress was happy enough to change the nibbles that came with it for biscuits, my not caring much for salty nibbles, much preferring sugary biscuits. In between whiles I was able, once again, to admire the fine brown wood cupboard behind the bar (old style) and the large off-white white wood candeliers (new style) hanging from the ceiling. The bar was quite a large L-shaped room with a very high ceiling and the interior designer, quite rightly to my mind, had decided that there needed to be something to occupy some of the space above. The chandeliers were, again to my mind, rather ugly, but that did not seem to matter, their function was to occupy some space and this they did. The ladies next to me were talking Lamborghini, but I was not close enough to catch whether it was Lamborghinis in general or their Lamborghini.

And so to a full Wigmore Hall to hear the first of what I imagine were hundreds of compositions by Haydn, his String Quarter Op.1 No.1. A slight thing, but amusing to have heard it and a suitable warmer-up for the rather more sophisticated Brahms Op.115 which followed - although it did take a couple of minutes or so to get online, as it were, with this second piece. The quintet sounded very good on the day, with the oddity that, as a former very bad player of the clarinet, I was picturing some of the score in my mind (in one of those yellow miniatures) but none of the fingering came back to the fingers. And then, back home, I thought to have a bit of my vinyl version by members of the Vienna Octet, who sounded better still. They marked out the string bits, the clarinet bits and the ensemble bits with a clarity and punch which had entirely eluded Badke & Martin - although, to be fair to them, that may not have been what they wanted.

Interestingly, Martin on the clarinet appeared to be based in Scotland but to have connections with the Canary Islands. I wondered whether his parents had been part of the migration from there to here to work our mental hospitals and hotels, this before poles had been invented.

Out to lose my way to Bond Street and then to lose my way to 'Leonidas', ending up in the 'Maison de Chocolat' in Piccadilly instead, where, as it happens I had ended up the year before, not having been able to cope with the crush at F&M.

Picked up the second Bullingdon at Sackville Street and made my way to Soho Square. And so to Foyles which seemed to have turned into a mixture of pop-up shop and pound-store. But then I remembered that they had moved into the Art College next door. It was my first visit to their new shop and very good it was too, which was just as well as the Blackwell's opposite (which I had never liked very much, far too low ceilinged and cramped feeling) was shut. No less than two collections of Sir Gawain books, one in the King Arthur section of the poetry department and one in the King Arthur section of the history department and I chose one from the latter. Then off to the mathematics department to look up geometry (see reference 4), where there was a quite a decent selection and I selected a slim paperback from Cambridge. Rather dismayed to find that it cost £60 and almost abandoned ship, but relented and had the price checked, with it turning out to be £30 rather than £60. Still a bit more than I had wanted to spend, but it was the right sort of book and I was rather committed to it by that time. We will see how I get on with it.

Picked up the third Bullingdon at St. Martin's Street and off up the ramp (for once in a while) to Waterloo 1. I was accompanied across most of Westminster Bridge by a police car, but he peeled off somewhere handy to the Marriott (in what used to be an important place of local government, in the days when we still had such) so perhaps he was not there to mind my crossing. Just in time for a train so did not bother with further refreshments, although I was rewarded with a fine pink sky to the west as we passed through Earlsfield.

PS: odd the ceiling which presumably comes from the same place as the French ciel should be spelt the way it is.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=clarinet+quintet.

Reference 2: http://www.kekentsltd.co.uk/.

Reference 3: http://maximilianomartin.com/. Notice the reference to 'Ensemble Villa de la Orotava', Orotava being a handsome town in northern Tenerife, the natal town of a former mental hospital cook who used to get into TB.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/memory-lane.html.

Train spotting

Yesterday to Smith's Falls to see the falls, to find that they were missing, swallowed up in the water works needed to build the Rideau Canal. And we just missed the Hershey chocolate factory, once the employer of 500 souls and the destination for countless coachloads of chocoholics. Its loss was a big deal for a town of this size.

But there were train spotting compensations. We went over a number of level crossings, something which one is hard to put to find in the UK these days, beyond the one between Raynes Park and Motspur Park,

We found the derelict bridge illustrated. The first time that I have seen such a thing outside of a boy's book of engineering wonders of the world.

We found an outdoor railway museum, containing heritage locos and rolling stock. Sadly, no time to visit.

We passed a huge train, which must have been a mile or more long and which involved at least two rather shabby looking Canadian Pacific locomotives, not, I think, at the front of the train, rather somewhere in the middle. A good part of the train was tank cars, presumably for moving oil from Alberta, presumably empty as the train was moving slowly west. It may have been a train like this which crashed into a town in Quebec, with considerable loss of life, a few years ago. I think someone forgot to put the brake on and the thing ran away. Been in the papers quite recently, perhaps in connection with a government report on rail safety.

Lunch of a Canadian-Italian variety at Norm's Restaurant. Very good it was too; just what one would hope to find in a small town in the wilds of Ontario. The place with the purple blind, across the road from RBC, at gmaps 44.9004322,-76.0212791. To follow the lasagne, there were no puddings, but there was a selection of pies. I didn't fancy rhubard & raspberry (combined operations, not two different pies) and took an excellent lemon meringue. Just like mother used to make, all those years ago.

And I see from gmaps that Smith's Falls includes considerable railroad infrastructure, so accounting for the presence of the museum. They clearly needed something to shift all that chocolate.

Reference 1: http://www.hersheys.com/chocolateworld/.

Reference 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridges_of_Madison_County.

Reference 3: http://www.smithsfalls.ca/railwaymuseumofeasternonta.cfm. Museum site proper was unresponsive this morning.

Housing crisis

We hear a lot about the housing crisis. About how older people are hogging far too big a share of the available housing, swanning around in their grand family houses when the birds have long flown. About how suburban types in suburban estates go to war over anybody else who wants to build a new house or enlarge an old house anywhere near them. About how shenanighans in the city have pushed house prices up to levels which decent hard working young couples cannot hope to afford. About how waves of EC inspired migrants have soaked up all the cheaper accommodation and are now pushing out into proper accommodation. Not to mention the late Iron Lady who tweaked the arrangements then in place for the provision of social & affordable housing.

Against this fevered background, interesting to come across the blocks of houses illustrated, maybe twenty or thirty houses altogether, standing idle and getting on for derelict on the edge of one of the housing estates now occupying the sites of what used to be the Epsom asylums. Blocks of houses which until fairly recently used to house people who worked at same asylums. Roughly at gmaps 51.336435, -0.287394.

Just to the north of them, on the other side of Cuddington Glade, are more blocks of once similar houses, which I think also used to house such people but which, a couple of years ago or so, were the subject of major refurbishment and are now fully occupied by other people. No idea who actually owns them.

But why have my blocks been left behind? How did they come to fall out of the plans for flogging off National Health land and property to the private developers? Were they occupied at the time, at least in part, and it was not convenient to eject the occupiers?

Presumably somebody owns the land, perhaps some obscure organ of the National Health which worries about odd bits of property. Perhaps some obscure organ of local government? Perhaps some obscure organ which has lost most of its staff to some round of public spending cuts or other and simply does not have the manpower to tidy up all these bits and pieces.

But what if I got bored with blogging and decided to start up as a developer? How much blood, sweat and tears would I have to spend to prise these houses out of the paws of whoever has got them now and be able to get on with bringing them back up to standard and then selling them on for a handsome profit? How much money would I have to stump up, on a punt, to get the thing moving, with no guarantee of ultimate riches? One can see how such opportunities are apt to fall to either people who have already got a lot of money or people who are very young and very eager; not the sort of thing for old stagers such as myself at all.

Perhaps I should write a strong letter to our local free paper.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=derelict+1&max-results=20&by-date=true.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=derelict+2&max-results=20&by-date=true.

PS: the references being to the last of the various posts recovered by the tricky pointers. The idea was that a tricky pointer would sort the post intended to the top, but I have only succeeded in sorting it to the bottom. Can't see how to change it just presently; perhaps the answer will come to me during the day.

Wartocracy resumed or a wartological tweet

Or perhaps a wartological treat. Regulars readers will remember the succession of posts on the subject of wartocracy, mainly in the other place. Whether or no, they can be found by searching on the term or by looking, for example, at May 8th 2011 where there is a fine picture of a now demolished water tower.

The other day we decided, for no good reason, to take a walk around what used to be the West Park Asylum, now the property of Crest Nicholson, Linden Homes and possibly others. Generally speaking, the developers look to have made good use of the usable asylum buildings which look pretty well in their new clothes.

Started off by Hollywood Lodge, once Horton Lodge, built around 1750 and now derelict (see http://derelictmisc.org.uk/ for more details. An unusual and interesting site both for its content and in that it appears to be an entirely private effort, not for commerce or gain at all. The work of one D. A. Gregory). The story is that the lodge and its land were sold off by the council or by the NHS to an East End restauranteur for a nominal £1, but there must be more to it than that. In any event, the place caught fire, is now derelict and what used to be its paddock or some such is now the rather tatty home to some horses, presumably the property of some travelers. See the lime green area marked A on the illustration, which you may need to click on to enlarge. The slightly less tatty blue area marked B is also home to some horses but a sign suggests that it is the property of Crest Nicholson, presumably anxious to do something about it as it can't being doing much for the prices of few houses left to sell. I stand by my comments on the subject of camp sites for travelers on 23rd February, but may be part of any deal ought to be their sorting these two fields out: the travelers can have their horses there but they have to do it in a regular and decent way, doing something, for example, about the derelict featherboard fencing someone saw fit to erect, goodness knows why.

I note in passing that there must be the right sort of number of horses in area B as it is neither churned up nor grazed bare, something a lot of much posher horsey people do not always manage. There are also huge numbers of buttercups in attractive flower, which made me wonder whether horses don't like their taste.

We moved onto to a half completed batch of rather pretentious and no doubt expensive semi-detached houses, complete with mock stone surrounds to doors and windows. At least I think it is mock stone: some sort of fine grained, dull yellow material, with shapes which look moulded rather than carved to me.

The next thing to strike one was the half-hearted way that the extensive and potentially handsome public green areas had been tidied up.The developers no doubt sold the development to the council and is selling the houses to the punters on the basis of the beautiful park land setting - but having now sold most of the houses are not too keen on stumping up the necessary to make the park beautiful. Straight off the bottom line you know. So while the houses might look pretentious, the public green areas do not. A particularly irritating example was the short avenue planted in front of a handsome bit of restored & pilastered portico: the young trees were probably planted early last year and then nobody - the developers, the council or the occupiers of the new houses round about - thought to water them properly during the hot summer, with the result that some of them now look rather sad, despite the wet spring. About on a par with the tree planting effort at our shiny new & redeveloped railway station. Things had looked much more hopeful when I visited on 7th December last year and when one would not have expected to see any leaves.

BH tells me of a story from a borough councillor about their depressing wars of attrition with the developers of these brownfield sites, who promise all kinds of stuff, then fail to deliver. The council pegs away at it and the developer stalls, hoping that the council will just get tired and give up.

And then we came to the water tower, about where the red circle marked C is. A tall and imposing edifice. What are they going to with it? Will they shove a lift up it and make it into luxury flats? Will they not shove a lift up it and make it into affordable flats? What about a multi-storey bunk house for care workers from foreign parts? There were a couple of chaps with a van busily taking pictures with fancy looking cameras, so I asked them to find out that some peregrine falcons have taken up residence on the edge of the roof. I even got to see one - the first time I have knowingly seen such a thing; a tweet or what. Which presumably means that all bets are off: even the mighty developers will stand no chance against the RSPB. They can really put some tanks on the lawn. I wondered whether I ought to put my oar in by suggesting to the Residents' Association that there be a proper exclusion zone around the water tower, for the greater comfort and safety of the peregrines. Any houses that might have to be bought up for the purpose could be left derelict to the bats, which could then provide supper-time snacks for the falcons.

I close by remarking that what used to be my allotment is the purple circle marked D, lower far right.

PS: if you want to do Gmaps for yourself, use the reference visible in the search bar at the top of the illustration, the bit that follows the '@'.

Derelict 1

Rather surprised this morning by this derelict old peoples' home on the edge of our so desirable estate. Overgrown pond on the left. Now, it seems, the property of the Rosebery Housing Association, whose website explains that they want to redevelop the site, known as West Hill Court, but are in negotiation with the council about development restrictions. Which, I believe, has been the situation for some years.

I am not impressed that they and the council cannot come to some better arrangement than letting this not very old building go to rack and ruin.