Ham Brewery Tap

The former Ham Brewery Tap (like the forem Royal Oak along the road) is being converted and while the building will always look like it used to be a pub I presume that all the obvious pub trappings, like this window, will be removed so I took this photo as a memento. 

A different look at The Hive

I took a similar picture of The Hive, the new community centre on Ham Village Green, not that long ago but it has grown taller since then and it looks a little different from this angle, looking across Ashburnham Road.

Stokes House wall recovered

I was lucky to catch the walls to Stokes House in Ham Street when the old render had been removed and the lovely bricks were briefly exposed and thn, just a few days later, they looked like this.

Another section of the wall was only rendered in patches for reasons that I do not understand or care about, I just like the resultant pattern.

Mostly demolished

The extension of 33/35 Ham Farm Road includes the demolition of most of the previous building with just a few isolated walls from what was number 33 still standing.

Celebrating 20 Years

Petersham Nurseries started celebrating its 20 Years of operation last year with the large sign on the corner of the building and a now that message has been repeated between the elephant heads where there used to be a simple crest.

Clearing between the paths

Probably the most obvious of all of the recent clearances of vegetation in the strip of land between the track and path from Riverside Drive to Teddington Lock. 

It looks very stark at the moment and I suspect that it will be some time before the scrub reclaims the space, as it needs to otherwise this strip will be a hard break across Ham Lands.

Entrance to The Copse

I was cutting through from Meadlands Drive north to Douglas Footpath and was surprised to see a substantial entrance path being created at the north end by Ham Polo.

I made a point of going back a week or so later by which time the work had finished.

I though that either they were building a new entrance to the former Strathmore School site or a proper path all the way to Meadlands Drive, but this is neither and I am struggling to see what the point of it is.

Two birds

It is always nice to spot something unusal and also attracive in a front garden and I like these two birds.

Clearing behind Ham House

The recent spate of heavy clearance across Ham included the area behind Ham House, the Palm Centre is behind the wall on the left.

There is clearly an argument for keeping the scrub as a wildlife habitat and there is also one for exposing the majestic walls; I think that the stronger argument is the second one.

This is looking into the same corner along the other wall, the one running behind Ham House. 

I may have missed a clearance project (or two) in the interveening years but the last time that I noticed this area being cleared this much was back in 2009.