19 March 2024

Water works


There seems to be work going on inside the former dance shop on Ham Parade and there is more obvious work going on outside too. Hopefully this means that this shop will be back in use soon.

18 March 2024

Wet Woods


Much of Ham Common Woods is naturally wet, hence the toads, but I have not often seen it as wet as this. This pond has covered the base of the fence around it and has spread beyond its normal boundaries.



Many of the paths through the Woods are very muddy and this one has gone a step further and turned into a pond.

17 March 2024

Blackout


When the entrance to The Old Vicarage in Petersham was rebuilt in 2016 it gained a lovely front gate only now that gate has been hidden by ugly solid black metal sheets. I guess it adds a little more privacy but at quite a cost.

This is exactly the opposite approach taken by the bigger, and grander, Forbes House on Ham Common which, despite being much closer to a busier road, removed its similar sheets in 2021.

16 March 2024

Starbarks is coming to Ham Parade


I am not sure that Ham Parade needs another cafe, particularly one with such a bad pun in its name, but time will be the proof of that and perhaps there is a demand for a cafe that does dog grooming.

14 March 2024

Pattern in the wall


The old wall on Ham Street either side of Eveyn Road has a story to tell and this pattern in the bricks is part of it. Other components in the story are the two low pillars either side of Evelyn Road, the curve in the walls as they stoop down to the pillars and the permanently closed gate at the end of the road.

12 March 2024

Hiding 29 Ham Farm Road


There is a shared character in Ham Farm Road and number 29 has chosen to ignore it.

That character is one of openness with either no front boundary or a very low one. And that is set back from the pavement as the first metre or so of land is Common Land. This is usually just grass or small plants.

Number 29 wanted to build a front wall with railings and settled for a mid-sized wall (barely visible) with a dense hedge in front of it. This is not how the rest of the street looks.

I fail to see why this has been done. Privacy is not an issue as so few people walk along there and a substantial hedge hides the view of Ham Common Woods, which surely is the whole point of living there.

11 March 2024

GK16 BNJ


LP23 UDL


A new school garden


The entrance to St Richard’s CE Primary School is in Ashburnham Road and the site stretches across to Woodville Road and it is from there that this new garden can be seen.

I like the business of the scene with the new beds ringed by a frame, glasshouse, plastic greenhouse and two compost  bins.