Half face

Randle Road, off Craif Road, is another of those no-through-roads that I make a point of walking down regularly looking for interesting things like this.

Community Orchard

It seems that discussions about a Community Orchard have been going on for several years, I first heard them in Ham United Groups (HUG) meetings, and I am glad to see that it is finally taking shape with the planting of a dozen trees.

The location is the open space on Riverside Drive as it joins Ham Street, with the allotments behind it.

The trees are quite small at the moment, and you almost have to stand on them to see them, but they will grow and new trees are always very welcome.

 

The Community Orchard is being planted in memory of one of the early proponents of the scheme, the late Andrew Beedham.

Smart new homes

The infill houses in Riverside Drive have been completed so I went to see them. They are built on land that used to house garages and are not visible from the road.

The two houses have the same design but are set differently, looking left from the end of the access road the house is face-on and looking right the second house is at 90 degrees with the access road continuing across the front of it.

This is another new design, and there is nothing wrong with that. There has been some imaginative new housing in recent years, normally replacing garages, and I heartily approve.

The yellow brick is used elsewhere in Ham but not in the immediate area. The contrast helps to set the houses out as something different and there is no clash with the neighbours because of where they are hidden away.

I also like the way that each house is in two sections, either side of the entrance, presumably one for living and one for sleeping.

Reflections

This is the rather distinctive German School viewed from Douglas Footpath. I have taken a picture of this section before but that was for the coloured window frames and this time it was for the reflections of the trees.

Corner garden

One of the things that I do in collecting photos for this blog is walk down no-through-roads, even though I know that means that I will have to soon retrace my steps. Most time I do this I return empty handed so it is nice when I do find something worth taking a picture of, something like this garden.

This is The Shires, off Church Road, where the end of one of the spurs has become a striking garden. Barnfield Gardens looks on appreciatively. 

Frog

I love looking into people's gardens because on lucky days I find things like this. The frog looks perfectly at home on the lawn.

I do not want to give the exact location away but it is somewhere close to Broughton Avenue. Happy hunting!

More mature trees felled

This is getting rather depressing. It seems that every time that I go for a long walk through Ham, and I do that a lot, I find more evidence of mature trees being felled.

This one is between Tesco and Ferrymoor.

Kew and Ham Sports Association, on Riverside Drive close to the Ashburnham Road mini roundabout, are adding a raised seating area next to some of their pitches and, unfortunately, they have had to get rid of some trees to do so.

 

A closer look shows just how mature some of the felled trees were.