A history in brick

This wall in Sandpits Road is hardly the oldest in the area but it still carries a lot of history told by the differently coloured bricks. The place where there used to be a gate is the most obvious feature and I also like the small arch over a former gap on the bottom left.

Unexpected trees

Having cleared the vegetarian away from the bench in Ham Gate Avenue, close to Ham Gate, two news trees were planted which seems strange, particularly as the far one is under another tree.

The posts may be necessary but they draw too much attention to themselves at the moment.

St Richards is enveloped

St Richards is a superb building so it is good news that it is being restored and even better news that it looks so good enveloped in scaffolding while the work is done.

Ham in flowers

This short journey along Sandy Lane ends at the Ham Street end with a small display of flowers. It is easy to miss the significance of the flowers and a closer look is required.

The flowers spell "HAM" which is a very nice tough. I especially like it as some people would claim that this is actually in Petersham, but I agree that it is Ham.

An uncertain future

Yet another house on Sandy Lane is about to be worked on. Judging by the lack of scaffolding and the relatively small size of the house, I suspect that this may be a demolish and rebuild. As with all the other construction projects in Sandy Lane, and elsewhere, I will keep visiting and noting any significant progress.

Ready for work

This house on Sandy Lane looks ready to start the next stage in its life though the limited anount of scaffolding suggests that it may not be that different from the last one.

15 Sandy Lane remodelled

Things have clearly changed at 15 Sandy Lane and not necessarily for the better. The house is a bigger, e.g. the garage has been included in to the main house, but it is also much blander, e.g. the terracotta tiles in the bay between the two windows have been removed.

There are a few little details there, e.g. in the small panes at the top of the windows, but these are lost in the uniformity of the painted front. I expect the porch to be painted too, it needs to be.

Leaning tree

While I usually try and mix which part of Ham I post pictures of I have collected several of Sandy Lane so I thought that I would post them as an end-to-end theme, starting with the Petersham Road end in the east.

This young tree has been forced to lean by the strong winds battering it and it does not have any support to help it. It will be fine though it looks a little odd against the vertical lines behind it.

LB23 GVT