I paid a visit to Ham House over the Easter weekend and was disturbed by some of the things that I saw there.
The Easter Egg hunt was obviously expected to be a big draw, and it was, and so they had arranged for the field opposite to be used as a car park and, as the photo above shows, it was full.
While I appreciate the money that number of visitors represented to the National Trust I do not like to see open spaces used for cars and worry that the temptation will be there to do it more often or even to make it a permanent feature.
A few days earlier I had take a picture of the resurfacing of the approach to Ham House and this was my first chance to walk along there. I found the small posts somewhat distracted my attention from the avenue of trees but my real concern was over the speed tables.
The speed tables covered the full width of the path so there was no easy route for cycles, buggies, wheelchairs or scooters (every child seems to have a scooter these days). The bricks were deliberately set unevenly to slow traffic down (though I would never have thought of speeding traffic as a problem here), which made them very difficult for anything with smaller wheels to cross over them. I saw several buggies struggling and one boy almost fell over as his scooter came to a sudden stop.
The Easter Egg hunt was obviously expected to be a big draw, and it was, and so they had arranged for the field opposite to be used as a car park and, as the photo above shows, it was full.
While I appreciate the money that number of visitors represented to the National Trust I do not like to see open spaces used for cars and worry that the temptation will be there to do it more often or even to make it a permanent feature.
A few days earlier I had take a picture of the resurfacing of the approach to Ham House and this was my first chance to walk along there. I found the small posts somewhat distracted my attention from the avenue of trees but my real concern was over the speed tables.
The speed tables covered the full width of the path so there was no easy route for cycles, buggies, wheelchairs or scooters (every child seems to have a scooter these days). The bricks were deliberately set unevenly to slow traffic down (though I would never have thought of speeding traffic as a problem here), which made them very difficult for anything with smaller wheels to cross over them. I saw several buggies struggling and one boy almost fell over as his scooter came to a sudden stop.
I am with you on this one. As a cyclist this is incredibly annoying.
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