Back under cover

It is not that long ago, about a year, that the remodelling of the former vicarage on Church Road was completed and now it is again shrouded in scaffolding and plastic sheeting so I presume that some significant repairs are underway.

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Tidy fence

I like a good fence and this new one in Ashburnham Road is very good. 

Crocus

This small patch of crocus appeared quickly and delightfully making one of my regular routes through Ham Lands even better than usual.

Evening companion

Badgers are always a welcome sight on a late walk and while seeing one is not rare it is uncommon enough to be exciting when it happens. I am old enough to remember when seeing a fox was like that!

Pavement repairs in Sudbrook Gardens

Surprisingly, for such a short road, Sudbrook Gardens has featured enough in the blog to warrant its own tag. The latest reason is the work being done to repair the pavements.

This work is something of a surprise itself as in my many years of walking there I cannot recall ever seeing another person walking or using the pavement in any way; it's a short road to nowhere and everyone has several cars.

Lost garden in Craig Road

I shall have to remember next spring to make a special effort to capture some more of the lovely gardens in Ham because, for the moment, it seems to be a story of one lost garden after another. This sad example is in Craig Road.

Autumn mow

I will take any excuse to post another picture of Ham Lands. My excuse this time is that it has just had its autumn mow.

The mowing regime is planned with conservation in mind so the grass is left at a reasonable height but it is a lot shorter than before and the evenness of the mow gives the Lands a different appearance. 

A pair of new benches

It has been a good couple of years for benches and these two are just the latest in quite an impressive lise. They sit next to the five-a-side football pitch between Locksmeade and the rive.

There always were benches here, you can just see them in this photo from 2018, but they deteriorated to such a state that they were unusable. Their replacements are most welcome.

Repairing a wall

The wall to The Manor House on Ham Street shows the history of many repairs over many years but these are normally small patches and this is the first time that I have seen work on the wall in anything like this scale.

Back of a bench

This is the first time ever that I have posted two separate pictures of the same bench and that is because having posted a picture of this one's flowery front I later walked behind it, along Ham Street, and discovered the writing and pictures on the back. And, obviously, taking a photo from this angle shows the nice view that you get from sitting on the bench.

Tingales Close

Obviously this is a sign for Martingales Close, off Ham Common, but the vegetation has been allowed to obscure the first part of it. I was not carrying secateurs with me this time (I often do, especially if heading into woods) otherwise I would have fixed it.

Red statuette

I liked the placing of this statuette on the rump of a Victorian stinkpipe on Ham Common and was sorry to see it go. 

Another lost garden

This substantially refurbished house in Burnell Avenue seems determined to be at odds with its neighbours, the roof is the wrong colour and the frontage neither matches the original brick houses or those that have gone all white. And now the garden has been sacrificed for cars in a road that still prides itself in having a good number of good gardens.

Painting the pub

The Hand and Flower has more scaffolding around it now than it did a month ago and the much needed repainting of the exterior has started. The cream colour for the walls has been retained, which is good, but I hope that they pick a more exciting scheme for the windows.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip

The colour of the fence tells you that this memorial to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip is at Shockwave Clinics in Upper Ham Road.

Bug in Ham Palace

I took a very similar picture about a year ago when it was called Hotel Wildlife. The new name is much better!

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CCTV

Ham Parade has gained some CCTV cameras and some signs to announce the fact. I do not know whether they are there to catch the Sainsbury's shoplifters, people parking badly on the access road or people using the waste and recycling facilities inappropriately. All three are something of a problem at the end of Ham Parade and they rather let the area down.

Flowery bench

Yet another new bench as arrived on Ham Village Green and while the last ones, added just a couple of months ago, were metal and modern this one is decidedly rustic. Behind it is Ham Street and while the traffic there may be a little annoying the reward is a view across the whole Green.

Planters planted

After disappearing for a few days the planters at The Bistro are back and have been completed with thick vegetation. They have also been better placed and nolonger encroach on to the pavement as they first did.

It is hard to object to plants and they do give a degree of privacy for The Bistro's customers (not that most cafes do not see the need to do that) but they are still incongruous given that all the other frontages are open.

High wall

Local planning rules usually prevent high walls facing onto the street from house frontages so how 18 Lauderdale Drive got away with this is beyond me.

Richmond Council's planning database shows an application from 1971 for “Erection of wall 1.98 m (6 feet 6 inches) high along back edge of footpath” but there are no drawings to show where "back edge of footpath" is.

However it happened, I am surprised that subsequent owners have not got rid of it as the wall is south of the house and so blocks a great deal of light from the garden.

A kill for a view

I have been following the building of this major extension at the end of Tideway Close for over a year and for all of that time I have been focussed on the design, particularly the inappropriate large windows, but the one saving grace was always that the house was largely obscured by vegetation, as in this earlier photo.

Regrettably that welcome screen has been removed.

 

The view is even worse from this angle and the extent to which vegetation has been removed is more obvious.

I suspect that most/all of the vegetation was on Council owned Ham Lands and so I have asked them to investigate. I am not sure that the extension, as built, has planning permission either so I have referred that to the enforcement team.

Jude Gate

The one thing that I will miss when Jude Gate is demolished is the nouse nameplate. 

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Jude Gate on Ham Common

Jude Gate, on the north side of Ham Common, is due to be demolished so I captured it before it went.

I shall not miss it. It is a distinctly uninteresting building surrounded by much better ones and it rather lets this corner of Ham Common deserves. It also has a messy layout inside (I know people who used to live there). It is crying out for restructuring and the best way to achieve that is knock it down and start again.

Some people I have expressed concern about the impact on the view from Ham Common. I think that they are wrong so I took this "before" picture to compare with later.

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Planters at The Bistro

I am not sure what is going on at The Bistro on Ham Parade.

Planters have come and gone over the years. When I took a photo in 2019 there were several smart grey planters and in 2021 there were none, the whole area being given over to tables and chairs instead.

The grey planters have got a bit battered over the years (look at the far one here) so it is understandable that they would be replaced and that appeared to be happening when I took this photo. Then, a few days later the new ones had gone but the top soil etc. was still there in anticipation.

In praise of 5 Ashfield Close

The two small no-trough roads Cedar Height and Ashfield Close are something of a redevelopment hotspot at the moment and I posted a picture of the extension to 5 Ashfield Close being constructed about a year ago. The work has now finished and very nice it looks too.

The wood panelling in two columns on the front define the appearance and they work well with the black small-paned windows.

The only negative, and that has nothing to do with the house, is the metallic blue car on the drive which meant I had to take my photo of the house from this angle. The house looks even better fully face-on and one day I will be there when the car is not to take the photo to prove it.

Hunter's Pond is a pond

I have posted a couple of pictures of Hunter's Pond (between Ham House and the river) without any water in it so here is one where it is actually a pond. There was quite a bit of water in the area at the time helped by the reasonably high tide and, I suspect, some repairs to the sluice that controls the flow of water here.

It looks like a healthy wetland habitat to me and that is what the Thames Landscape Strategy Rewilding Arcadia project is trying to achieve.

Tree down

Petersham Lodge Woods is looking very autumnal (in August) with a thick carpet of brown leaves. This is the main path up from the river and the lighter green area towards the top-left corner is the gate into Petersham Lodge. Blighting the view is a large fallen tree.

The management of the Woods is something of a mystery to me, work does get done occasionally but it is not clear what it is trying to achieve, and I will be interested to see how long the tree is left to lie where it fell.

Filling a gap

Dickens Close, off Sudbrook Lane, is a stubby no-through-road which attracts very few strangers, only the insatiably curious and the road collectors, so few people will have seen this unusual combination of wall and railings. 

It looks as though there was a gap in the wall and when it was filled they decided to add bricks behind the railings rather than to remove them. It was a wise choice.

Grey can work

I have been, and will continue to be, pretty scathing about the mantra of adding inappropriate grey windows when renovating a house but there are times when it works, as in this example in Cedar Heights.

A difference here is that this is a more modern house and that white is not the default colour in the road.

Thames Water are back

Having made rather of a mess of some repairs in Northweald Lane, which left a small but annoying leak, they were at least fairly quick to come back and finish the job properly. In doing so they inconveniently blocked a pavement but they dug a pretty hole so everything is forgiven.