30 June 2023
Preparations
Work on Teddington Footbridge started on 26 June and after a couple of days the only sign of work is this caged area blocking several of the paths on the Ham side.
29 June 2023
Lock Road extension
I always like roof work because of the sheer indistry in the scaffolding, the sight of an open roof and the curiosity on what the end result will look like.
For some reason this section of Lock Road is not part of the Ham Common Conservation Area (all of New Road is) so there are fewer controls on what might be coming. I am both curious and a little scared.
28 June 2023
Path closed
This path into The Copse by Ham Polo is closed due to, the notice says, due to tree management.and that closure is enforced by a fence.
The condition of the path suggests that not many people take advantage of it, and it is not on any of the maps that I use (Apple, Google and OpenStreetMap), but better safe than sorry.
27 June 2023
Shade on Ham Gate Avenue
Ham Gate Avenue is the most direct route to Richmond Park and has the advantage of having a good pedestrian path, unlike the lamentable Church Road, but this directness can also be a little boring with nothing to vary up the view after Ormeley Lodge. Not so on days like today when the trees fight off the sun to create interesting patches of shade on the path.
26 June 2023
Wall rebuilding
This is the Croft Way side of the parade of shops in Ashburnham Road where a sizeable section of the brick wall is being rebuilt, presumably to repair some damage.
The key question is how well the bricks are matched and I will take another photo once the work is completed to answer that.
25 June 2023
The Shires
My quest to find mismatched and odd street signs takes me to The Shires, a small no-through-road off Church Road.
On one side of the entrance is this old sign, devoid of any information other than the street name. The sign is too wide for the lettering and the sign writer chose to add the extra whitespace between the two words, which just looks wrong.
On the east side is a much newer sign of an appropriate width. It has more information, i.e. that it is a no-through-road and is in Ham, though the word "Ham", below the "ES" is almost unreadable.
24 June 2023
Badgers 1 - 0 Cars
The too frequent sighting of a dead badger beside the road shows just how unequal the battle between badgers and cars is so it is great to see the cute little guys win for once. This is the acces road to Ham Polo and Deutsche Schule London and it has been made unsafe by badgers burrowing under it.
23 June 2023
Thames Vet is open
The unit in Ashburnham Road (at the Tesco end) that announced that it was to become Ham Vets has opened as Thames Vet, possibly to avoid confusion with Ham Veterinary Surgery and other local vets.
They have kept the style of the previous signage and simply added "T" and "es" to "ham" to make "Thames" and, in doing so, they have preserved the paw on the first part of the "m".
"Vets" has become "Vet" and for no obvious reason though I like the shorter sharper sound.
22 June 2023
Advance Warning
The maintenance of the bridges to Teddington by the Lock has been an issue for many years and many people will remember when the bridge on the Teddington side was painted by a volunteer who seemed to be working on it constantly. Finally, after many false rumours in recent years, the bridges are getting some major maintenance done.
I am also intrigued by the given names of the bridges. I have always called these Teddington Lock Footbridges, or more lazily just Teddington Footbridge, using Wikipedia as my guide, and the names Teddington Bridge and Lock Cut Bridge are new to me. Teddington Bridge is just a further shortening of Teddington Footbridge and as this is the only crossing in Teddington there is no confusion so I am happy to accept this. While I understand how Lock Cut Bridge got its name it is not a name I intend to use and I suspect that not many other people will either.
21 June 2023
Glorious Ham Lands
The main point of the guided walk organised by Friends of Ham Lands was to look in detail at some of the plants but was also a welcome opportunity to appreciate the natural beauty of the grasslands and woodlands. And I really love grasses when they are this tall and this varied.
It took some effort to select just two photos of the grasslands from the many that I took (as it did with the flower photos yesterday) and I hope that they are enough to show how marvellous Ham Lands it. The simple trick is to avoid the main paths and take any of the many smaller paths that wander all over the Lands.
20 June 2023
Flowers on Ham Lands
Friends of Ham Lands do a lot of good work, not only in maintaining and enhancing the Lands but also in showing people why it is so special. I went on one of their Discover Ham Lands guided walks to see for myself and spent a happy hour and a half learning about some of the more interesting plants.<
I was fasinated to learn how many of the flowers were part of familiar groups of plants, such as cabbages and peas, that, to an untrained eye, they bore no comparison to. Luckily Friends of Ham Lands had several pairs of well trained eyes there to point these things out to the rest of us!
19 June 2023
Rail
There are few visible clues to the history of Ham Lands, it looks as though it has been there forever, so it is something of a surprise to come across this section of rail that was part of the system used to move gravel off the site.
18 June 2023
Monitoring Well
This Monitoring Well cover on Ham Lands was uncovered only recently when Friends of Ham Lands were working in the area. They only had gardening tools with them so were unable to open it to see what is inside but the best guess is that it is just a simple well that a ruler can be put down to measure the height of the water table.
17 June 2023
Bird boxes
I know very little about bird boxes other than they are a good thing and you have to match them, by the size of the opening, to the species of birds that you are hoping to attract. I also know that these four are lovely.
16 June 2023
The last of the green
This year had been fantastic for all things green until the dry late-spring and the early-summer heatwave quickly turned a lot of it brown so here is a reminder of how glorious it was just a short while ago.
This is the view from Croft Way looking across the patch of grass on the corner with Riverside Drive, that is where the street lights are, with Ham Lands beyond that.
15 June 2023
Glass roof
Most of the ground floor extension to this house in Lock Road is hidden behind a daunting wall with only the roof visible from the street and what a neat roof it is. All the glass gives it a conservatory feel but the roof line is just a continuation of the older extension and the choice of grey is appropriate in this case so it all looks dandy.
14 June 2023
Partially painted
The extensive works at St. Andrews Place in Upper Ham Road (facing Ham Common) have been going on for quite a while and the first photograph I took of the work was in February 2019. Visible progress has been erratic since then with long periods of nothing new to see from the outside but the latest work, repainting the porch, is very visible and bodes well for the rest of the house.
13 June 2023
Flattened grass
After what seemed like a few months with no rain was followed by a very hot day and then by a short and very sharp downpour that battered the long grass that had been enjoying summer until then.
12 June 2023
Before the cars go
I have posted many photos of Ham Parade over the years which have focused on the shops, particularly as they change, and now it is time for the slip road on the east side to get some attention as plans are afoot to close it. Welcome news indeed!
Having a slip road between two pavements causes all sorts of problems, such as access to the bus stop and the pedestrian crossings, cars frequently parked at the crossing points, drivers using it as a way to avoid the traffic lights, and two pavements too narrow for easy passage.
The only consistent argument I have heard against the plans is that shops will lose business because of the reduced parking. This is hysterical nonsense.
There are two main reasons while this is nonsense. Firstly only a few places will be lost and as there are usually several spaces to park in now the actual reduction is parking will be little or none. Secondly, experiences elsewhere have consistently shown that making areas more attractive for people attracts more people and they spend more money. Shops actually do better in areas like this when they are pedestrianised, this will be particularly true for the several coffee shops on that side of the road.
11 June 2023
Long grass
Whether it is because of the weather we have had this year, a kinder mowing regime or something else, something has made the view from the towpath south of Teddington Lock across Ham Lands greener and wilder than I can recall it being before. The height of the grasses in particular is most impressive.
10 June 2023
Secret wisteria
Martingales Close mostly consists of suburban America style homes with open front gardens and large garages, something like the Simpsons' house, and at the end of the road space has dictated a row of smaller houses.
This otherwise uninteresting corner is significantly brightened by a wisteria. It is nothing like as grand as some other wisterias in Ham but its location, particularly all the white around it, make it pleasingly dramatic.
9 June 2023
Dead tree
Ham Lands and other green areas (but not Ham Common) are looking particularly lush this year thanks to the wet start we had to spring. With all the verdant splendour on display it is more obvious when a tree had died, like this one just off the towpath approaching Teddington Lock from the south.
It is still upright and probably far enough away from the tow path to be of any concern so I am hoping that it is left alone until its time comes to fall.
8 June 2023
Clarke House
I have been fairly derogatory of the landscpaing of Ham Close, and rightly too, so it is nice to be able to redress that balance a little and show one part of the estate that looks good.
This is the back of Clarke House, just off Woodville Road, and the setting looks rather lovely. The trees and the flowers in the grass are a large part of this and the building also looks good with the sunlight falling on it.
7 June 2023
Ham Common cottages
The larger houses around Ham Common are a bit hit and miss but the cottages are all lovely. These, on the north side look particularly good from this angle which makes the most of the limited space for planting at the front of the cottages.
6 June 2023
Deer
There are several famous fake animals across Ham and Petersham (e.g. at Montrose House, Ormeley Lodge, Whornes Place, etc.) but this deer in Church Road is harder to find, and is all the more rewarding for being so.
5 June 2023
Unexpected fence
Martingales Close is an odd little enclave that tries very hard not to be part of Ham both in style and connectivity. It has its own rules and one of these is that the front gardens are kept open, no fences or hedges, but this house has chosen to ignore them.
It all seems a little unnecessary as the house's location, on a bend in the road with a large tree in the front garden, offers it far more privacy than the other houses in the street.
4 June 2023
Welcome to Ham Close
When Ham Close (in its current form) goes so will these signs, there is one on each of the four entrances, so I wanted a picture of one for the record.
The sign is useful in showing how poorly the site if used with the large grey areas given over to cars and the green areas being mostly lawn. There are a few trees but these are mostly around the edges.
New gates
I always like to find work in progress, not least because it shows that something is changing whereas, afterwards, it is not always so obvious and so I may miss it. There can be no doubt that these are new gates!
A day or so later and they have turned green and while they look fresh when walking past, it is not clear that the gates are new, not just the paint.
Of course, those with reasonable memories will recall that there were no gates here before and so they must be new.
3 June 2023
Silly signs
There are several of these signs around Ham Pond which I find silly for several reasons.
They are very small. Being this small they have almost no impact and are easily missed.
They are in the wrong place. You have to be right by the pond to read that you should have your dog on a lead by which time it is too late.
They are confusing. They start with "Please" which implies that this is a request and end with the possibility of a fine implying this is an instruction. It cannot be both. It also says "ponds" when, clearly, there is only one pond.
There should be a dog-free zone for some distance around the pond with clear signage. Anything less than that is pointless.
2 June 2023
Behind Cedarwood
Cedarwood, on the corner of Church Road and The Shires, has now been surrounded by tall hoardings so I was pleased to catch this view of the back of the house before they all went up.
I like the little bay extending from the ground floor but I believe this is being replaced by an extension, though we probably will not be able to see it once the permanent fence is installed.
1 June 2023
Extension in The Shires
The Shires is an annoying no-through-road (most of Ham is very permeable on foot and the few exceptions are a pain for anyone wishing to explore and enjoy the area) and I only go in there a few times a year just to see if anything interesting is happening. This time I was drawn in by the very interesting changes at Cedarwood at the entrance to the road.
Once there I went further in to check out this impressive clutter, I love clutter! The cause is the single storey extension behind.
Also impressive is the brick matching. Less impressive is the match in style but I will reserve final judgement on that until the work is finished. At least the front porch as a flat roof too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)