Two birds

It is always nice to spot something unusal and also attracive in a front garden and I like these two birds.

Clearing behind Ham House

The recent spate of heavy clearance across Ham included the area behind Ham House, the Palm Centre is behind the wall on the left.

There is clearly an argument for keeping the scrub as a wildlife habitat and there is also one for exposing the majestic walls; I think that the stronger argument is the second one.

This is looking into the same corner along the other wall, the one running behind Ham House. 

I may have missed a clearance project (or two) in the interveening years but the last time that I noticed this area being cleared this much was back in 2009.

Saloon Off Sales

The last reminder that the building on the corner of Ham Street and Sandy Lane used to be a pub, The Royal Oak, is the etched glass in the front door, so I took a photograph of it before it goes.

Windows replaced

Until now, the work to convert the former Royal Oak / Ham Institute has been mostly visible from Sandy Lane but that changed rapidly with the removal of the white paint at the front and the replacement of the windows.

It was inevitable that it would happen, even so, it is sad to see the etched map of Ham removed from its place, where the window on the right is. I hope they found a good new home for it.

Footway (Still) Closed

The bridge connecting Douglas Footpath to the towpath has been out of action for several months with no sign of that about to change. While I miss being able to use the bridge I also appreciate the scene it makes with the barriers, sign and rain.

A tale of two halves

I had been meaning to a take a picture of this house on the corner of Beaufort Road and Fannshawe Road once the various extensions were completed a few months ago but, until now, there has always been a car or two in the way.

The end result is a little odd with the different sections of the upper floor looking more natural than the all white and windows of the ground floor which looks like a seaside cafe.

No barbeques

Wates Estate is notable for its quiet landscaped squares and while they are attractive it never occurred to me that somebody might want to have a barbecue in one but, if they did, then I am not sure that this sign in Mariner Gardens would be much of a deterrent.

Church Road cleared

The extensive clearance work along Church Road has finished with the complete removal of all the little scrub all the way from the road to the boundary, It looks very bleak at the moment and while some of the vegetation, particularly the grass, a lot of the mud will remain and there will still be no path.

Looking the other way the view is even more bleak and we can also see the machine responsible for the final stage of the clearance.

Ham House with tree

It was a rare sunny day when I took this picture of a bare tree in the Kitchen Garden at Ham House showing that even in February there is something good to see in the gardens there.

Leaning wall in Parkleys

An orange plastic barrier has been installed the heavily leaning wall alongside the garages at Brooke Court in Parkleys. You may have to zoom in to see it but the most obvious sign of the leaning is the gap between the pillat and the wall where the stick and the tape are.

Time will tell whether the barrier is just there to keep people away from a wall that might topple over or to herald the start of some repairs.

The Hive rises

The new community centre on Ham Village Green, The Hive, is rising quickly with the help of an impressive crane. I can only hope that the finished result looks better than the illustrations in the posters around it. At least it looks good at this stage before the exterior walls get added.

I have slim hope that they change the name too; "The Hive" has no connection to that location or to Ham and it is also the name of a feature in Kew Gardens only 5km away.

Lost door

It was clear from the structure of the wall of Stokes House in Ham Street that there used to be an entrance up by the house and this has been rediscovered with the removal of the rendering.

I had to take this photo from an acute angle as builders had erected a tight green mesh barrier along the edge of the pavement. I appreciate the need for safety but, as with 35 Ham Farm Road, this sort of barrier makes it difficult to see the interesting things the other side.

Stokes House wall exposed

Over a year ago a section of rendering was removed from the wall of Stokes House in Ham Street to see what lies beneath and, apparently, that led to the decision to remove all of the rendering and to treat the wall in another way.

Early flowers

The strip of Ham Common lying to the east of St Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church does not do much for the area, being dominated by the access roads and the houses, but it does have a few bulbs that provide some early flecks of colour. A lot more bulbs would be nice.

43 Lammas Road

The hoardings at 43 Lammas Road make a mystery of what is going on behind them and while most such mysteries are little more than a few new windows I am still keen to see what eventually emerges.

New play court

A new play court has been constructed in the extensive grounds of St Richard's CE Primary School in Ashburnham Road. It is early days and there are no markings or equipment to indicate what it will be used for.

It also has a separate entrance suggesting that it will be used independently of the school, at least some of the time.

Demolishing 35 Ham Farm Road

There is quite a saga concerning 33 and 35 Ham Farm Road which is too long to tell here and at its heart is a series of planning applications and building works, not normally submitted in the correct order. 

One of these concerns the merging of 33 and 35 into one property, the demolition of most of 35 and a new larger extension to replace it. This is the demolition in progress.

Little Free Library

While the main Ham Library is also in Ashburnham Road, on the junction with Ham Street, the Little Free Library is at the other end of the road, close to Willow Bank.

YJ73 RTO

New traffic island

A new traffic island is being installed in Riverside Drive in the Fellbrook area.

There are dropped kerbs there already but this still seems like an odd place for a pedestrian crossing when the main flows are along Croft Way and Teddington Lock Footpath so I suspect this is more about trying to slow motorists down than to help pedestrians cross the road.

Tidying up the towpath

I may be wrong but Richmond Council seem to have been exceptionally busy in the local green spaces recently with clearance, trimming and planting. This bit of tidying up is along the towpath between Teddington Lock and Ham House and was just one of the more obvious signs of the extensive work done around there.

The Hive appears

The new community centre being constructed on Ham Village, The Hive, has grown above its hoardings to become visible though it has yet to give much of a clue as to what it will look like when finished - there are the posters but they are mock-ups and do not show angles like this one..

Baseball Diamond

I have never seen anyone playing on the baseball field at Ham Riverside Pitches (at the far end of Ham Street) but the good condition of the diamond and the covering of the pitcher's mound suggest that it is used regularly.

Tree trimming

The tree timing process in Ham Avenues is slow and steady work, as it should be with that machinery and the importance of the Avenues. About a week earlier I had seen them working alongside the back of Ham House and days later they were alongside Ham Polo.

Rising walls

The construction of the first phase of the Ham Close redevelopment continues apace with the walls rising up from the foundations.

Abandoned gate

I thought that i had posted a picture of these posts before but I cannot find one so either I did not or I tagged it incorrectly, either way that means I can post some now.

To be honest, I am not sure whether these are gate posts or fence posts but I will go with gate posts as there are only two of them.

The gate was between Ham Avenues, next to the spur past Ham House, and The Copse.

 

Another reason for thinking that these are gate posts is the decoration that despite being simple seems too much for a fence post.

AV59 FBZ

Still more trees

The recent programme of tree planting across Ham included Ham Lands North (between Thames Young Mariners and Ham House) where just a few trees have been added to the boundary with the towpath.

The location of the new trees (set amongst existing ones), their small size and the heavy protection that they have been given suggest that these trees are special in some way though I have not seen anything that says what that special thing is.