Christmas lights in Craig Road

In looking through this blog I was surprised at how few pictures there were of Christmas lights so I might try to do something about that this year, starting with this jolly collection in Craig Road. The two reindeer pulling the sleigh are lovely and the setting is made all the better by the background lights from the house next door.

Ham Avenues

The paths and avenues that wind throughout Ham are one of the things that I like most about the area as they make it easy to get around on foot and to do so in pretty places untroubled by cars.

Great South Avenue, which runs from Ham Common to Sandy Lane, is a little bit too straight and ordered for my tastes but it is still far better than walking along a road.

As straight, but far more natural and with the benefit of a brick wall on one side, is that path that leads past Ham House to the river. It's a path I walk often, it is on my usual route to Richmond, and it still lifts me every time.

Curved window in Sandy Lane

Sandy Lane has more variety in its houses than any other road locally (probably) which means that it is worth looking at all of them carefully when walking along there.

Number 30 looks unexceptional on a quick glance and could be easily overlooked but that would be a shame as the window is lovely. Not only does it curve around the corner of the house but it is also set off nicely by the red tiles beneath the glass.

Getting ready for the Huf House to arrive

I spent most of the morning looking at Huf Häuser in Ulswater Close in Kingston Vale so I thought that I would check up on the one that is coming to Ham Street. The works are pretty well screened but there was just enough to be seen through a couple of gaps for me to know that it would be worth sticking my camera over the top to get a full view of the site.

Some of the features of the house can now be seen. There is a gap/trench between the external walls of the basement and the steel supports of the large hole that has been dug and this will allow some daylight into the rooms in the basement. The hole in the middle of the bed of concrete is for the stairs down to the basement.

The house is due to arrive in January and I am looking forward to seeing that.

Period tiling at Cranmer Court

Unless you live there, there is little point in going down the access road that runs off Ham Parade between Wendy's Workshop and M & J Hardware which is a shame as a look up reveals this nice tiling on one of the walls to Cranmer Court.

Beales Bros on Ham Parade

The long-time resident butcher R. Tucker closed this year on the death of the proprietor and works are now in place to convert it, I believe to yet another estate agents but I hope that is not true.

The one  bit of good news in all this is that a previous shop name, Beales Bros, has been revealed. It will be covered up again soon so I am glad that I was able to capture it before it went.

Escaped horse

One of the points of this blog is to capture the changes in Ham that often go unnoticed and so I make a point of revisiting as many roads as possible as often as possible so that I can spot anything that has changed since the last time. Rarely are these changes as delightful as this one.

I presume that this horse was once on a carousel but now it has found a happy retirement in a garden in Church Road.

Little House is lovely

Little House is one of my favourite houses locally and I ope that this picture shows why. It is not as grand as some of its neighbours but it more than makes up for that with its character which partially comes from the way that it has been extended to create different sections that work very well together. The planing on and around it helps too.

The final thing I like is the location. It sits prominently on the corner of Ham Common and New Road so we can, unusually, see two sides of it.

The Old Bakery in Ham Street

The Old Bakery, as it is now called, in Ham Street has gone through a lot of changes in recent years and it looks as though all the major jobs have now finished.

The first big change was the addition of a bay window on the left. The old bricks were used to build the bay and the spaces created were filled in with bricks that are somewhat lighter than the old ones. The front porch is new too, as is the front wall and railings.

It looks neat enough but I cannot help feeling that it has rather overreached itself and has perhaps become a little bit pretentious.