Approaching Ham House

On a lovely Autumn day I made my way to Ham House and was struck by this beauty before I got there. The crispness in the air was echoed in the crispness of the trees.

A tale of two pavements

The repairing of pavements in Ham continues in Woodville Road. At the Ashburnham Road end new paving stones are replacing old ones.

It is another story at the other end of the road, where social housing sets the tone for the area, black tarmac is deemed to be sufficient.

Patterning the Plats

The gardens at Ham House are always being worked on and there are changes from year to year and season to season.

Previously, the Plats, the eight lawn squares at the back of the house, had escaped attention and now their time is coming. Designs have been etched into the grass that suggest that flower beds, or something else decorative, will soon be coming.

This is good news. The Plats were built to show off wealth when lawns were expensive and unusual but times change and everybody has a lawn and this large expanse was easily the least interesting part of the garden.

Poppies, pebbles and posters

The remembrance season in early November brought a sea of poppies, pebbles and posters to the little garden in the shopping parade at the river-end of Ashburnham Road.

Demolition in Ham Farm Road

I like the diversity and individuality of the houses in Ham Farm Road so I am watching the demolition and replacement of one of them with interest. The old house certainly deserved its place in the road and I hope that its replacement does too. This is too nice a road for a bland house.

Unidentical twins

I have forgotten where this is and the GPS on my camera has let me down, which is a shame as I would like to go back and see how these works have turned out.

No doubt I will pass there by accident eventually and this house will be easy to spot as it is so different from it's neighbours. It shares the slate roof and red brick of it co-joined twin but replacing the roof and the mortar has emphasised the differences between the them.

Major thinning out

A few days after the initial shock of seeing the major works along the towpath besides Burnell Avenue I was back and it was lovely and bright for photographs.

The extent of the thinning out was clear once all the debris had been removed and it was major. All of the ground cover vegetation had been removed leaving just the trees. I do not approve because the houses in Burnell Avenue now intrude on the natural idyll and I am sure that the wildlife does not approve either.

A closer look at the works shows that not only was the scrub cleared but the trees took bit of a hammering too.

59 Ham Street rises more

I have seen the plans for 59 Ham Street so have some idea what the finished buildings will look like but the plans never tell the whole story so it is interesting to watch them take shape. At the moment most of that shape is hidden by scaffolding and it is hard work for the slim bricks on the lower level to get themselves seen.

More cutting back along the towpath

It was a foggy day in October when taking my usual walk to work that I was struck by the cutting back of the trees and bushes along the towpath opposite Burnell Avenue. There had been cutbacks along there before but not to this extent.

The Border Stone stands exposed when only a few weeks earlier I was standing next to it sheltering from the rain under a tree.

I can see the argument for exposing the river but I preferred it when coming across the weir was always a surprise and the first warning that it was there came from the noise it makes.

Work was in progress on the other side of the towpath too and the debris on the ground shows just how much of the vegetation was being removed.

While I can see an argument for exposing the river surely there is no sensible reason for making the ramshackle houses on Burnell Avenue more visible.