It seems so long ago now, and difficult to believe, but the weather in March was glorious, the third warmest and sunniest March on record. Difficult to remember, considering that April was the wettest April since records began
Fortunately, we took advantage of a glorious sunny Sunday at the very end of March, actually the first of April, and set off for a leisurely bike ride to The River. Rather than treating it as a sporting test of stamina and speed, we decided to treat it like a walk, but easier.
We hadn't gone far when we took a stroll round our local park, Agnes Riley Gardens.
Frederick George Riley gifted 'Oakfield House', and surrounding lands, to London County Council on the proviso that it made the site into a public open space, and name it Agnes Riley Memorial Gardens. Work began to develop two acres in 1937. But World War II intervened the two acres used for allotments and occupied by the military. In 1952, and against F.G. Riley’s wishes, the LCC decided to drop the word ‘memorial’. In 1954 the whole site was laid out as a small park.
I've never actually been in before. It's a nice little park. Not one you'd travel to see, but epitomising everything a small-ish local park should be. A highlight is the ornamental pond:
It's an interesting design, and very new, so I was concerned that the planters seemed neglected, uncared for when someone should have been watering them.
Similarly, the Community Garden looked a bit dried. Still, I think it's a great use of the space. Handy for people living in the nearby flats, and good for people like us, just walking through. Hopefully it connects children a little to plants and the origins of their food.
I was a bit perturbed to see the following sign. It has a very simple message to convey. A message which is important to people who have English as a second language (if that) or have poor literacy skills. I am steeped in the language of bureaucracy but read it twice before I got it. The most important thing should be at the top. Nobody really cares about 'the interest of all user groups and the sustainability of Lambeth sporting facilities'.
If you run a sporting group you must book this pitch in advance. Call this number to make regular and one-off bookings. You cannot book this pitch on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays after 12 noon. For more information about Agnes Riley Gardens call ...between 9am - 5pm (and don't just list the number of the Council switchboard)
We continued our bike ride to Wandsworth Common. But Wandsworth Common holds no appeal. It is a nice park, well, it has a nice pond. But it's just a staging post en route to the rest of the world.
It's nice to cycle along the Common, avoiding the heavy traffic on Bolingbroke Grove. This is supposedly a cycle route, but Wandsworth Council need to learn that 'cycle route' requires more than painting a bike on the road. We thought we'd have to take to the road in heavy Sunday morning smug traffic, but instead, we discovered St Mary's Cemetery. I don't recommend cycling through this or any cemetery, even though we were the only people there, and its burial lands were exhausted in the 1960s. It's actually quite sad to see a cemetery entirely deserted on a Sunday, even though I personally never visit people's graves.
It was also sad to see graves that had seemingly been vandalised. I only hope that whoever did this will one day have a loved one buried and realise with horror what a mindless act they committed for the lolz.
Nice weather vane on the chapel, incidentally
It's curious walking round a graveyard. I seem to be fascinated by them and I can't really say why. In some ways, it's a way of remembering people, but in other ways it just serves as a reminder of how forgettable most lives are, unless we leave a great work for posterity.
You do get snippets or vignettes of lives. Enid lived almost fifty years as a widow after the death of her husband, and yet is for ever defined by him, her body lying with that of her sister-in-law. Perhaps John Rayner Sidney King is her brother, otherwise he seems a cuckoo in the Hellings grave.
I have stated above that I don't go to visit graves, but I know a lot of people do. That they do is none of my business. My opinion should be of no consequence to them.
However, I am entitled to express my opinion and I do find something mawkish about frequent family visits to a grave, almost as if the relatives can't let go.
Merdy died when she was 40. I imagine it was a cancer, perhaps it would have been curable now. Her family visited her grave on Mother's Day, two weeks before our visit. They left her a Mother's Day card, and flowers in a vase marked 'Nan'. I doubt her grandchildren were alive when she died, but the ritual of visiting her grave continues. Death is part of life; it seems cruel to say 'get over it'. But she's been gone almost as long as I've been alive. She died the same year as my grandmother.
George and Blanche get visited, too.
It wasn't a pleasant cycle from there. Traffic was at a standstill on St John's Hill, and we had to play 'Dodge the rail replacement buses' as well as the arsehole drivers who think they own the road. But we reached the river via the Candle Factory, where Jimmy' mother worked when she first arrived in London, and before he came along.
I love the sight of abandoned rotting jetties and groynes. This seems especially picturesque juxtaposed with the gleaming modern 'apartment' blocks that overlook the river.
Especially the unbridled wealth that is Chelsea Harbour
A bit weird, because it was fairly busy on our side of the river. Cyclists, ramblers, dog-walkers, toddlers on scooters. And on the Chelsea side. No one. I got excited at the thought that someone was actually alive in Chelsea Harbour. then I realised she was someone like me, just walking through and photographing. Mind you, the Yuppie flats on the Battersea side were pretty deserted, too. I hope they'd all gone out for lunch.I hope these complexes aren't just second homes for people with mansions in the provinces. Taking up valuable land that could have been used for affordable and social housing.
The Thames Path has to divert away from the river so that people don't walk or cycle through the heliport. It's slightly strange, because out on York Road are discreet hints of being near an airport, most noticeable being the green 'RVP' signs one more often sees in deep countryside. I was quite impressed by this helicopter, thinking it was from some exotic location such as Macedonia or Mexico. I was a bit disappointed to find it is from the more prosaic (and closer) Isle of Man.
I'm not sure what to think of that block of flats. I like the design and the brash colours. I like the ceiling to floor picture windows. But there are no balconies. Understandable next to the heliport. Perhaps a condition - they couldn't have people standing on the balconies hurling things at helicopters as they take off. But who'd pay a fortune to live in a block of flats and not even have a balcony!
I seem to have got into a habit of photographing the Thames's abandoned power stations. Often Battersea, about which so much has been written so often, but also Lots Road.
The Lots Road Power Station was built at Chelsea Creek between 1902 and 1904, to power the District Line and then most of London Underground. LBC and Capital Radio were transmitted from the towers from 1973 to 1975. It closed as recently as 2002, and London Underground is powered from the National Grid. There was a massive failure of the National Grid in 2003 affecting much of Central and Inner London. Coincidence? I wonder...!
Its longterm future is undecided although the building has been stripped out and cleaned up. Some folks actually broke in and photographed it between 2006 and 2009, I would guess. Impressive, but don't try this for yourself. And some more break-in photos here, from November 2011. Okay, I'm officially envious of these extreme phloggers! Brief history.
We cycled towards St Mary's church, which has a rather nice beach in front of it. It was a noticeably low tide when we visited.
St Mary's Church dates from the 18th century, although they claim to have had a church on the site since Saxon times. Back in 693, it was known as Badrices Ege and in the Domesday Book, Patricesy. I feel that the parish history is somewhat clutching at straws. For the sake of argument, I will accept that there was a church on the site since 800, but the current church only dates from 1775. It's Grade I listed, the only such church in Wandsworth. But I'm afraid I have to give it a great big 'so what'?. It tells us nothing of the people that lived in Badrice's Ege/Patricesy/Battersea, how they lived, loved, worked and died. Just that a great deal of money was spent to build a church, seemingly paid for by 'rich city merchants'. It tells us nothing about the rise of non-Anglican Christian worship, including the development of Methodism and the revival of Catholicism. So, historically unhelpful and verging on the pointless. Also, it seemed pretty deserted for a Sunday! Certainly in comparison to St Phillips Battersea which we saw last week teeming with members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church that now uses the building.
As far as I can tell, the cemetery we visited earlier was purchased by this church in the 1860s when its own churchyard ran out of burial space.
Still, it's a nice beach
In front of the church are moored some houseboats. I've always had a secret liking for houseboats. I'm slightly jealous of a journalist I was at school with who occasionally writes about her houseboat. It's often struck me as being a bit Bohemian. I overheard a woman saying to her boyfriend 'Ooh, I wouldn't like to live on a houseboat', and it stuck me. It's not that people choose between luxury yuppie flat or houseboat. Although it can be expensive in Cheyne Walk, elsewhere it's a lot cheaper way to be an owner-occupier in Central London. All mod cons, too, including satellite TV.
We passed Chelsea Wharf, presumably where they landed the coal for the Power Station
and also the mouth of the River Westbourne, which I recently blogged about
We then cycled to and through Battersea Park, which has been visited and photographed before, and on to Battersea Park Station. I've been through this hundreds, if not thousands of times on a train but have never previously used it as a station.
According to Wikipedia,
The station remains effectively unmodernised since its construction in the Victorian era. It has an attractive polychrome brick Venetian Gothic facade. Access to the 5 platforms is via steep wooden staircases, and (as of October 2003) it is unusable by infirm or physically disabled travellers. Platform 1 is made completely from wood and Platform 5 is rarely in use, with through Southern and Gatwick Express services passing towards Clapham Junction.
However, because of weekend engineering works, they were running only a half-hourly service to Streatham Hill - from Platform 5, which has signs warning of the steep stairs 'Take care'. With two minutes til the train we practically ran, carrying our bikes (and me, the rucksack with water bottles, camera, pump, tool-kit etc) up the daunting stairs. Ironically, it was the first time I broke sweat all day!
And nice to get home, shower and eat a deliciously tasty late lunch.
