July | 2013 | A Weekend Diary

Archive for the month “July, 2013”

26 Jul 2013

A few days in Norfolk – Day Four

My final day in Norfolk for this summer saw me spending a couple of hours in Wymondham (pronounced Windum), which is a twelve minute journey on the Cambridge/Ely line from Norwich…

Arrived here around five to ten in the morning…

I took a left turn out of the station, which isn’t advisible if you want the shortest walk to the town centre (use Station Road!), and I found myself taking a long wander along Cemetery Lane, and approaching the town centre via Whitehorse Street and Damgate Street. Mind you, that did take me past this terraced house in Damgate Street that rather appealed to me…

Is this a former butcher’s shop, converted to a residential dwelling? Well, who knows…

Here is Market Cross, which serves as a Tourist Information Centre, and has a street market adjacent (which is to the left of here)…

The town sign, with the Green Dragon pub beyond…

A closer view of the Green Dragon…

Wymondham is famed for its Abbey, so here are a few pictures of the same…

Wymondham Abbey from the front…

And side-on in moody mono…

And inside, its glorious nave…

With the town’s main tourist sights now seen, I headed back to the railway station (via Station Road!), arriving there shortly before midday. The 12:14 train back to Norwich was delayed by ten or fifteen minutes, so I had plenty of time to nip into the Station Bistro to buy a very nice cheese scone, and tin of cola…

The Station Bistro at Wymondham railway station…

Back in Norwich, my train to Liverpool Street wasn’t due until half-four, so I wandered around the city, having a lunchtime pint in The Mischief pub, and taking a few final photos of this trip to the city…

St Saviour church, in Magdalene Street…

Kate had given birth to George on the afternoon of my arrival in Norwich, and the event was celebrated in the window of the Save The Children charity shop in Magdalen Street…

A valedictory view of Norwich, the River Wensum, with my B & B, The Station Hotel in Riverside Road, just visible behind the back of the double-decker bus…

Posted in Norfolk, Norwich, Wymondham and tagged Damgate Street, Green Dragon, Kate and William, knitted dolls, Magdalen Street Norwich, Market Cross Wymondham, nave, Prince George, River Wensum, Royal Birth, Save The Children charity shop, St Saviour Magdalen Street, Station Bistro, Station Hotel Riverside Road, Tourist Information Centre, Wymondham Abbey, Wymondham Railway Station | Leave a comment

25 Jul 2013

A few days in Norfolk – Day Three

Day the third saw us heading to the north Norfolk coast, and again the weather was fine, sunny and (sometimes very) warm, despite a forecast of rain, which never materialised in any meaningful way. I’d caught the 09.45 Sheringham train from Norwich, on the Bittern Line, and had been joined in the front carriage at North Walsham station, by my old friend (who happens to live in North Walsham).

We alighted at Gunton, the next station on the line, after a short journey, and began our ramble towards the village of South Repps, on the way to which we passed this abandoned pub. Boarded-up pubs have been an all too common feature of the English landscape in the past few decades…

The Suffield Arms at Gunton…

On we wandered to our first destination, the village of South Repps, and we lingered a while at the church, St. James, which is well-maintained, and much used, and seems to play a significant role in the social life of the village.

St. James Church, South Repps (or Southrepps)…

Along the road to our next destination, St Mary’s Church at North Repps, we passed a field containing these two equine characters; the white horse turned out to be a lot less shy than the Shetland Pony…

By now it was warming up, and this horse was getting thirsty…

This one kept its distance…

By the time we reached St Mary’s Church, we were feeling in need of a rest and some refreshment, so we sat on a bench and relaxed in the churchyard for a while…

St. Mary, North Repps (or Northrepps)…

Unlike at St. James at South Repps, there was no one around at St Mary’s Church other than ourselves, but when I went inside, I took a liking to a couple of the windows…

And here’s the village sign…

Presumably celebrating the Queen’s Silver Jubilee…

We were now heading for Overstrand on the coast, by way of this long wooded pathway, and I couldn’t help thinking of a line of Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Strange Meeting’, something about a ‘profound dull tunnel’ ;).

Or maybe ‘Alice in Wonderland’…

Nearing Overstrand, we passed this rapacious looking Beetle…

Yes, don’t you mess with me… 😉

And here we are in Overstrand…

Crabs, boats and beaches…

Now we really were near the seafront, and here are three views from the clifftop…

We then went down to nearer beach level, and I was rather taken with the zig-zagging nature of this breakwater…

There are numerous breakwaters between Overstrand and Cromer, but this one seems to be unique in design…

We then rambled the couple of miles westward to Cromer along the beaches, and arrived there in due course…

Despite the appearance of the clouds, the rain kept away…

Cromer’s pier…

Heading along the pier to the Pavilion Theatre, and the Lifeboat Museum beyond…

Stained glass window in Cromer Lifeboat Museum…

A view from Cromer Pier back towards Overstrand…

Cromer Pier from above…

We then ascended into the town itself…

A framed seaview from the town…

Jetty Street sign…

By now it was late afternoon, and we were feeling the need of a pint, so we repaired to the Red Lion, and some Aspall cider…

And very welcome it was… 😉

Another view through the Red Lion’s window…

We had a train to catch at Cromer railway station around sixish, so we made our way there via Mary Jane’s Fish and Chip Shop, where we bought some chips to eat on the way to the station. It would have been a veggie burger too, had they not told us they cooked it in beef dripping… 😉

A Morrison’s supermarket was built in the old Goods Yard at the station, and here are two murals nearby…

Here’s one of them…

And here’s the other…

Yes, two weary ramblers, but a great day out nonetheless… 🙂

Posted in Cromer, Norfolk and tagged Aspall cider, Beetle, breakwaters, Cromer beach, Cromer Lifeboat Museum, Cromer Pier, Gunton, Jetty Street, North Repps, Overstrand, Shetland pony, South Repps, St James Southrepps, St Mary Northrepps, stained glass window, The Red Lion, The Suffield Arms, Volkswagen | Leave a comment

24 Jul 2013

A few days in Norfolk – Day Two

So, on my second day in Norfolk, we decided to head to the south-west of the county, buying day-return train tickets to Brandon, and intending to take a scenic walk from there to Thetford, from where we’d ultimately return to Norwich once the day’s rambling was done.

We began by taking a walk from Brandon railway station to the end of the High Street…

It seemed like a good idea at the time to ramble on to Thetford by way of a two and three-quarter mile riverside footpath to Santon Downham, a village en route, and so we duly set off, past a sign that jokingly suggested a machete might be found to be useful along the way. We laughed at this, of course, but sure enough, the further we got into the route, we found ourselves battling along an ill-defined footpath in the midst of five-foot tall stinging nettles, wet undergrowth, midges, damsel flies and sundry other insect life, a couple of example photographs of which I include below ;)…

The first photograph here portrays a somewhat idyllic journey, although even this photo gives hints of the task ahead of us…

The river here is the Little Ouse…

I tried in vain to capture an image of some yellow butterflies, but they proved to be far more elusive than was this snail ;)…

Yes, well, life goes on…;)

We eventually reached our first destination, a bridge at Santon Downham, and after a rest and some refreshment, we continued on to All Saints’, Santon, along pathways a lot kinder to us than the one on the earlier Little Ouse ramble had been…

This plant is apparently called Black Mullein…

This is evidently a thistle…

Ah, definitely a poppy (which are prolific in some parts of Norfolk)…

We made a slight diversion on the walk down to Thetford, by visiting the small church of All Saints’ Santon…

All Saints’ Church, Santon

The interior of the church…

And its small but beautiful ‘Agnus Dei’ stained glass window…

On we traipsed past a field with a number of horses, two of which provided a wholly unexpected and bemusing spectacle in the hot early afternoon sun. Yes, they really were be-hooded, and wearing coats, as shown in the two following photographs. Some googling later suggested that both the ‘fly-masks’ and ‘fly-rugs’ being worn, were to afford some protection from horse-flies. Apparently, the horses can actually see through the hoods, but to be sure, it was something that I had never seen before, and it was an extraordinary sight…

It was a hot day, so goodness knows how this horse coped with it all 😉

A white horse c/w fly mask and fly rug…

Although we were now deep in countryside, there was no escape from occasional overflights of military aircraft…

Jet fighters in flight…

Thetford Forest has plenty of beautiful pine trees…

Thetford Forest pine trees…

As we headed on towards Thetford town, we rejoined a footpath alongside the Little Ouse, a river where swans were much in evidence…

Little Ouse swans feeding methinks…

A sedate swan and its reflection…

At last, after some ten miles of walking, we neared Thetford town centre…

Town Bridge, Thetford, built in 1829…

Welcome to Thetford sign

Close by Town Bridge is this gentleman sat on a bench ;). The long-running BBC comedy series ‘Dad’s Army’ was mostly filmed in and around Thetford…

Captain Mainwaring, looking thoughtful 😉

Dad’s Army Museum, Thetford

After a welcome pint in The Green Dragon, we made our way to Thetford Railway Station, via the Medieval ruin of Thetford Priory…

Thetford Priory, a ruin, albeit a rather beautiful one…

Another part of the Priory ruins…

Once back in Norwich, we said our farewells for the day, and I repaired to the ‘Compleat Angler’ for some food and drink…

The Compleat Angler, a riverside pub near Norwich Railway Station…

When I’d visited the pub on my arrival in Norwich the previous day, and being a long time vegetarian, I had been intrigued by an item on the pub menu, namely ‘Vegetarian ‘Fish’ and Chips’, described thus:

‘Hand-battered Halloumi cheese in coriander & lemon marinade, served with chips, a choice of mushy or garden peas, tartare sauce and a wedge of lemon’…and all for £5.99…

How could I resist…;)

Yes, Vegetarian ‘Fish’ and Chips, with a pint of Cola and ice…

Posted in Norfolk, Thetford and tagged agnus dei, All Saints ' Santon, Arthur Lowe, Black Mullein, Brandon, Captain Mainwaring, Compleat Angler, Dad's Army, horse mask, horse rug, jet fighters, Little Ouse, pine trees, poppy, Santon Downham, snail, stained glass window, swans, Thetford, Thetford Forest, Thetford Priory, thistle, Town Bridge 1829, vegetarian fish and chips | Leave a comment

23 Jul 2013

A few days in Norfolk – Day One

It’s all too easy to lose contact with workmates when they move on to other jobs or retire, so I arranged to spend a few days in Norwich last week, to catch up with one such old friend now living in Norfolk. On the internet, I duly bought myself a return train fare from London’s Liverpool Street station, and made my way there intending to catch the midday train to Norwich, on which I had a reserved seat…

The Bishopsgate entrance to Liverpool Street station…

Things didn’t begin too well, however…;)

Yes, that’s my train, the 12:00 to Norwich…

A quick chat with a Customer Services representative on the station concourse, and an over-stamping of my ticket, resulted in my catching the 12.30 pm train, and I arrived at Norwich Railway Station around two hours later…

The first of many gorillas I encountered in Norwich during the next few days…

I soon found myself taking refuge from the sultry weather in a pub not far from the station, called the Compleat Angler, where I stayed long enough to down a pint of lager, before booking into my B & B hotel for the next three nights, which was perfectly placed in Riverside Road, not far from the railway station. Once I had settled into the hotel, in the evening I set off for a long ramble around the City, and these are some of the resulting pictures…rather a lot of gorillas I’m afraid…;)

…this one in Castle Meadow..

…and one in front of Castle Mall…

Not sure of the street I’m standing in here, but the yonder church is St. Michael-at-Plea…

I do know the name of this street however; it’s called Quay Side…

This one is on Fye Bridge…

…and this natty dresser is in St. George’s Green…

By now, dusk was approaching, so I headed back towards my hotel via Novi Sad Bridge and a walk along the riverside…

View from Novi Sad Bridge…

Nearing the hotel, a view from Riverside Walk…

Posted in Norfolk, Norwich and tagged Bishopsgate, Castle Mall, Fye Bridge, gorillas, Liverpool Street Station, Norwich Castle, Norwich Station, Novi Sad Bridge, Quay Side, River Wensum, St. Michael-at-Plea, The Mischief pub | Leave a comment

20 Jul 2013

HMS Warrior, and Liverpool Street Station…

I’ve now seen HMS Warrior countless times, and in a variety of climatic conditions, but the beauty of this (restored) iron-clad warship dating from 1860, in Portsmouth Harbour, is always worth another look, so here she is once more ;)…

HMS Warrior, early evening, 15th July, 2013

By way of contrast, here’s something I can’t ever remember seeing before, though I should add that my visits to London’s Liverpool Street Station have been few and far between over the years. I went there this afternoon to collect some tickets for a journey to Norwich next week, and was drawn to this statue on the concourse of the station…

Posted in Hampshire, London, Portsmouth and tagged Fur Das Kind, HMS Warrior, Liverpool Street Station, Portsmouth Harbour, refugees | Leave a comment

13 Jul 2013

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A hot summer’s day in London Town…

For those of us whose homes lie on the Northern Line of London’s Tube network, we’ve been experiencing a lot of weekend engineering work this year, and that was true again this weekend, with no trains running on the Northern Line between East Finchley and central London (on the High Barnet Branch) nor any trains running between Golders Green and central London (on the Edgware Branch). So it was, I found myself on a crowded Replacement Bus Service between East Finchley and St Pancras today, and once we’d all been disgorged into Midland Road, I decided I’d take a nostalgic ramble southwards towards the river, taking a few pictures along the way…

First stop was a visit to the courtyard of the British Library, which is just to the west of St Pancras Station on the northern side of the Euston Road. Here, I stumbled across a display by some Morris Men, as part of an event called The Full English Discovery Day…

Along with the Morris Men, other displays included as part of this Full English Discovery Day, were traditional English entertainments such as Maypole Dancing, but as I was intending to pay a visit to Trafalgar Square for the day’s event there, the London Evening Standard’s ‘Readathon’, I left the courtyard soon after the Morris Men finished their performance. However, before leaving, I took a couple of photos of Eduardo Paolozzi’s 1995 wonderful statue of ‘Newton, after Blake’…

Then, across the Euston Road, for a photo of St Pancras Station, before continuing the journey southwards..

One of the glories of English railway architecture, St Pancras Station, as seen from the far side of the Euston Road…

Given the day’s heat, at some point in the afternoon I would inevitably be taking some liquid refreshment, but as tempting as it was, I gave ‘Mabels Tavern’ a miss, as I wanted to make sure I got to Trafalgar Square by four o’clock or soon after…

‘Mabel’s Tavern’ a Shepherd Neame (a Kentish Brewer) pub on the corner of Mabledon Place and Flaxman Terrace…

I must confess here that until today, I had never even heard of the man celebrated in this statue in Cartwright Gardens, but he was evidently a man way ahead of his time in his political opinions :)…

John Cartwright (1740-1824), an English political radical…

On I rambled southwards, stopping off in Brunswick Square to buy some food and water in Waitrose, before continuing on past Russell Square, to Holborn Tube station, at the top of Kingsway. Between 1988 and 1996, Kingsway was my working address, and I have many happy memories from those years :)…

The door of St Anselm and St Caecilia’s Roman Catholic Church in Kingsway, London, WC2

When working in this area, I spent countless lunchtime hours visiting Covent Garden to the west, either for lunch or visiting the market stalls there, and the following building, is on the Covent Garden side of Kingsway, at 1, Kemble Street. It’s called Space House, and is a Richard Seifert building dating from 1962…

Space House, as seen from the west…

And in nearby Wild Street, I found this vehicle parked…;)…

Pink Limousine, Wild Street, London, WC2

And a few more WC2 places in the vicinity…

Freemasons Hall, Great Queen Street, London, WC2

Some ‘Boris Bikes’, awaiting hirers…

‘War Horse’, Parker Street, WC2…

Ballet pumps, in a shop window of one of the many shops selling dance-wear in the Covent Garden area…

Monmouth Street, WC2, in the heart of London’s Theatre-land…

I eventually wended my way down to Trafalgar Square, arriving well after four o’clock, and just managed to capture this shot of the author Kathy Lette as she was leaving the ‘Readathon’ stage…

Kathy Lette, saying her farewells after doing her bit for ‘Readathon’..

The following photos show the cast of ‘Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain’ (Benedict Martin and Lauryn Redding) doing their performance of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn on the ‘Readathon’ stage. The two are currently performing ‘Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain’ at the nearby Garrick Theatre, at the bottom of the Charing Cross Road…

Henry and Anne get introduced to one another…

Some kind of wooing going on…;)…

…but all good things come to an end… :(…

Methinks it’d take more than a sparrowhawk to frighten this pigeon away from Trafalgar Square..;)…

Two double-deckers, one old, one new, in front of Charing Cross Station…

Embankment Tube Station, at the southern end of Villiers Street…

The band performing in the ‘With Love from Lambeth’ festival in the Clore Ballroom of the Royal Festival Hall, late on Saturday afternoon…

Alas, I never discovered the band or this singer’s name, but she did some good covers of stuff like ‘Summertime (When the Living is Easy)’ and Etta James’ ‘At Last’… 🙂

A model of the 1951 Festival of Britain site, near the front of the Royal Festival Hall…

Overlooking the Thames at the Members’ Bar at the Royal Festival Hall

Another view from the Members’ Bar…

A bronze head on a wall of the Members’ Bar…

Duly refreshed, I went outside to have a look around the South Bank towards the London Eye…

In the foreground, a modern sculpture called the ‘Jubilee Oracle’, and in the distant yonder, The Houses of Parliament…

Susana Silva, a Portuguese singer, and South Bank busker…

The said Susana, in her South Bank context…

The work of a portrait sketch artist on Hungerford Bridge…

View upstream from Hungerford Bridge…

And finally, Swan Lane Open Space in Whetstone, London N20, which I wandered through after catching a number 34 bus to Barnet Church, from Arnos Grove Tube Station on the Piccadilly Line…

Posted in London and tagged 'Boris Bikes', 1951 Festival of Britain, Anne Boleyn, ballet pumps, Benedict Martin, British Library Courtyard, busking, Cartwright Gardens, Clore Ballroom, Eduardo Paolozzi, Embankment Tube Station, Festival of Britain 1951, Freemasons Hall, Horrible Histories : Barmy Britain, Hungerford Bridge, Isaac Newton, John Cartwright (1740-1824), Jubilee Oracle, Kathy Lette, King Henry VIII, Kingsway, Lauryn Redding, Mabels Tavern, Monmouth Street WC2, Morris Men, N.J. Robertson's Fresh Popcorn, pink limousine, Readathon, Royal Festival Hall, Sir Thomas Beecham, South Bank, Space House, St Anselm and St Caecilia, St Pancras Station, Susana Silva, Swan Lane Open Space, The British Library, The Full English Discovery Day, Trafalgar Square, War Horse, Wild Street WC2, With Love From Lambeth

12 Jul 2013

A New Forest summer evening’s ramble…

Lovely weather for the most part in England at present, and on Thursday evening about a dozen of us went for a post-work six mile ramble in the New Forest, a circular walk starting and ending at the Sir Walter Tyrrell pub, and here are some of the resulting pictures….