Reflections Illuminated Thames Flotilla

24th September 2022

At dusk, an illuminated flotilla of over a hundred and fifty boats,

including Gloriana The Queen’s Rowbarge, sailed down the River Thames

through central London from Chelsea to Tower Bridge.

 

Here they are passing under Hungerford Bridge and

the Golden Jubilee Bridges, seen from Waterloo Bridge.

This isn't the greatest footage of the event, shot on a

smartphone which struggled with the bright lights in

the darkness but they say that the best camera in the

world is the one that you have with you, right?

 

 

 

 

My Open House London 2022 Part 2.

Saturday 17th September

Round two, three very different venues. Avoiding central London today due to the crowds expected for the Queen’s lying-in-state & The Queue.

 

 

Brentford Canal Toll House & Gauging Lock

 

You could visit this place any time but for Open House the Toll Office was open with a display inside and helpful Canal & River Trust people on site to explain how the Gauging Lock worked if you didn’t already know. Despite family connections to the area (according to Grandad my Gran was born somewhere the other side of the bridge nearby) I’d never been to the lock. Google maps has the location on the wrong side of the bridge but the volunteers had put signs up pointing the right way. I did learn about the great Brentford flood of 16th January 1841 so every day is a school day.

 

 

 

 

 

Open House Listing

 

 Colet House

 

Near Baron’s Court station on Talgarth Road are a number of Victorian artist studios which I had walked by these in 2021 on a previous Open House visit but in this post-plague year one of them, Colet House was open to look around. Two large airy studios on the ground floor and a third much larger one on the first floor are all now used for activities of The Study Society. Originally built for and used by many artists, notable Sir Edward Burne-Jones RA, it later became a ballet school, the studios form an impressive and practical space - you could fit a cricket pitch in the first floor apparently.

 

 

 

 

 

Open House listing

 

Greenside Primary School

 

I’ll admit to a penchant for modernist buildings, and post-war-rebuilding era ones particularly. So a walk from Talgarth Rd. up to this example of a system built school designed by Erno Goldfinger was going to be on my list. It’s mostly not messed about with and has a mural by Gordon Cullen to boot. A 20th century arts fair was taking place in the hall but more importantly there was tea. The guided tour was run by one of the school parents - who freely admitted to knowing about the building only what was on his sheet of A4 but added much about the past, current, and future developments of the school itself. It was also a rare opportunity to take pictures of such a building without risking arrest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Open House listing

 

Some thoughts on Open House Festival 2022

 

Open House Festival is a great chance to get into places that you couldn’t normally do so or wouldn’t have thought of doing so. The number of listings is huge, 699 entries on the web site. The web site on the other hand is a problem. Unbelievably there is no search function so if you know where you want to go, or want to find somewhere that you’ve previously found you need to narrow the listings down by date, borough, event type etc. and then scroll down until you find it. There’s a map but pretty much the same applies. I have included links to the listing for each place I visited but who knows for how long the links will be valid.

 

This year the festival was spread out over two weekends instead of one giving opportunity for more visits which was a plus for those having to travel in to London.

 

The unfortunate co-incidence of the festival this year with the death of Queen Elizabeth II meant some plans had to change. Communication of late changes was not handled well, which was supposedly one of the reasons you had to register an account and email address to book visits.

 

Still looking forward to the next one though.

 

Yes of course I took a lot more photographs.

 

My Openhouse London 2022 Part 1.

Sunday 11th September

 

This year for Open House Festival London I went to:

 

Two Temple Place

 

William Waldorf Astor’s neo-gothic estate office on Victoria Embankment. So much woodcarving, so many literary references, a really spectacular interior reflecting the tastes of one of the richest men ever to seek refuge from the USA.

 

 

 

 

 

Open House Festival listing

 

HQS Wellington

 

Nope. Arrived to find a scrappy bit of paper blowing on the breeze with the message in ballpoint pen “Apologies The ship is closed as a mark of respect Open House would like to apologise”. An unfortunate person was on hand to suggest people went to Two Temple Place instead.

 

 

 

Wandsworth Prison Museum

 

Located in a large shed in the prison car park rather than in the prison building itself so no issues with security. Open House had mistakenly said that tours inside the prison would be run but as the museum curator explained this would have needed visitors to book and provide ID well in advance, which didn’t happen. The compact museum building contains over 470 exhibits from pictures and uniforms, prisoners’ belongings, and newspaper articles about some of the more well known inmates. A large scale model of the prison dominates the entrance showing the layout of the main buildings. Very interesting and one of those places I’d probably never thought of going to had it not been an Open House venue.

 

 

 

 

 

Open House Listing

 

 Stationers’ Hall

 

I hadn’t originally intended to visit this today but had time available having “missed the boat” earlier. This turned out to be a blessing though as this 17th century livery hall is a gem. Appropriately the information hand out was beautifully printed and bound in a stiff card cover, the interior oozes history, and the tea served under the plane tree in the courtyard garden was welcome. Various guild members were selling beautiful bound volumes of prints but my book budget is nearer £9.99 rather than with the decimal point moved two places to the right. Nice to look at though!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open House listing

 

That was day one of my Open House adventures for 2022, the next lot would be on the following Saturday and will be covered in the next post.

 

 

Steel City

 

5th September - 9th September

A belated trip to “the North” owing to rail strikes earlier in the Summer when I originally planned it. No such issues this time and apart from the usual poor standard GWR service from Reading to Paddington - late, crowded, seat reservations turned off - the trip was uneventful. Inexplicably I think it’s the first time I’ve departed and arrived at St. Pancras too, at least as far as I remember.

 

 

 

I had no set plans for this trip other than just to get away from home (and from work) but had checked out some local attractions and downloaded the Stagecoach app for the trams (SuperTram!) for convenience in booking day rider tickets, slightly nerdy completism meaning riding the whole network was likely to be a thing.

 

 

 

I had intended to do this on Tuesday but a road traffic accident caused services to be curtailed at Gleadless Townend at lunchtime so the lines to Halfway and Herdings Park didn’t get done until Thursday. The weather was slightly better for hanging around waiting for trams on Thursday anyway.

 

 

 

The disrupted trams meant part of Tuesday afternoon was spent in the excellent Kelham Island Museum exploring Sheffield’s metalworking and engineering history. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in the city. Sadly I didn’t time it right to see the 12000 h.p. steam engine in action though.

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday I explored a little further afield getting a South Pennies Day Ranger train (might have been influenced by GLovesTrains there) ticket and doing a loop via Leeds, which had been my original intended trip destination had I been able to find a suitable, i.e. not too costly, hotel, the across the Pennines to Manchester and back to Edale then returning to Sheffield.

 

 

 

I had previously visited Edale back in May 2019 and promised myself I’d come back with more time and have a walk and a pint in the village pub. It was too wet this time for walking far but I managed the latter without nay trouble at all :-)

 

 

 

 I must be due another break in Manchester too, a place I enjoyed visiting a lot last time. Also having time to spare and a ranger ticket I obviously took a train out to this place:

 

 

 

Because yes I am that immature :-D

 

On Thursday I took the TramTrain to have a look around Rotherham, which had some nice old buildings but did appear to be largely shut.

 

 

 

Back in Sheffield I went for a wander about the city centre and was sitting in the Winter Gardens with a coffee when the Queen died. I’m sure that the rainbow that appeared over the Crucible and Lyceum theatres was just a coincidence.

 

 

 

My watering hole of choice on this trip was the Red Deer in Pitt Street which is a pleasant, friendly pub off the main city centre streets, which is always a good find when away. Good beer selection as well.

 

 

 

And £3.80 a pint. I fuckin’ love t’north :-D

Great Dorset Steam Fair 2022

I went to the Great Dorset Steam Fair for the first time in a few years.

Here's some of what I saw

It's really to big do do it all in a day trip, one year I'll stay over again.

I did take some photos too, in this Flickr Album