Elisa’s Villa Resurrected

Posted on August 12, 2020 by Francis

The hills surrounding Lucca are dotted with some very fine villas which not only provide an escape from the city’s often torrid summer heat but also supply their owners with farm produce, especially olives and wine.

One of the most notable of these villas is the ‘Villa Reale di Marlia’ Napoleon’s sister Elisa’s favourite summer residence during her time as princess of Lucca and where Paganini was her music teacher. Elisa transformed the old medieval structure into an elegant palace in the latest neo-classical fashion and redesigned its grounds into Italy’s first English-style landscape gardens with their broad natural vistas.

After the fall of the principality the property passed into the hands of Maria Louisa of the Bourbons and a long period of decadence subsequently followed. Luckily in 1923 the Villa Reale was purchased by the Italo-American Pecci-Blunt family who set about restoring it and turning it into a mecca for artists and cultural activities. One of their guests was Dali.

The Villa’s chapel is the resting place for the deceased members of this distinguished family.

It must be terrible to have to part with such a gorgeous property but sadly this is what happened;

(Camilla was a talented photographer of celebrities. Her husband managed the Rolling Stones’ recordings).

the villa entered into a second phase of dilapidation as the family decayed until in 2015 it was saved by a shining knight in the form of a young Swiss couple who had fallen in love with it. Five years of thorough restoration of the villa and its gardens ensued. Frescoes were cleaned, ornamental details were reinstated, furnishings and musical instruments were refurbished and the grounds were returned to their former glory. Most important for visitors the Villa itself was open to the public for the first time (The Pecci Blunts only allowed entry to the gardens) and from this year we are now able to enjoy the property’s varied charms.

(The times of opening together with many other details about the Villa Reale are shown on its web site at: https://villarealedimarlia.it/. Booking is necessary as entry numbers are limited).

Despite the strictures of Covid-19 it’s quite amazing how new life has been breathed into the villa and, in particular, through the various events it is programming.

We attended one of these events last Monday. It was ‘Shooting Star Night’, known in Italian as ‘La Notte di San Lorenzo’, when one wishes upon a star (or more correctly meteors and comets) and hopes that a request may be realised.

The wish to see a villa resplendent in all its original animated glory was certainly realised for us and the gardens were filled with varied events relating to the theme of the night. We started with a little refreshment, including a glass of Camellia gin, at the refreshment gazebo.

We then proceeded to Pan’s grotto with its eccentric sculptures.

Here a group of gifted singers dressed in the high-waisted empire style, entertained us with arias from Mozart and Bel canto operas.

We accompanied some of them on a tour of the grounds as passengers in a horse-drawn wagonette.

It was truly a sweet manner to be whisked away to a different more leisurely era (except for those ubiquitous face-masks which must be worn!)

The Villa’s gardens are divided into very different areas. First there’s the grand central lawn with views south to the Pisan Mountain

and north towards the Pizzorne hills.

The variety of trees and shrubs is remarkable: mimosa, camellia, magnolia, weeping willow, Gingko Biloba, hibiscus, and many others are all found in the grounds.

The Spanish garden, inspired by the Alhambra, was filled with bubbles by a very talented artiste who captured the attention of children of all ages.

The two limonaie (orangeries) were the location for an art and a photographic exhibition, the latter concentrating on pictures of the cosmos.

The Teatro Della Verzura (or theatre of greenery) with its manicured hedges and terracotta statuettes was the venue for a dramatic monologue dealing with Dorian Gray.

In the lemon garden acrobats and singers amused us as dusk approached and coloured lights were switched on.

We then visited the Villa Reale which has been perfectly restored – some might say too perfectly, but then there are still some fitments missing, curtains and draperies for example. One downstairs room was dedicated to the restoration with ‘before and after’ pictures. Everything has received the attention of the Swiss couple from the painted door panels to the ceiling decorations, from the Napoleonic bed to the harp and fortepiano. It has been truly a labour of love. One might say how lovely it is for people to be able to live again in this charming pleasure palace. However, the truth is the owners do not actually reside there but in the bishop’s ex-palace further along in the grounds. (No photographs inside the villa are allowed).

There are so many water features in the Villa’s park: a grand pond, the rivulets and fountains of the Spanish gardens,

an art-deco swimming pool, the gorgeous colonnade

and pond of the lemon garden

and the semi-circular water theatre with its cascade behind the villa.

Our enchanted evening concluded with an open-air talk by members of the Capannori observatory on the phenomena of ‘La Notte di San Lorenzo’. We learned the difference between comets, meteors and meteorites and, with the help of a laser, constellations and stars were pointed out to us. For instance, I finally found where Vega, the brightest star in the constellation of Lyra, is positioned and where Saturn is located.

There are plenty more events planned including a repeat of the one we attended and a cosplay day. Everything is well-marked on the villa’s web site. However, it is essential to pre-book; we obtained our tickets a week before our event which was just as well since it was sold out on the day. (Numbers are, again, limited by Covid 19 rules).

I just wish that Bagni di Lucca could have its own shining knight coming to the rescue of some of its own palatial dwellings like the Villas Ada and Fiori, for example. Is there anyone out there who missed buying the Villa Reale but is happy with something more modest?

A Jurassic Park in London

Posted on July 24, 2020 by Francis

I alighted from perhaps the grandest suburban station in London: Crystal Palace. Those stylish colonnades, that refined brickwork, that spacious ticket office, those seductive arches!

The station remains the last gateway to a monument which, more than any other, reminds me of those lines in Edgar Alan Poe’s poem to Sappho:

The glory that was Greece,

And the grandeur that was Rome.

To which might be added the splendour that was British Empire – or at least it might have seemed such in the politically incorrect age of the Victorians.

This vast palace was made of glass and iron. It stood on one of the highest points in the capital with views towards the City to the north and Kent and Surrey to the south. It housed collections of objects from all parts of the empire: the world: the farthest pacific islands, the jewel in the crown that was India, the iciest parts of Canada. Handelian music resounded from huge choirs, visiting dignitaries, like Garibaldi, orated to crowds.

Below the transcendental palace stretched wide Italian style terraces opening onto pleasure gardens where fountains played, guests lost themselves in a complex maze and couples romanced under leafy arbours.

Alas, the palace is gone, destroyed in 1936 in a massive fire seen over much of London.

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But the park is still there although fountains no longer play and the statuary has departed. Miraculously the dinosaurs on their geological islands in the south of the park survive to this day, unlike their Jurassic era forbears. They were, indeed, in danger of disappearing as a Facebook friend remarks: ‘I remember playing amongst the dinosaurs before they were renovated – it was all a great big jungle with broken dinos in there‘.

A series of sculptures designed and sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins under the direction of geologist Sir Richard Owen and inaugurated in 1854 the dinosaurs became a highlight when the palace moved from South Kensington, where it had housed the 1861 Great Exhibition, to Sydenham. They remain a highlight. Indeed, an old school friend notes ‘The first time I went to Crystal Palace Park I did not know about the dinosaurs. I nearly passed out with surprise!’

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I, too, remember my astonishment at seeing these monsters from a primaeval epoch for the first time. Crystal Palace park remains for me a haunt of memory and desire: the memory of bygone times with friends and desire for those intangible dreams of our childhood.

Its dinosaurs represent fifteen different genera of extinct animals not all of which are dinosaurs. (For example the giant Irish elk, one of which has unfortunately broken antlers).

They were realised with the early palaeontological knowledge of the Victorians and consequently many of them are scientifically inaccurate. For example, the Ichthyosaurus is shown as being crocodile-like. However, today it is considered to be more like a shark with dorsal fin and fish-tail.

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It doesn’t matter, however, if the monsters are examples more of nineteenth-century misinterpretation than of accurate representations of the extraordinary species that once ruled the earth: they are fascinating in their own right.

I left the monsters with their fearless company of waterfowl and headed towards the expansive Italian terraces made up of a lower and upper level.

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Pairs of sphinxes punctuate both ends of these elegant structures which formed the southern approach to the great palace and illustrate just how huge it was.

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I gazed upon the ruins of what had been and Shelley’s lines from ‘Ozymandias’ came to mind

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

From here it was a short walk to the bus terminal on the parade. Just in time to avoid being drenched from yet another torrential outburst of the skies!

PS I recollect reading an evocative description of a child visiting the Crystal Palace in Michael Sadleir’s novel ‘Fanny by Gaslight.’ Here is a passage from it:

“We wandered under the vast arcading of the Palace, staring at statues and costumes in glass cases and models of engines and triumphs of ornament in porcelain, gilt and ormolu. We went on the tiny railway and fed the ducks on the pond, and stared at the crowds.”

If I could time travel I might not wish to select Athens at the time of Pericles or Rome when Marcus Aurelius was emperor but rather the Crystal palace when Victoria was Queen.

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Yielding to the Yeading

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Francis

I love spending time poring over London’s classic ‘A-Z’ street atlas. There’s so much to discover in its pages, so much to imagine and so much to plan for future exploration.

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Last month I was intrigued by a sliver of a park shown near Rayner’s Lane underground station. I decided to investigate Roxbourne park.

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Situated in the south west part of the London Borough of Harrow, the park is traversed by a rivulet, the Yeading brook. I forsook the park’s broad manicured lawns to follow the rivulet’s course.

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The Yeading brook is a tributary of the river Crane which, in turn, is a tributary of the Thames reaching it at Isleworth. Originating in Pinner, the Yeading follows a meandering course through North Harrow, Rayners Lane, Ruislip and Hayes where it joins up with the river Crane.

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It’s possible to follow these rivers through a continuous path as shown in this sign I came across in the park. A journey through the Crane valley is on my agenda for future walks.

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I found Yeading brook remarkably unspoilt. With its lovely willows and mossy banks it seemed worlds away from the busy roads which surround the park.

A nature reserve protects its varied wild life.

There’s even a special place for bees:

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Roxbourne park has a variety of facilities including a miniature (one foot gauge?) railway located at the Field End Road side of the park. One can usually enjoy train rides on it during the summer on Sunday afternoons; I look forwards to this opportunity once the present health crisis is over.

There’s so much to discover in London that, as is said about Rome, one life is not enough. The metropolis’s walks are great for those like me who are beginning to feel that walking those considerable differences in height as found in Italy, for example, is becoming increasingly tedious. At least at the end of my walk there was an elegant example of one of the fine thirties art deco stations designed for the London underground and, in particular, its Piccadilly line, by that great architect Charles Holden.

A Farm at Pinner

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Francis

There are very few working farms left in London. There used to be one owned by the Coop at Woodlands near Shooter’s hill in South East London but this ceased production some years ago. Luckily it has been resuscitated as a farm entirely staffed by volunteers and we were present and assisted at its re-foundation.

Another urban farm is that at Pinner which is apparently going through some problems – and it’s not due to the pandemic. The property of Harrow borough its 230 acres are leased to dairy farmers who own over two hundred Frisian cows. However, there is a scheme for the council to take back the farm and turn it into a nature conservancy. Unsurprisingly this has caused a lot of upset from who wish to see the farm continuing in its present form.

I decided to investigate Pinner farm during the amazingly Mediterranean spell of weather the UK has been having with temperatures touching thirty degrees centigrade. Alighting from Headstone Lane Overground station

I took a road which led past Harrow’s garden centre, happily, despite everything, still thriving.

The road changed to a bridleway with signs indicating the direction to Pinner village. On the way I passed the farm. I found it half-way between a tidy and a dilapidated state with one house completely abandoned. I cannot vouchsafe for the cows as they were grazing distance away from the field boundary.

The bridle path was almost without any tree cover and, under the baking sun, it was a very useful preparation for any escape to southern Europe.

King George V avenue’s dual carriageway interrupted my walk but the bridleway continued on the other side. It led up an incline until reaching a bench marking the entrance to the houses on Wakeham’s Hill. A little further on I turned into Church Lane and was pleasantly surprised by a number of several fine residences including a particularly elegant mansion dating back to Charles II and his Nell Gwyn.

The Gothic tower of Pinner church welcomed me at the end of the lane. Amazingly the fourteenth century church, which is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, was open to the public. I entered into its cool interior, which was partly cordoned off because of the pandemic, and enjoyed the very special atmosphere of a traditional English parish church realizing that for almost four months I’d been denied these sensations.

Among the graves in the church yard there’s a very odd tomb in the form of a stone pyramid which was erected by the eighteenth century botanist John Claudius Loudon in memory of his parents.

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Thence my way entered a very deserted Pinner High Street (described in my blog at) from which a passage led into Sainsbury. Here I obtained some essentials including a good bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, a cheese and chive spread and some cream crackers. The store’s exit of the store led to Pinner station, the Metropolitan line and thence home ward bound after a really satisfying leg-stretcher of a walk.

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Pretty Pinner

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Francis

Pinner was just a name until the other week when I caught a glimpse of its high street from the H13 bus I was on travelling from Ruislip lido (see my post at https://longoio3.com/2020/06/15/londons-best-beach/). I was amazed at how a Greater London suburb could produce something so much like a rural village scene with its half-timbered buildings and church tower at the top of the hilly street.

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We returned to Pinner for the mundane but exceedingly necessary task of collecting a toaster from its Argos store nestled within a Sainsbury conveniently close to the station on the Metropolitan line so eloquently hymned by the heritage writer John Betjeman.

Pinner dates back to the tenth century when it was first recorded as a hamlet called Pinnora after the river Pinn which runs through the town and which can be glimpsed in a handerchief of a garden on the main road.

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The parish church of St John the Baptist dates back to the fourteenth century and there are domestic dwellings surviving from the sixteenth century.

However, it was with the coming of the Metropolitan railway that Pinner expanded rapidly, especially during the inter-war period when a number of significant art-deco flats and houses were built. Here’s one I spotted, the grade II listed Elm Court with its graceful entrance arch.

elm

Pinner is a traditional home of retired colonels and stockbrokers and it’s clearly an affluent part of London with leafy avenues and large houses but I didn’t find it particularly snooty or pretentious unlike other ‘affluent ‘areas such as Hampstead or Belgravia.

Strangely Pinner has no Waitrose, an iconic sign of gentility if there ever was one, but surprisingly it possesses a very well stocked Lidl discount store at the top of its high street instead.

We came across a fine fish and chip shop and, with one of the largest cods we’ve seen in a long time, headed to the delightful Pinner memorial park nearby.

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Formerly the garden of a large house known as West House, once owned by Horatia, the daughter of Horatio Nelson and Lady Hamilton, the park is small but perfectly formed.

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It has a fine collection of tall pines and other more exotic trees harking back to the park’s history,

a sweet duck pond,

a cafe (now open for take-aways) and a museum dedicated to Pinner’s best known past inhabitant Heath Robinson, the cartoonist who drew those wonderfully devised machines with such complex pulleys and wheels to perform the simplest of tasks like the one for an easier way of conveying green peas to the mouth,

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the tabby silencer, which automatically throws water at serenading cats

and the one for testing artificial teeth.

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Unfortunately the museum, which also hosts contemporary art exhibitions still remained closed at the time of our visit – a good reason to return.

The Memorial garden are so called because they also contain within West House a memorial to all those killed in the two wars.

With its annual street market, one of the few places left in the UK that still holds one, the lowest crime record in all London, its good schools, its Carluccio Italian restaurant, its balanced ethnic mix, its wide variety of individual shops, its high life-expectancy rate and its healthy climate Pinner is clearly an attractive place to investigate.

Next time I think I’ll explore some of the town’s art deco treasures and also take in the expansive Pinner country park…and, of course, have another delicious fish ‘n chips from the five-star rated ‘Ideal Fish Bar’.

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London’s Best Beach

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Francis

One of the advantages of the current lock-down is the time we have to explore our local area. There are sights and beautiful corners we never believed existed until now. Does it really have to take a pandemic to discover them?

I’ve already written posts about discovering parks and open spaces like Fryent (https://longoio3.com/2020/05/06/the-countryside-in-the-city/), Welsh Harp (https://longoio3.com/2019/10/23/i-laghi-di-londra/) and the Duke of Chandos’ estate (https://longoio3.com/2019/07/15/il-duca-piu-ricco-dinghilterra/).

My curiosity was aroused by reports of a lake at Ruislip. Last week I set out to explore its woods and its lido. Though not exactly the Venice lido, Ruislip’s has its own very special charm and is encircled by gorgeous woodland through which a miniature railway wends its sylvan way.

The lido was originally opened as a feeder reservoir for the Grand Union canal in 1811. (See my post on that at https://longoio3.com/2020/06/05/can-do-canal-walk/ ). However, it did not achieve this job satisfactorily and the role was stopped in 1851.

In 1933, during the thirties craze for open-air activities the lake was inaugurated as a lido complete with boating and swimming facilities. It’s truly the nearest London may get to emulating the Costa Del Sol with its sweet sandy beach complete with pirate ship!

The enchanting walk round the lake through the ancient woods has a number of small jetties where one can observe and feed the wetland denizens of the lake.

It also includes a fascinating ‘planets’ trail marking in scale the distances between the planets of our solar system. Thus, there’s a long walk between Neptune and Uranus but towards the end Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury are just a few feet from each other!

In happier times I hope to return and take a ride on the UK’s longest stretch of one foot gauge miniature railway and perhaps even take a dip in the lake waters. May both facilities reopen soon…together with the cafe and bar.

They Had Sailed from Erith

Posted on June 3, 2020 by Francis

Apart from knowing Erith as a stop on the railway line to Dartford I have loved its mention in one of Joseph Conrad’s greatest works ‘Heart of Darkness’ where he writes:

“Nothing is easier … than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin…the great knights-errant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind … to the Erebus. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith…they all had gone out on that stream. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires”.

Erith railway station is a pleasant nineteenth century Italianate building with characteristic dragon teeth eaves on its platform coverings. A path leads to the riverfront.

The Thames is a river with one of the most varied widths in its course through a capital city. At Teddington little more than a rural stream by the time the Thames has reached Westminster it inspired William Wordsworth to declare:

“Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty.”

Here is the Thames as it appears taken on my journey home on the South East railway line; the railway passes by Southwark cathedral before entering Cannon Street station.

I was stunned by the view of the Thames at Erith. Already doubled in width since crossing the City of London the iconic river fully displays its estuarial properties here, particularly at high tide. On a fine day with fresh gusts of wind blowing across a true blue sky and sea-birds flying overhead it is truly an exhilarating panorama.

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The riverfront has been considerably enhanced by the gardens through which the Thames river walk passes:

A little wooden pier tempted me to walk down close to the water’s edge. Not too far, however, as it became a little slippery!

I walked into the town passing a row of old cottages hidden behind scaffolding and the Erith Playhouse where many years previously I had attended a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Princess Ida’, one of his lesser known operettas but full of his finest music, where one of my work colleagues was performing as member of the choir of ‘girl graduates’.

Entering the town I passed the Carnegie library. Designed by William Egerton, and funded by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie it opened in 1906. We knew it for the fine museum it housed but this time I found the distinguished Edwardian building boarded up and fenced off. I was alarmed. Later I was relieved to find out that the library has been moved to a new centre but that fortunately the ‘old’ library has secured National Lottery funding this year to restore the former library building to provide new community facilities.

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Sadly Erith town centre has been a victim of the worst sort of urban modernization of the 1960’s so there aren’t that many old buildings left in its disemboweled heart.

One of the few left, the White Hart pub, has a fine mural by Gary Drostle on its outside flank displaying a characteristic Thames sailing barge.

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The Thames sailing barge is a type of commercial sailing boat once common on the East Coast of Britain. With its shallow draught this type of vessel is well adapted to the Thames Estuary and, although no longer dedicated to commercial purposes, the remaining examples are used for races, regattas and wedding parties.

My walk finished at the C of E Christchurch, a fine late Victorian building by architect JP St Aubyn and dating from 1874. Together with the Carnegie library it is Grade II* listed.

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The exterior displays a fine broached spire separated from the nave by a short passage and a sculpture of the good shepherd on its doorway:

Unfortunately the interior was locked because of the current health crisis. However, here is a photo of it taken from on-line public sources.

The interior has been well summed upon by that doyen of architectural historians Pevsner who states: “Nave arcade has round piers, with stiff-leaf capitals. Nave has three tier hammer beam roof with curved braces supported on stone corbels. Chancel has five fine lancet windows by Hardman of 1875 depicting scenes from the Gospels, reredos of painted triptych of the Adoration of the Magi in a C15 Italian style by A O Hemming of 1904,

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stencilled decoration, triple sedilia and polychrome tiles. Nave has original carved wooden lectern, pews, stone and – granite font, wall tablet on west wall to Thomas Ruck, organist between 1881-1918 with mosaicwork cherubs and eight painted panels depicting scenes from the early history of the Church in England from the martyrdom of St Alban to the martyrdom of St Edmund by Ward and Hughes of 1906-9.”

Erith has the longest pier in London. It was once used for commercial purposes but is now the haunt of anglers:

Something about the town’s history: Erith has a past dating back to Neolithic times and traces of prehistoric settlements have been revealed by the London archaeological service. The Romans were there and the Anglo-Saxons built the original church of Saint John the Baptist which is another important Erithian church which I have to visit someday.

Henry’s famous warship, Henri Grâce à Dieu, was fitted out there in 1515 and is allulled to in the Conrad excerpt I have previously quoted.

Erith remained a small riverside port until the nineteenth century when it expanded with establishment of various industries. One of these was the British Insulated Callender’s Cables and Pirelli, for which my wife worked as interpreter.

There are a number of interesting modern works of art spread out in the town. Most lively is the ‘The De Luci’ ‘dancing fish’ mosaic statue, otherwise known as the ‘Erith Fish’, at the roundabout in the town centre designed and created by artist Gary Drostle in 2006. It was inspired by the former Erith Urban District Council’s coat of arms which featured three intertwined pikes. The pikes were, themselves, adapted from the family arms of Richard de Luci, a supporter of King Stephen, assistant in the murder of Thomas a Becket founder of Lesnes Abbey and owner of Erith during the reigns of King Stephen and King Henry II. (For more on this story read my post at https://longoio3.com/2019/08/09/un-perdono-londinese-per-lassassinio-di-thomas-a-becket/)

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I was pleasantly surprised by Erith. Clearly the day was fine and the place was more than quiet due to the lockdown but it was certainly less grim than I remember it to be. The ghastly brutal town centre of the sixties has been largely replaced by a more acceptable shopping centre, thanks also to the regeneration provided by the Thames Gateway project. Most of all, Erith gorgeously reveals the quasi-sacred Thames in all its glory.

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Neighbouring towns, villages and places

Watkin’s Folly and Edward VII Park

Posted on May 13, 2020 by Francis

We are experiencing a succession of spectacularly sunny days in London. What better time than to head for a park! Which one will it be this time? Let’s go for King Edward VII Park, hardly two miles away. Of course, we’d visited it before and there’s my post on it at:

London’s Parks

Parks, however, change with the seasons and there’s always something new to catch and enchant the eye.

King Edward VII Park’s history is of some interest. The idea of holding a great exhibition in Wembley Park had already been mooted in 1902 but this involved the loss of the pleasure gardens created by railway entrepreneur Sir Edward Watkins in the 1890’s. In compensation, land was bought by the council for a replacement park, opened in 1914 and called King Edward VII Park in memory of the king who had died in 1910.

But who was Sir Edward Watkins and what were his pleasure gardens like?

Sir Edward was a railway magnate and had plans to build London’s own Eiffel Tower, making it even taller than Paris’ famous icon. He bought 280 acres of land in Wembley as part of his grand scheme to build a new community. This was to be connected to central London by the Metropolitan railway (now part of London’s underground) of which he was chairman.

The new community was meant to attract inhabitants from the over-crowded disease-infested streets of inner London and provide them instead with sanitary houses and lots of fresh air. The tower and its surrounding pleasure gardens was meant to be the carrot to attract people to his idyllic vision. In this respect Watkins was a pioneer of the garden city movement and precursor of the extensive suburban metroland of the nineteen hundreds.

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Watkins’ park, which boasted a boating lake, waterfall and sports grounds, was opened in 1894 and soon became very popular. Many thousands of people visited it in its first few months. However, construction of the answer to the Eiffel tower went badly and was halted when the first platform had been built. Moreover, the tower was too far from central London to be a real success. Attractions like the London Eye, for example, would not be quite so popular if they were stuck in Wembley!

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With personal money thrown into the scheme and with the absence of visitors Sir Edward Watkins had to throw in the towel and ‘Watkins’s folly’, as it came to be known, or what was completed of it, was eventually demolished in 1906.

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It is a pity that this attraction was never inaugurated. However, to compensate, the building of Wembley stadium for the Empire exhibition in 1923 assured that Wembley would be firmly placed on the map. Moreover, if one laments the possible views one might have had from the completed Watkins tower then one can more than make up with them by the wonderful panorama of London to be obtained from nearby Harrow-on-the-Hill and Horsenden Hill.

Nothing now remain of Watkin’s tower. Even the nearby pub named ‘Watkin’s Folly’ has changed its name.

King Edward VII Park is bigger than it looks and has a good variety of trees including a ginkgo biloba, or maidenhair tree, the oldest living species of tree (there are others at Bagni di Lucca’s Villa Ada and at Lucca’s botanical gardens, for instance.) There are play and keep fit areas, a disused bowling hut (which almost became London’s only Welsh school (now relocated at Feltham), fine views across to Harrow-on-the-Hill, an elegant entrance stairway and the usual scurry of grey squirrels.

Unfortunately the play and sports areas are closed for the duration. However, we noticed that the tennis courts had been illegally appropriated by some people as shown below (how did they get in?).

We found this more unfair than illegal especially as children had now been excluded from their playground.

The park was moderately full of people. After all, can one entirely blame them on a sunny bank holiday week-end so long into lock-down? Some of the visitors were jogging, others were flying kites and there was even a two-some practicing boxing.

Nowhere has the British lock-down been anywhere as strict as that of many other countries, especially Italy where the population is being kept under strict observation with checks by the police and the army. Only now is it being slightly eased. Most areas of London are, frankly, unpoliceable for infractions to lock-down. In spite of many members of the public informing the authorities, for example, of large groups of people not observing social distancing there just would not be the police resources available(although many thousands of fines have already been issued).

Moreover, there is a cultural reason why Italians have observed government dictates so much more closely than in the UK: it’s their much greater fear of catching something than the brits, who are quite happy to wander about even in winter in shorts. Indeed, Italians have been described as hypochondriac. In Italy talking about one’s complaints of the liver is as common as chatting about the weather in the UK, not to mention illnesses involving ‘la cervical’ (cervical spondylitis) and the ubiquitous ‘colpo d’aria’ (sudden blast of air causing a chill).

Of course, all this means that an ineffectual government will prolong the UK’s exit from the crisis much later than any other European nation. In Italy, the government protects its citizens with a single, strong message (which only now is being slightly eased) whereas in the UK, with all the government mixed messages flying around we have to protect ourselves!

Horsenden Hill – Horsa’s Tomb

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Francis

It was a little over a year ago, in the depth of winter, that we last visited Horsenden Hill. On that occasion we noted, accompanied by our photos, on our facebook page the following:

‘A Sunday walk on a cold but sunny day on Horsenden Hill; (i.e. the hill – dun – of the Anglo-Saxon warrior Horsa) which is located in north-west London. Centuries-old forests and views across four counties to Windsor Castle, with a descent, encountering a strange snake, to the canal that reaches Birmingham.’

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We returned to this charmed spot in London last week on a lovely, sunny day. Horsenden Hill is an open space in the London Borough of Ealing close to the boundary with the London Borough of Brent. It is one of the highest spots in our local area and rises to 276 ft. above sea level. and is made up largely of ancient woodland and some meadows and glades.

The views from Horsenden’s top are, therefore, very extensive and fine; they include Harrow on the Hill, Wembley Stadium, and extend to the Home Counties of Surrey, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.

The hill’s summit forms part of the site of an ancient Iron Age hill fort which, in 1978, was declared an Ancient Scheduled monument. It is also the site of a trig point.

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To the south and east Horsenden hill is bound by the Grand Union Canal, now particularly picturesque with its line of long-boats and shady willows.

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Horsenden Farm on the east side of the hill was unfortunately closed for the duration.

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On our previous visit we enjoyed seeing the goats and sheep. On this occasion we merely encountered this monster carved out of a tree trunk!

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We also met up with several humans all of whom I am glad to say respected the social distancing regulations which, thank goodness, are still in operation. Yet Etonian craziness is now at its peak! On the day that it’s been announced that the UK has the second highest number (32,000+) of dead from Covid-19 in the world, beating even poor Italy – which was so blamed – BJ is announcing easement of lockdown arrangements. Meanwhile MP Nadia Whittome is sacked as carer after speaking out about PPE. …

I just wish the Govt. was as wise as this fellow we met on our peregrinations on Horsenden Hill…

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A Walk Along the River Brent

Posted on April 20, 2020 by Francis

At last parks are now legally open to the public in the UK (provided correct social distancing procedures are practiced). We have wandered through some of our local parks in recent days and there was nothing to say we couldn’t have but now it’s nice to know that London’s open spaces are freely allowed to us.

The borough where we are currently staying is called Brent. It’s named after the eponymous river which, sourcing at the London borough of Barnet, flows eighteen miles before joining the Thames at (appropriately) Brentford.

A couple of days ago we decided to walk a stretch of this river by doing part of the Brent River Park walk.

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Brent River Park has recently been improved with a new cycle path and wildlife conservation area. It’s now full of flora and fauna and, with its meadows and colonies of bats, is a truly welcome escape from the current claustrophic times. The only thing is that the park’s entrance is rather difficult to find, sandwiched as it is between a ‘normally’ busy junction of the Harrow Road with the North Circular.

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On our route to the park we noted some interesting examples of urban art which pointed to the fact that nearby is the famous bikers’ Ace Cafe about which I have written about at

Ace Cafe

Sadly the children’s playground has been cordoned off for the duration. It’s so frustrating for parents and their young offspring, but then it’s easy for children to forget the rules of social distancing when they are playing.

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The park has a pleasant mix of meadow and woodland.

In one area we came across a large concrete ball. It turned out to be the remains of the flag post on top of the eastern of Wembley’s twin towers from the old stadium demolished at the end of the nineteen nineties

A general view (GV) of the Wembley twin towers before the England game against Brazil – 19th May 1987. (Photo by Mark Leech/Getty Images)

It was quite an emotional experience to come across this remnant since I remember the old stadium very well, especially when we went to the market which used to be held before this iconic building where the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final took place between England and West Germany. It was the first and, so far, only time that England has won the World Cup. Of that fabulous team just the two Charltons, Stiles, Hunt and Hurst are still alive.

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(That glorious moment for England in 1966)

We could have continued our walk for a further few miles but decided to turn back at a housing estate called Saint Raphael’s where we noted a pretty ecological growing area which supplies fresh food locally and a red.skin tipi: