Category Archives: Walks

At the Limits of Limano

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Autumn, together with Spring, is our favourite time for walks. The summer heat has worn off and, particularly after the solstice of September 21 nature begins to assume a distinctively multi-coloured mantle: the chestnut trees ripen their fruits and the forest floors are dotted with a variety of mushrooms. Here’s a platter of mushrooms we managed to find the other day. Congratulations to my wife for her keen eye in locating the often elusive porcini (ceps).

It’s also a good time to revisit the various villages which comprise our comune of Bagni di Lucca

A few days ago we found ourselves in Limano on the northern side of the Lima River. It’s a delightfully peaceful place spread between two hills with a main square dividing its two halves.

First mentioned in a document of 893 AD as a village under the jurisdiction of Vico Pancellorum it became a feud of the Suffredinghi family and passed under Lucca’s rule in 1200.

We walked up Limano’s north hill and found ourselves before a chapel with a very well-kept garden and some amazingly good stone-work.

This is the oratory of Our Lady of Grace.  Dating from 1684 it is built in local limestone using material recovered from the old parish church which had been abandoned because of a landslide. I suspect this is why the stonework is so good; it may date from the eleventh century at the full height of the Romanesque style. The oratory is accessed through a portico supported by four columns and is covered with slate stone plates.

Inside, the effigy of the Madonna delle Grazie, the venerated patron saint of the town of Limano, is preserved.

We returned to the main square where, on the first of August, near the sixteenth century fountain, a festa with traditional country dancing takes place here.

The participants of the “Festa in Piazza Gave” sing and dance in characteristic costume, marking the occasion when shepherds traditionally came down from the mountain pastures to sell lambs.

In the latter half of the twentieth century the festival declined, but has happily been revived by the “Limano Nostro” association. I’ve said more about these festivities in my post at

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/08/03/country-dancing-in-limanos-piazza-gave/

Limano’s southern hill is steeper than its northern neighbour and proceeds past the parish church of San Martino built in 1776 and renovated in 1908. Unfortunately the church was again closed during our visit but I am told the choir’s decoration, the work of Arturo Chelini, is worth looking at. Maybe next time?

At the top of the hill are the remains of the castle. Most of what’s left of it is incorporated into existing houses but there’s an area where a covered passage gives one a good idea of the former castle’s defences.

It’s near here that a friend has recently purchased a house with great views.

The hills were clothed with heavy mist and it began to rain, the first rain we’ve had for weeks. Autumn has clearly come! The following night came the big tempest – the night was alight with electric flashes and at one point the thunder shook the foundations of our house like an earthquake. I think that as much as the pure blue skies and the sunshine I would miss these dramatically operatic Italian storms if I returned to live in England!

Suspense about Tibetan Bridges

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The sign ‘Al ponte Tibetano’ (‘To the Tibetan bridge’) entices one to expect a vertiginous rope affair cast over a fathomless abyss, reminiscent of a scene from that Powell and Pressburger film ‘Black Narcissus’.

In fact, when one comes across these bridges in our part of the world they turn out to be suspension bridges for walkers and, instead of ropes cast across a chasm, they are supported by steel cables.

I’ve described the most spectacular of these suspension bridges, the one spanning the Lima River near Mammiano at:

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/suspense/

There’s another one I’ve written about at Vagli di Sotto in my posts at:

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/10/10/a-tibetan-bridge-in-the-garfagnana/

and

https://longoio3.com/2017/10/11/vagli-lakes-circular-walk/

However, I hadn’t quite realised that Bagni di Lucca has its own ‘Tibetan bridge’. It’s near the Pian di Fiume village rescued from oblivion and turned into an ‘agriturismo’, or country holiday resort, by our resident chemist and former mayor Massimo Betti.

The bridge spans the Lima about a couple of kilometres outside Bagni on the way to Abetone on the Brennero road and we crossed it a couple of days ago. It offers delightful views over the river which at this point also provides good bathing opportunities.

The first modern suspension bridge was built by Thomas Telford in 1826 and crosses the Menai straits in Wales connectingYnys Mon (Anglesey) with the mainland. Nottolini, the Luccan architect and engineer, visited Britain specially to study Telford’s methods and returned to build the iconic chain suspension bridge known as ‘il ponte delle Catene’ at Fornoli. I’ve written about this pioneering bridge in my post at:

https://longoio3.com/2018/09/20/bridging-a-much-needed-gap/

There is a smaller version of the bridge, for pedestrians only connecting the Circolo dei Forestieri square with the Brennero road.

I love bridges of all types but the suspension ones are my favourite!

A Late Summer Walk on Bagni di Lucca’s Volcanic Hill

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The aim on the last of the walks organised by the Comune of Bagni di Lucca was to get to the top of the town’s volcanic hill, the source of its medically beneficent hot springs, beginning from Ponte a Serraglio and then descending towards Villa.

We started from the garden of Villa Fiori; the first part of our walk covered sights that we’d already seen on a previous walk, this time organized by the Michel de Montaigne foundation and described here: https://longoio3.com/2020/07/29/how-pardini-beautified-ponte-a-serraglio/.  These included Europe’s first purpose-built casino and the Bernabò baths, hopefully to be shortly opened to the public.

We took the footpath leading up to the ‘Terme’ Varraud, Bagni di Lucca’s main spa, named after the Frenchman who refurbished it in the last century.

The Terme comprise the original buildings which Napoleon’s sister, Elisa, princess of Lucca and Piombino used for her own therapy. The interiors were once prettily frescoed but unfortunately in the 1960’s – an era notorious for its insensitivity to heritage buildings, the decorations were largely destroyed or covered over by cement. A few details, however, remain, including this lovely set of bird representations and landscapes.

It was in this space that the original casino and its ballroom were situated; the takings of the gaming tables were used to subsidise thermal treatment for the poorer classes who could ill afford them. It’s nice to know that the casino originated not so much for profit but for philanthropy.

Virgilio, our guide, has been nicknamed the ‘prince’ of this demesne. Not only is he barman of the Terme but he is probably the most knowledgeable person on its history: anything Virgilio doesn’t know about the Terme is si mply not worth knowing.

Virgilio gave us a lively description of what it was like for high society when they disported themselves in the baths here during the nineteenth century. (Notice that the Terme were already open to all regardless of colour or creed).

Regrettably, the ‘grottine’, the naturally heated caves within the establishment, cannot at present be used because of the health crisis but the spa offers other facilities: mud baths and hydrotherapy (which my wife is currently availing herself of) among them.

We continued to the top of the hill where there is a hamlet appropriately called ‘Colle’.

There is also a building known as ‘Il Paretaio’ which means ‘bird trap’. Here there was once a scheme to erect a monument to the memory of the German poet Heine who loved Bagni di Lucca (particularly one of its women, a ballerina) and wrote extensively about it in his travelogue on Italy.

There’s a somewhat dodgy road going down from here to Villa but we took a much more romantic way: the ’via dell’amore’ or lover’s path, favoured by the likes of Byron and Shelley. I was amazed I’d never previously discovered this beautiful walk down to villa with its cool shades and stone benches. Anyway I’ll certainly add it to my favourite walks around Bagni.

Eventually we reached the old, upper part of the town which consists of a collection of noble mansions arranged around a central square. I’d already visited some of these previously: the Burlamacchi house, for example and the Casa Mansi which was once the former director of the British Institute of Florence, Ian Greenlees’, residence next to which until 2018 (when he died aged almost 102) lived Boccaccio authority, Sam Stych, friend of Greenlees and our friend too.

On one side of the piazzetta is the Bagno alla Villa which although refurbished, is still waiting for someone to administer and open it to the public.

Virgilio is chamberlain to the Vicaria della Val di Lima, a historical re-enactment society which has done much to enliven the atmosphere of Bagni di Lucca with its pageants and crossbow competitions. Its headquarters are in the sixteenth century villa Buonvisi, once the holiday residence of a noble Luccan family. The villa subsequently passed to the rich Scottish financier John Webb whose friend Lord Byron stayed here.

It’s lovely how the Vicaria have lavished care and brightened up the villa with its displays of flags, costumes and arms. Bagni di Lucca has some extraordinary but regrettably unused buildings and Villa Buonvisi is a great example of how they can be employed for the benefit of all those persons living in or visiting Bagni di Lucca.

Our visit ended with a look at the centre of town with its theatre, the Teatro Academico, and the suspension footbridge across the Lima. Here we parted from the main group who were booked for a meal at the nearby Tana Del Ghiro (‘Dormouse den’) restaurant. We had, however, previously booked with friends near Pescaglia so thanked Virgilio for a truly enjoyable walk which let us see familiar sight (and some new ones…) with a fresh pair of eyes.

These walks have been a highlight of this summer at Bagni di Lucca and I really look forwards to seeing them repeated next year when hopefully the wearing of masks will be a distant recollection!

A Jurassic Park in London

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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.

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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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Where Princess Pocahontas Rests

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There’s a parody sketch by that vintage English comic, Peter Sellers, which refers to Balham as ‘the Gateway to the South.’ In grand terms the announcer presents the ancient crafts of this not especially distinguished London suburb, one of which is ‘to carve the little holes in the top of toothbrushes’.

If there is doubt cast on Balham’s claim to fame as a ‘gateway’ then there is no such uncertainty regarding Gravesend, the river-side town to the south-east of London. For much of its history it has been the gateway to London itself and, after a period of decline when the port moved down stream, Gravesend has now become a key location for the Thames Gateway project which aims at developing the economy of the Thames estuary region.

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A part of this regeneration has been to restore Gravesend’s historic centre which, as I remember, had become woefully rundown.

The old town’s high street has a number of characteristic clapper-board buildings with specialist shops and restaurants.

The street ends with the restored pier from which one embarks on a passenger ferry to Tilbury across the Thames.

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When I took the ferry last month it was a dour and very windy day and the Thames became a little choppy.

We have disembarked before at Tilbury, on the ‘Waverley’, the last ocean-going paddle steamer in the world.

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This memorable journey produced the following poem:

 

WAVERLEY

The pistons pursue their unceasing act

of love and the steamer’s bold prow furrows

through grey-green waters while an east wind blows;

stork-like forts loom ahead: the deck is packed.

Side-paddles ruffle estuary water

in flecks and glints; flat Essex horizon

combines with sea in leaden unison.

You are the River’s beautiful daughter

and come from a truer age and sea-lochs

bordered by lush hills and craggy ridges.

The City is now your servant: bridges

open to you above the shuttered docks.

All hail with blasts and cheers in one consent

for through you we re-live childhood content.

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This time I looked up at a gigantic cruise liner moored there. No sign of any passengers, however. I wonder where they had all gone.

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Along the riverside, but hidden by an embankment wall, was Tilbury fort the location for Queen Elizabeth I’s stirring speech against the Spanish Armada:

“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm”.

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I returned to Gravesend and walked to the railway station passing the elegant eighteenth century church of Saint George.

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It contains the burial place of iconic native American princess Pocahontas of the Powhatan people who saved the life of John Smith the founder of the colony of Virginia.

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Pocahontas later married John Rolfe and sailed to the UK where she was presented to the Royal Court with much pomp and interest.

On her return to her native land Pocahontas became ill at Gravesend and sadly died there at the age of just twenty one

The statue of the princess is a cast copy of the original in Jamestown, Virginia by William Partridge and was presented to Gravesend as a token of anglo-american friendship in 1957.

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Thinking about all those statues which have recently raised disputes about whether they should still be standing I thought that Pocahontas will be there in front of Saint George’s church for as long as freedom and equality are prized. She was a person who valued all humans whether they be red, white or black. However, I wonder what Pocahontas would have thought of her nation today.

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Yielding to the Yeading

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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.

My Final Home

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During my recent walk along part of London’s Green Chain walk, linking open spaces and parks in South East London, on one of the hottest days this year I entered the cooling shades of Bostal Woods whose name derives from the same root as the Italian for woodland: ‘bosco’.

Exiting from the verdurous gloom I found myself before the impressive gateway leading into Plumstead cemetery.

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Opened in 1890 the cemetery contains memorials to those who lost their lives while working at the Woolwich Arsenal and a section devoted to the War Dead.

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There is also a memorial to Gunner Alfred Smith who received the Victoria cross for saving a fellow soldier.

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(Headstone donated by the Cooperative society in 1986)

This took place when the Camel Corps was on its way to relieve General Gordon who was besieged in Khartoum.

(Memorial to the Camel Corps in London’s Victoria Embankment Gardens)

The British forces encountered the Mad Mahdi’s rebel dervishes in January 1885 and, despite being outnumbered by 1,600 to 15,000 men, defeated them. Unfortunately, when the Camel corps reached Khartoum to rescue General Gordon they were two days too late: Khartoum had fallen and Gordon and his garrison had all been slaughtered.

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The cemetery is beautifully laid out in former parkland with a gently hilly contour bordered by dense woodland.

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In its centre is a chapel built in flamboyant Gothic style.

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A scattering of sycamore, beech and oak trees punctuate Plumstead cemetery’s extensive area.

It is in this cemetery that, some time ago, my wife Alexandra purchased a grave plot for the two of us.

I cannot think of any place more lovely in this part of London where we have lived and worked for many years. On the day of my visit I was completely alone, the searing heat was made more bearably by soft breezes from the woods, the views over London were superb and the wild grass growing between the mossy tombstones waved and glistened in the setting sun.

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SOWERS OF THE SYSTEM

I can face you here and kiss your red lips

pouting with death’s sensual desire. I touch

your golden waterfall of hair, the tips

of your nipples – I now love you so much!

I’ve had enough of our modern image

with its isms and lack of indulgence.

Only your weald of symbols will assuage

my thirst for the meaning of when? and whence?

The vast words: despair, destiny and hope,

time and judgement, the sea of lost mankind –

witnesses to your omnipresent scope –

are dyed with the last sun’s hues in my mind.

They mantle me in the casts of the night

and point to the celestial city’s light.

FLP

A Farm at Pinner

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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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Lesnes Abbey Woods

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London’s Green Chain walk connects over three hundred parks and open spaces in the south-eastern part of the metropolis. It extends from Erith in the east to Crystal Palace in the west with branches to Thamesmead, Nunhead, Beckenham and Charlton  and offers a great chance to stroll in surprisingly rural parts of one of the world’s great cities linking up with other paths such as the Capital Ring.

(see also my post in Italian at https://longoio3.com/2019/07/10/londra-selvaggia/)

Originally set up in 1977 to protect open spaces from being built on the Green chain is a walk I know rather well since a branch of it starts near my home in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

Though never done completely in one go I’ve covered all the route taking different sections at different times. During the recent UK heat wave I decided I’d head for one of its most idyllic stretches. There is a marvellous compendium of woods stretching from Frank’s Park near Erith to Bostall Woods including Oxleas, well-known for its bluebells and Lesnes Abbey with its spectacular wild daffodils.(For pictures of these see my post at https://longoio3.com/2020/04/06/daffodils/)

London’s Coronation church, Westminster Abbey, is known throughout the world. However, in pre-reformation times the city had many other abbeys which are now sadly either in ruins or have completely vanished.

Ruined Lesnes Abbey is on the Green Chain walk and is surrounded by an extensive forest appropriately called Abbey Woods.

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1178 saw the foundation of the Abbey of Saint Mary and Saint Thomas the Martyr in Lesnes by Richard de Luci, chief executioner of England. It was built as a penance for the murder of Thomas Becket, in which he was involved.

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(Murder of St Thomas a Becket)

In 1179, de Luci resigned from his office and retired to the abbey, where he died three months later and was buried in the chapter house.

It is interesting to note that the first part of the pilgrim route known in Italy as the Via Francigena passes from London to Canterbury where pilgrims visited Saint Thomas Becket’s tomb, a journey that gave rise to Chaucer’s wonderful book of tales and Pasolini’s film. Lesnes abbey never became a large community and Cardinal Wolsey closed it down in 1525 by a law for the closure of monasteries with fewer than seven monks. It was one of the first to be suppressed after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1534. The abbey is surrounded by parkland and an ornamental garden known as the monks’ nursery.

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(Pilgrim statue carved from a tree trunk in Lesnes Abbey)

I especially like the way the Abbot’s symbol, the shepherd’s crook, is weaved into various elements of the monks’ garden:

Even though Lesnes Abbey is in a state of extreme ruin, its various sections can easily be distinguished.

The church:

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the principal cloister:

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the chapter house:

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the refectory:

the dormitory and the library in which the Lesnes Missal, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, was located.

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Every time I visit Lesnes Abbey I think of those lines from Shakespeare’s seventy third sonnet:

‘Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang’.

However, I’m glad to say that once a year the parishes and clergy of the Roman Catholic deaneries of Bexley and Greenwich organise a procession of the Blessed Sacrament in the Abbey ruins, bringing them to new life. The procession would have been in June this year but has unfortunately had to be cancelled because of the pandemic.

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I continued my woodland walk passing various interesting features: the chalk pit which once supplied building material but is now securely fenced off because of the danger of its very steep slopes:

The fossil beds where one can spend a happy time uncovering sand sharks’ teeth dating from the cretaceous era:

A large pond, with an unfortunate tree collapsed upon it.

The path is well sign-posted and maintained.

Eventually I emerged from the cool woodland and found myself entering a broad heath and the heat again.

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Why certain idiots travel miles to find a crammed place on a beach flouting every health and safety measure imposed during this pandemic crisis when near to their home they can find the most beautiful and unpopulated open spaces I shall never know!

PS If you read Italian there’s more on Lesnes Abbey with extra pictures in my post at:

Le Abbazie di Londra e i loro Scandali

 

 


					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
London’s Lake District

			
						

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On Midsummer’s eve I took the Metropolitan line train to Rickmansworth planning to walk to Uxbridge via the canal footpath. However, I grossly misjudged the path’s length: it can take a walking time of over eight hours. Instead, I tasted the delights of the town’s surroundings with its canals, rivers and lakes.


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


(Rickmansworth Metropolitan line station with its display of former times)


Rickmansworth high street still keeps something of a village atmosphere.




 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


At one end is the town’s attractive flint-knapped parish church.


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


Its churchyard contains some very old ‘barrel’ tombs such as were described at the start of Dickens’s ‘Great Expectation’ when Pip meets the escaped convict in Cooling marshes.


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Also of interest are the very art-nouveauish sculptures on the town’s war memorial.




 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


Rickmansworth is also encircled by much low-lying water and marshland but unlike Cooling marshes they are rather less menacing.


The town is the administrative seat of Three Rivers district council whose name pays homage to the confluence of the three rivers which meet in the borough. They are the Gade, described by me in my post at https://longoio3.com/2020/06/19/cassiobury-park/, the Chess, which flows down from Chesham and merits further exploration and the Colne whose course I followed in my walk south of the town.


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
  


The river Colne arises in Hertfordshire and flows into the Thames at Staines. It has a particularly close relationship with that pioneer work of the Industrial Revolution, the Grand Union Canal, and supplies its water. Indeed, throughout much of my walk I followed the canal to my left and the river to the right.


Much of the canal is bound by long boats which represent homes for many lucky people. The towpath side is often enhanced with colourful gardens by the long boat denizens. 


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


Sharing the canal with them are a motley crew of water birds, in particular Canada geese, swans, coots, ducks and even a few great crested grebes. Of interest is the fact that Charlotte Potter, the brilliant young soprano singer who has enchanted Bagni di Lucca with her summer concerts in the grounds of the Villa Webb, filmed her scene in ‘Endeavour’, ITV’s hit drama on this canal. It was Charlotte’s first TV role and acting debut and she posted on my FB page a photo of where the scene was shot (Stocker lock) with the comment ‘It’s beautiful!’


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


What stands out in the Colne valley is the necklace of lakes, former gravel pits which have now been filled with water. The pits supplied the Great Wen with much of its building material. For instance, Wembley stadium was built with material from these pits.


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


I followed a path through three of these lakes and found myself in an enchanted country where water and earth shimmered together in an awe-inspiring landscape. The day was not too hot and the clouds played reflective games with this liquid territory. 


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Although it was the week-end and urban London was only a short step away I hardly met anyone during my four-hour walk and those persons I met were invariably courteous and friendly – absolutely essential when the path is narrow and one has to remember to socially distance oneself.


There are various highlights to look out for on this walk: the magnificent weeping willows:


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the canal locks with a delighful lock-keeper’s cottage beside one:


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


the very long boardwalk, a triumph of ecological thinking over the marshiest parts of the lake shores:


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


the largest reed bed in the London area:


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and, of course the flora and fauna:


 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
  
  


It’s incredible how a former industrial excavation area and transportation hub can now have transformed itself into one of the most delightful and extensive parklands in the western part of London. I wish the same could be said of the open-cast coal mining in the UK or the terrible destruction wrought by marble quarrying in the Apuan Alps!