A packed day

This week I've taken time off work to do some jobs in the garden that needed doing. The next stage (placing weed control/a walkway round the cabin) was held up this morning pending the arrival of hundreds of kilos of ballast, and as the car was in the garage ('shop' for our American listeners), we decided to go for a walk from the house.

And what a bonus that turned out to be. Had we had the car we would likely have gone to one of our usual haunts, but instead we ended up exploring an area we haven't yet been to. The walk started off like one of our previous 'river walks' (the Hogsmill here, here, and here). But when we got to the nearest point where we could walk by the river, I remembered there was a tributary (the Tolworth Brook aka the Surbiton Stream) of the Hogsmill right there. We decided there and then to follow it upstream. The brook flowed through a pleasant woodland area at the back of a 1930s housing development in an area called Berrylands.

The brook was looking low on water.

View back downstream from one of the several foot bridges.

'Wildlife pond', off the track through a gate, presumably to keep dogs out.

These 'bullrushes' had me humming 'Moses was found in a stream' to myself (from the song Ain't Necessarily So). Loft extensions can be seen on the houses at the top - these are VERY common throughout this corner of London (if not all over).

Plentiful supply of elderberries. Incidentally, Wikipedia states that the name Berrylands does not derive from said fruit, but from the Old English 'beorg' and 'lands', i.e.Hill Land/Farm. Beorg is cognate with modern 'barrow' and the word 'berg' and similar in Germanic languages including Old Norse.

The banks were buttressed in places with bundles of fascines.

A 'bug hotel' styled 'Bugingham Palace' by the Margravina.

The best I could come up with for this was Volemarol Castle. Go on, you try!

One of the aspects I find very comforting about spaces like this, is that they often have buildings like 'scout huts'. Usually in mild states of disrepair, which adds to the charm. This was no exception. The old scout hut in this case was home to the 'Surbiton Pet Club'. I suppose I find it comforting because it's evidence of community, and there are places like this across the country. A throw back to former times.

Rather than attempt to follow the stream all the way to the source, we took the quickest route back home in order to collect the car. En route we walked along streets full of the typical 'Tudorbethan' style houses popular in the 1930s. Some of these had splendid herringbone brick patterns on the front wall of the houses. Not far from here (along Elmbridge Avenue, see map below) are several flat-roofed houses in the Art Deco style. Lovely stuff. 

Off to the west of the map, there is a road parallel with Ewell Road called King Charles Road and that forks off into Villiers Avenue to the north. Prior to the Battle of Surbiton in 1648, the rival forces marched from Ewell to Surbiton and I speculated on my post on the battle that King Charle Road and Villiers Ave were named after the action. For some reason, that post is by far the most popular post I have written since starting this blog four years ago, with 3 times as many views as any other. Most months it continues to collect hits and often it has the most in the month. I wonder why it continues to be so relatively popular.

I did a bit of 'research' on the area (i.e. I looked at Wikipedia) when I got home, and discovered that until 1980 there was a lido 50m by 27m just to the south of the word 'Berrylands' in the above map. This was the fabulously named Surbiton Lagoon. Oh, if only the clock could be turned back! I could cry at such an act of cultural vandalism. Between the Wars, virtually every borough had an open air pool built. This was due to a combination of work creation schemes and a fashion for health improvement. More on this and other such pools here: https://www.lostlidos.co.uk/2003/04/29/surbiton-lagoon-1934/

Anyway, back home having collected the car, we started some 'filler' jobs whilst we waited for the ballast. Whilst turning over the compost heaps, the Margravina spotted avocado plants growing! Note the large shiny leaves below. We've had shoots before from avocado stones but I don't think we've seen leaves before. They must like the heat generated in the heaps. We also had new potatoes grown out of old spuds deposited in the compost.

Finally, the ballast arrived about 3:30pm so I spent the next hour or so ferrying it from the front to the back and depositing it on the weed suppressant sheeting for the Margravina to tamp it down. We should finish the job in the morning.

Then the evening saw me participate in one of Jonathan Freitag's on-line games. This time a recreation of the Battle of Ilipa. It's fair to say that Napoleon Dave and I got a drubbing by an in form team. I won't say any more on that so as not to steal Jon's thunder, save to say that a good time was had by all. As if that wasn't enough, I am participating in the Jolly Broom Man's PBEM campaign set in S.Carolina in the AWI.

A busy and fulfilling day!