E.Molesey to Walton-on-Thames

Sunday was bright and sunny*, if a tad cold, and as I'd had a football day on Saturday, I readily agreed to a walk with the Margravina. Let's go by the river for a change, I said, park in Bushy Park then walk from Hampton Court to Kingston then back down to the car through Bushy Park (a nice D-shaped route). Parking proved as difficult as we expected (the World and his wife, plus kids and Labradoodle were out). So an off the cuff Plan B was to cross the river by Hampton Court Bridge and try to park along Riverbank or as close to it as we could. We ended up having to go so far down that we changed walking route and headed upstream rather than down.

* isn't that tautological?

There and Back Again: from the red dot towards top right, to the blue dot, bottom left and back. Around 6 miles by the Thames river path. Hampton Court Palace top right.

This turned out to be one of those serendipitous eventualities, for we had a wonderful walk. The number of walkers soon reduced as we got further from the starting point (until we got to the other end). It's not far and it's flat! There were many stops for photo opportunities on the way out. We earned our roast dinner at the pub by the blue dot, and hot-footed it back to the car the way we had come. Only with far fewer stops.

[Incidentally, Blogger is playing up again. At least when trying to post pictures. Messing up the order if you post more than a few at a time, then making them disappear when you try to type captions.]

Some impressive house boats along this stretch (by Ash and Taggs Islands)

Surely one of the oldest cricket clubs.

View of Hampton riverside. This is in Greater London! Incidentally, the top side of the river on the map is within Greater London, the bottom side of the map is in Surrey. The London side presented the more picturesque buildings by and large. The Surrey side is hardly any less developed, but "oh no, we couldn't possibly be included in London, we're Sarrey don't you know". Such were the vagaries of local government reorganisation in the early 60s.

The Astoria Houseboat, built for music hall impresario Fred Karno in 1913. Fred entertained Charlie Chaplin here. Moored on the Middlesex (left) bank, near Hampton. Karno had a hotel built on Taggs Island, 'the Karsino', which later became the 'Thames Riviera'. The 111 bus from Kingston to Heathrow has recorded announcements for the upcoming stops, one of which is 'Thames Riviera'.

Garrick Villa (former residence of ac-tor David Garrick). Also another bus stop! 

Garrick's temple (now the wrong side of the road from the villa

St Mary's Church, Hampton

This and the next few pics are plaques on concrete plinths that form part of a monument to the history of Hurst Park, Molesey, Surrey. Many concern sporting events in the 18th and 19th centuries which attracted crowds up to 200,000!

If you stand on the circle with the appropriate month name your shadow tells the time. Almost right.

Almost snapped a kingfisher. Dithered too long over getting the right pic: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good! I had never seen one so close before. Weird and stunning looking creature.

This brick wall, backed and topped with an earth bank got me thinking of 'Vauban' fortifications. It was just an old reservoir

What's this?

Real defensive works (tank traps)?

The Margravina, a pretty small human, showing the scale of the thing.

Looks like a life raft from an oil rig. But small.

Sunbury Lock. To the right is a weir. The water rushing down gave a magnificent display of power. On the lock side the river was calm as a mill pond, as seen in the next pic.

Someone's lawn in Sunbury (Middlesex bank)

Civil War Earthwork

At the weekend Lincolnshire Tom forwarded some pictures from one of his FaceBook groups asking if I'd ever heard of a particular earthwork near Laceby in Lincs. The answer was that this was a complete surprise. Especially as I'd passed close by several times on the A18 on my bike as a teenager, and across the fields when out walking a few years before that. My big question is why there; why is there an isolated fort in that specific location. Puzzling. Answers on a postcard (or blog comment) please.

Would the roughly rectangular features inside be signs of an old building? A Manor House perhaps. The whole fort measures c200 x 100 yards.

For a little more context here is a map of the wider area. The built-up place to the top right is the western edge of Grimsby, which would have been a small town of 1-2000 people at the time. The only other relic of the Civil War that I know of (though I don't know for certain that it is) is a ditch and bank around an old farm building in Old Clee, Grimsby, off map to the top right.

The earthwork is circled in the bottom left. It looks too far from the junction of the roads, and from memory it hasn't a clear line of site owing to the lie of the land.

Barton Street (the A18 in this stretch) roughly follows the edge of the dip side of the escarpment formed by the Lincolnshire Wolds. Along this line are several springs which are the sources of several streams, or becks, one of which becomes the River Freshney which flowed into what was then the harbour at Grimsby.

If I'd known about this 5 1/2 years ago I'd have woven it into my narrative Lincolnshire campaign.