Category: Architecture

Mucking about in Muker

I’m grateful to Ned York both for his slice of Stonington history and for giving me a day off yesterday. But now I’m a bit behind.

An Abbey

Still in Dorset we went on a church crawl today kicking off with Milton Abbey. It is beside what is now Milton Abbey School. 

St Mary Harefield, Part II

It doesn’t look much from the outside, does it? There are, at least, two interesting things outside as it happens but I wanted to see the inside and the church was locked. Lucky me that a gardener was strimming and let me in.

St Mary Harefield, Part I

Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park are crammed with dogs. Why are there no dogs in the Green Park, that has a dog fountain, or St James’s Park? This is one of life’s unsolved mysteries. Another is why a gem like St Mary, Harefield is “undiscovered”.

West Horsley Revisited

One Sunday in October last year I went to look around the house and grounds at West Horsley (So you want to put on an Opera?). It is a Tudor house that the Gascoignes inherited and where Wasfi Kani OBE, of Grange Park Opera, was building an opera house. I went back on Saturday afternoon… Continue reading West Horsley Revisited

Come-to-Good

In a recent post, More Jottings, I mentioned joining the National Churches Trust. It turns out to be rather a bargain. The minimum subscription is £30 and when you join you receive this 192 page hardback coffee table filler that sells for £20.

New in the Hood

When I drove more my motorway cruising speed was at least 85 mph so I had to keep an eye open for jam sandwiches as they were called. (Police cars were white with a red stripe.)

A Tale of Two Churches.

When I arrived in Carmarthenshire on Sunday the house was called Llwyn Piod (that’s Welsh for Magpie Grove). Yesterday the council and Royal Mail gave their consent for it to be called Fox Hall so change your Address Book.

Bob a Blog

I hung around SE Asia in 1989, based in Singapore. Inspired by one of the funniest travel books I have ever read, Into the Heart of Borneo by Redmond O’Hanlon, I spent a long weekend in Sarawak. It was published only six years previously, in 1983, so not much had changed.

Two Aesthetes & Boris

Today’s post is an homage to Robert O’Byrne, The Irish Aesthete. I had the pleasure of meeting Robert in Ireland last weekend; my sister asked him to a merry dinner.