Category: Architecture

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.

In Bath with Bruegel

Bath featured here a few days ago. I went to see the Bruegel/Brueghel exhibition at the Holburne Museum. You might think I went to Cherbourg from the picture above.

Fettiplace

Many years ago, after a walk in the Cotswolds with Sandy Murray, we stopped at Swinbrook to look at the church where Nancy and Unity Mitford are buried and there are these magnificent reclining ancestors. There are two triple-deckers so it is worth the detour.

Boyne Bloomers

A letter in The Times suggests that the name of the president-elect of France could be derived from MacRonald, “one of the wild geese Irishmen who migrated to France after the battle of the Boyne”. What nonsense.