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Tag: Steam Trains

Little legs and Little Wheels

Little legs and Little Wheels

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We found ourselves with no builders here today and the weather forecast was for sun and clear skies all day so do we believe the weather forecast? Of course we do. So were we too trusting? Of course we were!

We decided to visit Powis Castle, a National Trust property about 30 miles north of us, and set off in bright sunshine. The journey was straight forward and we arrived about an hour later.

Having reached the entrance the first thing that became apparent were the Peafowl. There were numerous birds around and they ignored people completely to the extent that one could walk up to one of the birds and they would carry on doing whatever it was they were doing as if you weren't there.


In that last picture there are two youngsters with their mother – can you spot them? When their mother moved off on her long legs the young birds had to run like hell on their little legs to keep up. Rather cute.

This was our first view of the castle which is an end view and not along the length.

Just out of the picture to the left is the restaurant which is why there are people sitting at tables in the courtyard although there are tables and chairs inside.

The castle was apparently built as a medieval castle but by the Welsh not the Normans. It never became ruinous and has been modified over the centuries to the stately home it is today.

The interior is impressive but not spectacular. The rooms are large but not as grand as some. What we didn't like was how dark it all was. We understand that light will cause fabric colours to fade but as it's then not easy to appreciate them is it worth it? Photography is also prohibited anywhere inside the house which I think that the National Trust should make more obvious in their publicity but they don't.

I remember a particularly impressive table with an inlaid stone top which was near a window with the curtains open and so was brightly lit. That was because, of course, stone colours will not fade in the light. We don't have any desire to revisit the house interior but we will revisit the gardens.

As it was now near lunchtime we decided to pay the restaurant a visit. Amanda chose sausage and mash which she thought was a bit dry and I chose a vegetable and coconut curry which was very tasty. I enjoyed it very much but would have prefered some rice or bread to go with it. One can buy bread of course but at this time of day the restaurant is very busy and if I'd queued for bread my curry would have been cold by the time I returned to it.

So – on to the gardens.


The gardens are laid out as a series of terraces which descend to the flat ground that you can see right at the bottom. Plenty of leg work required to look round.

You may also notice how murky the weather is. It was like that at the start of the day and we hoped that the mist would burn off – but it didn't. You may also notice that cloud has started to appear although there is still plenty of sun.

We went down to the next terrace, the Top Terrace, to start looking around. There are plenty of interesting, unusual and colourful plants and some interesting topiary in these gardens.

Time to go down another level to the Aviary Terrace.


The brick facade features open arches with a relatively small space behind with bench seating. I have tried to find why this is called the 'Aviary Terrace' but failed. One has to assume that there may have been an aviary here at some stage but there isn't any evidence of one now.

There is a great variety of plants on this terrace but now down to the Orangery Terrace but  before we go there is a good view of the Orangery Terrace below.

Here we are on the Orangery Terrace having come down the steps you can see on the right of the picture below with the Orangery on the left.  The orangery would have been used for growing citrus fruit and protecting it during the winter months.


Inside the Orangery is Lady Amanda resting on a seat and outside is an abundance of flowering plants in a multitude of colours.

Further along this terrace, on one of the paths, there is plenty of topiary in the form of mega-hedges. I would not like to have to look after something like that especially that high.

We had now arrived at the lowest part of the garden where we saw this building.

This, apparently, is one of the National Trust's holiday cottages which you can rent for your holiday. I don't know any more than that but you could probably find out more on the National Trust's web site.

We wandered around a little more then decided we'd had enough and headed back to the car park. On the way we had this rather nice view of the castle and the terraces together with a variety of coloured foliage.

We weren't, however, quite finished yet. We drove all of two miles into the town of Welshpool nearby to a railway station on the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway to see if we could catch sight of a train. When we got there we discovered that a train was due in about 30 minutes so we settled down to wait.

Eventually there it was steaming into the station.

What a cutie and such little wheels! This is just one of Wales' narrow gauge railways which now has a track length of eight miles to run on and runs between Welshpool and Llanfair Caereinon. We hope to travel on it one day as it has some quite steep inclines and sharp curves to negotiate which should make an interesting journey.

You may notice now that it has clouded over making the sky white. So much for 'sunny all day'.

After slogging up all those hills the poor little thing needed a drink.

After the drink the locomotive ran around to the front of the train to haul it back home.

That was a rather nice end to a rather nice day.
 

Off the Wall and Mind the Gap

Off the Wall and Mind the Gap

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'Off the wall' is an expression used in the UK and, I believe, in the USA which means unusual or bizarre. In this particular case 'Off the wall' is on the wall! But I'm getting a little ahead of myself here so lets go back to the beginning shall we?

Yesterday, Wednesday, we hopped on a train once again and ended up at Liverpool Street Station in London emerging onto Bishopsgate at about 10:15 AM in sunny weather. The temperature was around 46 F which was a little cool but is pretty good for February. We could have been up to our knees in snow.

We were intending to spend the morning wandering the streets so a bit of sun is nice and not having to dress up like a couple of Arctic explorers was also nice. You can join us if you like.

Turn left along Bishopsgate, right into Middlesex Street ( used to be Petticoat Lane until the Victorians renamed it) then left into Wentworth Street where the Petticoat Lane Market is now held.

Down Wentworth Street to Brick Lane and turn left along Brick Lane.

It does feel, when wandering along Brick Lane, that this is part of Bangladesh and we did see a sign referring to the area as Banglatown. We also saw signs in what I belive may be Bengali.

Wanna buy a Saree? This is not really about the shop but the decoration on the boarding filling the window. Yes it's street art again.

If you take the trouble to look there's a lot of it about.

Some of it is fairly conventional.

But some of it is definitely 'off the wall'.

We couldn't leave without showing you this little chap. Well, maybe not so little.

I am given to understand that it is supposed to be a hedgehog. The general shape is about right but the poor thing's spines seem to be a bit sparse. The artist is known as 'Roa' and is from Belgium.

I took far more photographs than I could show here and we decided to stop at this point.

Right! Keep up! Don't lag behind or you'll miss the bus. We have a number 26 to catch. We didn't have to wait long and we were off to our next destination. On the way we saw this old shack, from the top deck of the bus, which you may recognise.

Then we made our way up Fleet Street.

Past the Temple Inns of Court and the Royal Courts of Justice.

Finally arriving at Aldwych where we get off the bus. Still with us? Good.

A short walk up Wellington Street, turn left along Tavistock Street, turn right into Tavistock Court and we're here – Covent Garden Market. Why are we here? Well that will have to wait for an hour or so because it's time for lunch and our intrepid travellers are famished.

Some time ago we visited Docklands and had lunch at a cafe called Henry's which we quite liked although they blotted their copybook by taking 30 minutes to bring our dessert. Remember? There is another branch of Henry's here in Covent Garden and we thought we'd see if they could do any better.

We arrived at about 1:10 PM so we expected it to be busy but they found us a table and left us to study the menu. We were on the same level as the street but there was a lower floor in a large well which gave us the impression that we were on a balcony. This was our view.

We gave our order for our main courses about 10 minutes after we arrived but it took about 20 minutes for them to arrive. I ordered a Chicken and King Prawn Jambalaya and Amanda ordered Blackened Chicken Breast & Avocado Salsa which were both very nice and quite filling. We both decided to have a dessert and I had a Sticky Toffee Glory which is described thus:

Fresh bananas, vanilla ice cream and broken meringue,smothered in toffee sauce.

I had that when we ate in their cafe at Docklands and I remarked at the time that although it was very tasty I could not detect any meringue so I decided to try again here and I have to say I could not detect any meringue in this one either. Perhaps the meringue is broken into such small pieces that it's undetectable but that would seem rather pointless.

We both did enjoy our lunch however and we would go there again but not if we were in a hurry as they are rather slow. If you have plenty of time we would recommend it especially as, for London, the prices are very reasonable. It cost us £44 for two including a tip.

Time to move on to our next destination and we had to walk only about 100 yards to here:

This building, so I understand, used to be the old Covent Garden Flower Market and is spread over three floors. On entering the people at the desk suggest starting on the top floor (there are lifts and stairs) and working downwards. I can see the logic in that as it means starting with the earliest transport and moving towards the present day.

The first area one encounters is this:

It certainly looks striking. The light grey ramp on the right is the way on to the main displays. This next picture gives an idea of the main space with galleries on each side. It certainly is big enough for a bus or two and some trains.

We started at the top where there are some examples of horse drawn buses and trams.

I suspect that those vehicles wouldn't provide as much comfort as we expect today.

The horse drawn trams don't look particulary luxurious and look rather similar to the horse drawn buses except that the trams run on rails and appear to be able to carry many more passengers.

We moved down to the floor below and forward in time to when underground trains started to run although these were hauled by steam locomotives.

You may notice that there is no cab on this locomitive so the driver and fireman had no shelter. They may not have needed it underground but there would be times when the train was running out in the open and in all weathers.

The old style carriages had separate compartments along the length of each coach with each compartment arranged across the coach with bench seats along each side. You can see, in the photograph below, that although we were prepared to 'mind the gap' there wasn't any gap!


If Amanda is waiting for the train to start she may be in for a long wait unlike this old buffer (notice the manic look in his eyes) who decided to try one of these individual shelters used during the second world war for people who would be working in the open, such as a railway yard, and not near a normal shelter when there was an air raid.

Then we get to the time when electric locomotives were introduced which didn't fill the tunnels with smoke.

The London Underground has been running for 150 years this year.

There were taxis, buses and trams in fact far too many vehicles to go through here and many more photographs will appear on the main web site in due course.

When we had finished looking around, and there is an astonishing amount to look at, we retired to the cafe for some refreshment. I had coffee but Amanda decided to have hot chocolate and this is what she had:

The cafe is situated above the shop and the shop is stocked with a wide range of London Transport items.

This is a really interesting museum and certainly worth a visit. It is run as a registered charity which is partly funded by donations from Transport for London but the rest must come from the general public. Your visit will help to support them and it will keep you happily amused for some time.

We finally decided that we'd had enough for one day and caught the No. 26 bus back to Liverpool Street Station and thence to home.

 

Rock and Water – Day 1

Rock and Water – Day 1

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After a relatively easy drive of one hour and 45 minutes, 15 minutes less than Google's estimate, we arrived in Peterborough. We had booked one night at a Premier Inn near the Ferry Meadows Country Park so we parked our car there and caught a bus into Peterborough City Centre. This is a photograph from the front seat on the top deck of the bus just as we were about to cross the bridge over the River Nene. Peterborough Cathedral is visible in the distance with the old Customs House on the right of the bridge.

I'm surprised that it's as sharp as it is as I was being severely joggled by the bus bouncing about. The cathedral,of course, was what we were here to see. The stone from which it is made is limestone which was quarried from the old medieval quarries at Barnack.

Just outside the cathedral close is the large Market Square and at the far end is the 17th century Guildhall. The Guildhall is a typical example of Anglo-Dutch architecture and there is almost an exact copy of the Guildhall in Amsterdam. Just beyond and to the right of the Guildhall is the medieval church of St. John. When we arrived in the Market Square there was a group of elderly people playing traditional jazz in the Guildhall and they were playing very well indeed.

Looking in the opposite direction we see the entrance to the cathedral close – so that is were we go.

Once through the arch we are presented with this view of the West Front.

Just look at the size of those three arches compared with the people just in front of them on the central path. To describe them as impressive seems to be a bit of an understatement.

Time to go inside and the first thing we see is, of course, the nave.

The painted ceiling dates from around 1250 and is the only medieval painted wooden ceiling surviving in Britain today. The carved marble font is also medieval dating from the 13th century.

This next view from the east end of the nave is looking through the Quire, under the tower crossing and into the Sanctuary.

Walking through the quire stalls to stand directly under the central tower and then looking up we see the tower ceiling.

There are lots more interesting parts of this cathedral which will feature on the main web site at a later date.

After looking round the cathedral we wandered over to the terminus station of the Nene Valley Railway, a heritage railway, in the hope of seeing a steam train. We waited 20 minutes and saw the last train of the day hauled, very appropriately, by a  locomotive named the 'City of Peterborough'.

We took the bus back to our hotel at the end of the day and after our evening meal we prepared for the longer journey that we would be making tomorrow.
 

Here today, not gone tomorrow

Here today, not gone tomorrow

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Sunday 12th September

After 4 hours and 210 miles we arrived at two o'clock this afternoon. Most of the journey was in sunshine but it started raining just as we arrived. Luckily it didn't stay that way.

Where are we?

Monday 13th September

We bin 'ere:

and 'ere:

Cloudy all day today and it rained all the way from the Minster to the Railway Museum.

Well done Old Guy – you got it in one. It may be York rain Tudor but it's just as wet as any other.  Annecy we'll give you the low down later.

Tuesday 14th September

More tramping today. This trip is turning into a Shambles.

Eventually we got the hump!

We had our longest, hardest, wettest shower this morning. We'll be leaving tomorrow.

Wednesday 15th September

Weather cool grey and very windy. Left York at 9:30 AM home by 1:30 PM. :bawl:

The Winton Train

The Winton Train

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Today saw us toddle off to our nearest station to watch the Winton Train pass though travelling from Harwich to it's final destination – London.

Winton Train web site

One of the reasons we went was to see 'Tornado', the locomotive pulling the train, because we haven't seen it 'in the flesh' before and because it was built only last year.

Tornado web site

Needless to say the experience lasted only a few seconds at the speed at which it was travelling but we're glad we went. smilies  smilies

Blooming Marvellous!

Blooming Marvellous!

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On Friday 29th May we heard that the weather was forecast to be warm and sunny for the next four days so we did what anyone would do under the circumstances; we booked to go to Lewes or, if you want to be pedantic, to Offham which is two miles from Lewes town centre.

We picked Offham because The Blacksmiths Arms had accomodation available and it's not easy to get accommodation in Lewes with its own parking without paying for very expensive hotels. There was also a bus into Lewes which stopped right outside the Blacksmiths Arms. So that was settled then and we were due to go on Sunday 31st May.

Sunday arrived warm and sunny. We left home about 10:00 AM and arrived in Offham at about 12:15 PM after a relatively stress free journey.

Sunday 31st May

After unpacking we immediately left again for Ditchling Beacon on the South Downs which was an easy 9 mile drive. There is a car park on top of Ditchling Beacon which was very handy and this is the view that greeted us when we got out of the car.

We were planning to walk along the ridge to see Jack and Jill and so we set off together with numerous other people. This was a sunny Sunday remember and everyone was out and about. Jack and Jill must be along there somewhere.

After a very picturesque walk in the sunshine of some two miles or so we caught our first glimpse of Jack.

Jack as you can see is a tower mill. Very soon after seeing Jack we arrived at Jill which you can see is a post mill.

Jill was actually working, although you can't see that in the still photographs, and occasionally the little vane on wheels would start to rotate as the direction of the wind changed and the wheels would start to move along their track keeping the mill pointed into the wind.

We went inside right up to the top floor where we could feel the mill swaying. It is after all a whole building pivoting on a single post so there is bound to be some movement.

Here are Jack and Jill together with the moon showing above Jack (the black mill).

We shall leave you with this view from the windmills showing Ditchling village at the bottom of the hill.

As a matter of interest that white blob in the distance is yet another post mill. We now have another two miles to walk back to the car but we do get a second look at all that lovely scenery on the way. Along part of the ridge we could see the sea and part of Brighton and a small patch of white chalk cliff further east. Back to the hotel at the end of the day but will the weather last?

Monday 1st June.

Today is another sunny day and after breakfast we catch the bus outside the Blacksmiths Arms arriving in Lewes High Street about ten minutes later.

Our trip to Lewes, as with the other places, will all appear on the main web site in detail sometime later so I'm only going to give a brief account here.

A little way from where we got off the bus is the medieval castle entrance in the High Street. It had been closed the whole of the winter for maintenance and was still closed so we couldn't go inside. It apparently opened later in the week that we were there but we were too early. It looks moderately impressive but nowhere near as impressive as Bodiam or Conwy.

This is the view through the Barbican Gatehouse.

What's left of the Keep stands on a separate mound within the castle boundary and I believe visitors can go up both the Barbican Tower and the Keep.

After looking around the outside of the castle we arrived back in High Street and spotted an old timber-framed building which we went to look at. It turned out to be on the corner of Keere Street which is one of those quaint, steep and narrow cobbled streets – rather picturesque.

We had to walk down Keere Street, of course, and found ourselves by Southover Grange Gardens – a beautiful little oasis in the middle of the town. As we were now at the bottom of the hill we made our way to Anne of Cleeves House which is another fine old timber-framed building which is open to the public but we didn't go in.

A little further is the ruined Lewes Priory.

You can see how lumpy it is around here from the view of the hills in the background.

We went from the Priory back towards the lower part of the town centre by the river. One thing I will say for Lewes is that it has a lot of nice places to eat. We spotted Chapel Lane which gives access to a footpath up onto the Downs but more of that later and we also saw English's Passage which is supposed to be one of the narrowest Twittens in the country and there are houses along both sides.

We were both getting tired by this time but I was determined to get up onto the Downs so Amanda decided to potter round the shops whilst I did the heroic climb. I set off for Chapel Lane which is pretty steep and found the public footpath going up onto the downs. I set off up the path but crikey, puff, wheeze, hang on a minute, gasp – now that WAS steep. After numerous rests the path became, thankfully, less steep and after about one and a half miles I took this picture.

Lewes is somewhere down there in the valley. I managed another half mile and decided I didn't have time, or the energy, to continue so I went back into Lewes and met up with Amanda again. I had walked just over 10 miles in Lewes today. It was now getting late in the day so we decided to get the bus back to the Blacksmiths Arms. We will see what the weather brings tomorrow.

Tuesday 2nd June.

Another fine sunny day so we put Plan 'A' into action which was to travel the short distance north to a place called Sheffield Park. We chose that for two reasons. It was one end of the Bluebell Line, a heritage steam railway, and it was home to the National Trust's Sheffield Park Garden.

The Bluebell Line was a few hundred yards nearer than the gardens so we stopped there first and we were in luck as there was a steam train in the station waiting to go. We weren't going for a ride as that would take too much time but we were hoping to see one.

After the train had gone we had a look in the engine shed. It was a very large shed packed with locomotives on three lines and standing next to some of these on the same level as the bottom of their wheels they looked gigantic! In the yard behind the shed were other numerous locomotives of which these rather cute tank engines were just two.

So now on to our main reason for this trip – Sheffield Park Gardens. This garden, at this time of year, was a revelation and we thought it to be the best garden of its kind that we had yet seen. A detailed report will appear on the web site sometime so I'll give just a flavour of what we saw here.

What a riot of colour and not just the flowers. There were even red, green, grey and yellow foliage on the trees. This garden was indeed blooming marvellous. Needless to say we spend most of the day here and finally went back to our accommodation tired but happy. More good weather tomorrow (the day we leave for home)?

Wednesday 3rd June.

Yet another warm sunny morning but today we go home. However before we do that we decide to go to Devil's Dyke which would also allow Amanda to call in on a plant nursery nearby that specialises in Pinks for some particular varieties that she wants.

Devil's Dyke is a well known beauty spot but shouldn't be too crowded mid-week in early june and that proved to be the case. There is a road up the hill and a car park on top which is fortuitous as we both feel somewhat knackered after the exertions of the last few days.

This is what we saw when we got out of the car.

That view does not include the actual dyke itself but this next view does. The dyke is the deep valley seen from the top looking down. Dyke is another term for ditch and it is said that this 'ditch' was created by the devil.

This view is from the bottom looking up.

So we did that and now it's time to go to the nursery for Amanda to buy her plants. Then we head home. The interesting thing is that after we'd left the nursery around lunchtime it started to cloud up and within an hour there was no blue sky to be seen. How's that for timing?

A rather good trip and wonderful weather.

P.S. By Friday it was too cold for a short sleeve shirt and even with a long sleeve shirt another layer was required to be comfortable. That's English weather for you. :???:

Oliver Cromwell in a hurry.

Oliver Cromwell in a hurry.

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No not that Oliver Cromwell. This Oliver Cromwell is a steam locomotive hauling one of the ‘Cathedral Express’ trains that run from London to various cathedral cities in England throughout the year.

This was the ‘Norfolkman’ which runs from London Liverpool Street Station to Norwich in Norfolk and passed through our nearest station, Kelvedon, in Essex today at around 11:30 AM. So off we went to try and get some ‘visuals’.

Oliver Cromwell

I was busy trying to get a good still photograph, of which the above is the result and I had only a few seconds in which to do it because the train was travelling very fast, whilst Amanda took this short video which is on YouTube. After processing by YouTube the resolution is not as good as the original.

All that preparation for sixteen seconds of video.

In complete contrast Amanda photographed this Comma butterfly in our garden later in the day.

Comma butterfly