Category: History

Another Crawley Stroll

It’s another Saturday afternoon in lockdown v3. For once it isn’t pouring down with rain and there appears to be some bright little yellow thing in the sky. It’s time for a walk, and it’s a little bit further afield than bordering Southgate. I’ve got a little loop of Pound Hill and Worth in mind.

I used to live in Pound Hill for six years or so, and during these years, on the whole, it would appear that I walked around with my eyes closed, blind to the kind of buildings there were dotted around and the history that is around if only I’d open them. It’s bizarre that until about three years ago I was completely blind to Crawley’s history, even after twelve or so years living here. Especially as someone who trained up to be a blue badge guide in Leicester when I lived there.

And so we’re at Pound Hill parade to start a wander. We head out the side between the Co-op and launderette onto Crawley Lane. So obviously the original road out to Turner’s Hill when you look on the map, and that can be picked up by looking at the buildings along its length. A number of them are so much older than the parade behind them, and the estate to the south of it. I had done some wandering in the summer, taking pictures of churches, pubs and road signs in this area, but I’d ignored the houses on Crawley Lane.

Two in particular are on the list of locally listed buildings. Numbers 6-8 are a couple of weatherboarded cottages from the 1870s.

And Woodcote Cottage further up the slight incline is again weatherboarded, and is older, being from the 1840s.

I couldn’t help myself and took a detour onto Mount Close, doing a lap of the triangle. This was the only place in Pound Hill I ever used to take any notice of when I lived in Wakehams Green. I would deliberately detour through it from Crawley Lane to the far corner and the narrow path onto the Balcombe Road just below The Hillside. It is full of a glorious array of beautiful houses. It is my aspirational place to live in Crawley if I ever win the lottery; ideally one of the four houses that back on to the moat on the far side of it. It is a wonderful oasis away from the more modern builds across most of the town.

We complete the loop and carry on up Crawley Lane, popping out on the Balcombe Road opposite the multi listed Worth Training Centre complex, and head up Turners Hill Road. I had noted this area back in the Autumn, and wasn’t going to rehash this stretch, and so turned into Ashurst Drive and into the battle ground where road signs are concerned. This triangle with Turners Hill Road to the North, Balcombe Road to the west and the motorway to the east has road signs that show the battle between the council and residents for how the road signs should be named.

The Worth Way cuts through the middle, with the streets to the north having the yellow signs of Pound Hill, and those to the south having the dark blue of Maidenbower. Yet most have or have had stickers over the top of the original areas with Worth printed on them, with some of them showing the signs where attempts have been made to peel them off.

Crossing the Worth Way, which is currently showing signs of looking more like a river than a railway, we head to the Worth Conservation Area, and the stretch down from Church Road to St Nicholas’ Church, where there are more listed buildings than not.

On the corner is the Toll House (which was Worth’s toll house), and next to it is the Rectory.

Straight in front of us as we walk along is Street House, a former inn from the seventeenth century.

And as we draw closer to it the lychgate to the churchyard appears,

itself a listed building, and the entrance in to the church itself, one of only three Grade 1 listed buildings in Crawley.

I have passed the church quite a few times on walks, but this is only the second time I’ve been through the Lychgate. Part of me regrets not having brought a camera on that previous visit, as the spire is scaffolded with blue netting around it, and the wonderful inside is not open to visitors in these covid times.

There is a new (well to me anyway) area laid out to the back of the churchyard which looks like it would be a great place for quiet and reflection, especially on a sunny afternoon.

After taking photographs of the outside of the church from every angle, and vistas of the gravestones, which have a higher than expected incidence of Celtic crosses, and only a lone Victorian era angel, we walk across the front of Street House and onto the Worth Way, not making it across the motorway, but instead heading on the narrow and muddy footpath through to Saxon Road, where it is time for some more street sign snapping, getting the Saxon kings named in this little area.

The little sub estate is full of large modern builds, but somehow they feel dark and it is noisy; the wooden fences on the raised bank do little to reduce the constant hum of vehicles speeding along the motorway behind it.

From here we cross the Worth Way, although the railway would have headed on across the motorway in days gone by, the footpath doesn’t, and steps up to the now ground level mark the end of where the council want you to walk. The other side towards the railway really is a stream at the moment.

We are back into Pound Hill now and a little cluster of “Hurst” roads, with two of them leading to the very infrequently used suffix of Keeps.

On Turners Hill Road we head back towards town, passing Caxtons before the pavement runs out and forces us to cross the road. We cross back again at the old school building, with it being closed and a weekend I take a couple of photos of it, the only safe time to take photos of school buildings in these accusatory times.

Back on to Church Road we head along to just before the Worth Way and head along Green Lane, where another listed building (the imaginatively named) Green Lane Old Cottage, from the seventeenth century it is one of only two thatched cottages in Crawley.

Crossing back over Balcombe Road we take the footpath in front of us through to Blackwater Lane, another road with large impressive houses, carrying on to Banks Road and onto The Bower. We can see the footpath that is the Worth Way in front of us, but it is another listed building I came here to see.

Blackwater Cottage from the late seventeenth / early eighteenth century is just about visible through the trees  and bushes at this time of year (I’d imagine it wouldn’t be visible much at all during the full bloom of summer).

On the other side of The Bower are two more large modern houses, ones that I remember from passing lots of times, they had always taken my attention from the older and more impressive building behind the trees. They seem darker than I remember, and the dream of living in one of these is perhaps one I’m glad didn’t come true.

It’s time to head home, and so we turn and wander back to Pound Hill parade through the streets named after Sussex castles. On the parade the last thing I note is that the old hardware store is gone, but on the plus side the new store there still deals with nails.

The picture laden version of this can be found on my Medium page at the link below.

https://onetruekev.medium.com/another-crawley-stroll-c4ebd995cfa0

Water Bored-ing

Saturday saw the first proper outdoor activity in this lockdown and therefore this year. It was a reasonably nice day and without Charlie being around anymore, Helen was determined to take something out for a walk. So, I charged up the camera, dug out the parka (which, according to the train ticket in the pocket had probably last seen use on 25/01/2019!), and we were off.

The intended destination was Ifield Mill Pond, somewhere I still hadn’t visited on any of my previous wanders over nearly fifteen years of living in Crawley. We headed out through Southgate towards Cheal’s roundabout, feeling strange that we were walking through this area without a silly little black and white doggy. The first detour of the day was into Cheal’s (well Squires now), so I could take pictures of the old Grade II listed Little Buckswood Farm that is surrounded by the more modern garden centre buildings, and its blue plaque.

From there we weaved our way up Buckswood Drive, criss crossing the road like drunken sailors as I took pictures of road signs for future use, making out way to Gossops Green parade, itself a locally listed building, passing the Windmill pub and around the back of the shops to the little wooden shack that is the Crawley Spiritualist Church.

The original plan was to go to the Mill Pond through the back of Gossops Green, but instead we ended up heading down to Ifield Station, via another photo opportunity at St. Theodore of Canterbury’s Church. We crossed over the railway and headed around through Ifield to Rusper Road. It was another road we weaved across like the drunken sailor’s day out. The section of Rusper Road we walked along has a number of Statutory and Locally Listed buildings of different ages and sizes.

We soon came to the entrance to Ifield Mill and the mill cottage. The day before the mill wheel had been running as a tribute, as the funeral of one of the main people instrumental in restoring the mill to working order had taken place.

The mill pond itself is cut in two by the railway line, with a thin channel under the tracks connecting the two. We wandered around the Ifield side all the way until we got to the bridge over the railway and through to Bewbush, and down to the larger part of the mill pond. There is a long wooden walkway across the mill pond, that had signs at the entrance saying it was one way. Fortunately, we were going the right way after our unintended detour around the side. (Of course, there were two idiots with a dog going the wrong way round.)

There were all kinds of birds on and around the pond. None of which could I tell you what they were with any degree of certainty. There were definitely ducks and seagulls, after that I’m struggling. With the low sun at this time of year, and with it approaching late afternoon, there were some good reflections off the surface of the pond, and in some places, there was still a thin layer of ice on the surface that the low sun hadn’t melted away during the day.

Once across the pond we exited back into Gossops Green, at the point where we had originally intended to come in, but it would appear we had accidentally found the better route seeing as there is a one-way system around the pond now.

We walked back up to the parade (with me getting more photos of road signs as we did), and past St Alban’s Church, with its fire station-esque brick campanile, another locally listed building, turning at the corner it’s on and headed down the hill until we got to the country path through Woldhurstlea park, the site of a former manor house, until we popped out of the other end back to being near Cheal’s again.

Avoiding retracing any of our steps we picked a different route back through Southgate. As we were passing the Half Moon pub, I saw a Tudor style looking building behind the pub. It isn’t actually Tudor, though some parts of the building are obviously older than the more modern mock Tudor frontage, and the surrounding buildings. Barrington Lodge is its name, and it is now a bed and breakfast. Despite having walked within fifty yards of it countless times, this was the first time I had noticed it.

Lockdowns seemed to have focused my mind to be on the lookout for buildings of interest in Crawley a lot more than I had before. On what turned out to be an eight mile wander I had seen a lot of interesting buildings that hadn’t really been noticed before. We had been out for three hours, perhaps slightly more than the recommended limit, but it was good to get out, even if my legs feel as if they are made out of stone now. I’m out of practise.

The icing on the cake though, was walking back into the house to the slow cooker emanating the mouth-watering smell of curry.

The Brook

The Brook, or The Stream, that’s what we called it. We never knew it had a proper name. It does, but I only found out as an adult and examining maps, that it’s called the Melton Brook. All we knew was it was a great place to play. And over the years we played in and alongside its course. All the way from where it came out of the industrial estate on the Barkby Road and under the railway bridge into the top of Rushey Mead, down to where it went under the footbridge at the end of Cuckoo Woods and joined the River Soar.

Under and over its eight bridges along that stretch (then), or across the stepping stones in several places. Wading through it in wellies, falling in at various points, sliding down its banks and generally having it form a big part of childhood. I’m going to try a take my memory for a trip along it.

I’m going to start at the railway, where the brook funnelled through a black brick, almost circular, tunnel. It ran down the middle and left either side dry enough to walk (or run, or cycle) along. We never went any further upstream into the industrial estate, just under the bridge and back again, or back up the embankment on the other side and across the train tracks.

When I revisited this spot last year I found it is now securely fenced off and the surrounds are all overgrown, leaving no way to make it down to the water anymore. Much safer than when we had been kids dicing with death on the railway. Something we did for years, and that we only really gave up after the evening the transport police turned up, and arrested one of my friends for throwing stones in the general direction of a passing train. We’d only just avoided being hit by a train earlier, so should have expected the transport police to show up. They took everyone else’s names and drove our friend off. It was a fair trek back from the railway to home, but the transport police’s car was still outside my friend’s house in the next street when we got back. Ten of us crept up to the corner and peered round into St Michael’s Avenue in a cartoon style scene, and ran off when we saw the transport police car there.

From the railway there was a short open stretch, strewn with rocks and bricks, before the brook went underground for a long stretch under the end of Roseneath Avenue before popping out on the far side of Peebles Way, the longest of its bridges along its course. Even as a child it was difficult to make it all the way through that stretch. It was low and uneven, hot and tiring. I did it once, just to say I’d done it, and left it at that. Others did it multiple times, but surely no one enjoyed doing it.

Back in the open the next stretch of the brook was hardly ever travelled. It only had narrow overgrown banks on either side as it ran behind the houses on Huntsmans Way and Roseway on one side and Strathmore Avenue, Glenmore Road and Kerrysdale Avenue on the other before it went under another bridge under Gleneagles Avenue. No one bothered with this section as it didn’t really go anywhere. It was awkward to traverse and at the far end there were only two choices; climb over the high wall onto Gleneagles Avenue, or stoop and trudge through the brook under it. Neither of which were appealing; or done very often.

Bizarrely, the wall on the other side of the bridge was used quite a bit more. Probably because it led to the open ground of the playing fields of Soar Valley school, and the Rushey Fields beyond. There was a path along the north bank, under the trees at the back of the houses on Gleneagles Avenue which led to the bike sheds of the old school. The south bank wasn’t complete. There was a little island just over the wall, but then there was a storm drain outlet before a path ran down the side of the fenced off little copse before opening up into the park. The entrance to the storm drain was too big to jump across, and although the entrance to the storm drain was very shallow, the actual storm drain itself was fences off with metal railings, mainly to prevent little brats like us exploring up it.

Nowadays this whole section is properly fenced off and very much private school grounds. Back when we were kids it wasn’t, there was no fencing, just the posts that should have held it, and we all used it as an extension of Rushey Fields. At the corner of the field where the brook came out there was the first set of stepping stones, making it easy to cross there and a good spot for fishing with little nets and jars.

Further down, where the bike sheds were on the north, and before the gym on the south was another occasional set of stepping stones. A steeper bank and trickier crossing meant it wasn’t used as much. At one point there were a couple of purloined planks across the brook there, but they didn’t last long before they broke and tipped someone into the brook. Besides there were a plethora of other crossing points close by.

There was the wooden and steel bridge which crossed between the main school building and the gym, crossing over the brook, but under the first floor walkway that connected the buildings. Underneath the bridge was another set of makeshift stepping stones, and also crossing the brook under the bridge was a thick black pipeline. This could be used to hang off and shimmy across the brook. However being fat and low on arm strength meant trying this way just ended up with me in the water. I wasn’t the only one to fail this method of crossing.

From there it was a ten second sprint to the next bridge. The concrete road bridge over to the gym and tennis courts (and later the all-weather court). This was the sensible crossing back then, the one used when going to church at Our Lady’s, the least muddy route in winter. Underneath this bridge was another ever changing set of stepping stones. It was funny that the proper bridges had stepping stones underneath them all, set up in the places where you didn’t need them to cross over the brook.

The school as it was then doesn’t exist anymore. We played on its grounds more than most of the kids who went to the school. Hide and seek all around the buildings; siting on the top of the blue fire escape next to the oil tanks and space rocket chimney; scrabbling under the mobiles, and playing football in the little concrete five-a-side court next to the brook.

I can remember playing football on the grass on both sides of the brook, and how the little rise up to the bank on either side didn’t ever stop the football from going over the top and down into the water. It meant you lost five minutes playing time, first of all arguing over who should retrieve the ball, and then actually trying to get it out of the brook without getting wet, and laughing at the failures.

We wondered what they were doing when they ploughed up the field to the south side to lay the all-weather pitch. We were there, playing on the ‘slag heaps’ of various aggregates they’d piled up before laying the strange black surface. And of course when it was locked we’d climb over the fence to play in there anyway.

There was a salutary tale on this stretch of the person ‘someone’ knew who tried to jump the brook on their motorbike only to come off and break their neck. It was told many times, but it was always vague as to what their name was and who it was that knew them.

Both sides of the brook were actually part of school grounds, and the border between Soar Valley and Rushey Mead was somewhat lax. On the south it was a banked piece of ground, and to the north, a lesser bank, but a row of trees and bushes with occasional gaps in them. At the border there was another well used (even in winter) path down the banks of the brook, and more stepping stones across the brook.

Before I left Leicester in 2001 this crossing had been made into a bridge, with a foot/cycle path along it joining up Rushey Fields to Gleneagles Walk between the two schools.

The raised section from here to Melton Road saw more football being played over the years. I played occasional Sunday league games on the south side. Where, even as adults we argued over who would get the ball back out of the water. (Or, if we were lucky someone had a large fishing net on an extendable pole to fish balls out.)

As the brook got close to Melton Road the banks got steeper to the point where for the last ten yards or so they became brick walls. Just before it went under the road the brook widened out to twice the width of anywhere else along its course, and therefore normally the shallowest. It narrowed as it went under the road and came out at its usual width on the other side.

This whole section is now surrounded by the new Rushey Mead school buildings, and as properly fenced off as its Soar Valley counterpart, and as such impossible to get at.

Although the clearing under the road wasn’t as low, or as long as the one at Peebles Way, it felt a more difficult journey to make. All kinds of random junk was strewn along its length, and the sound of the heavy frequent traffic over the top of your head was unnerving. I did it a couple of times as a kid, and then after an afternoon of drinking in The Owl & The Pussycat I did it as an adult and it seemed a lot worse than when I’d done it as a kid. Being two feet taller wouldn’t have helped.

Once over (or under) the Melton Road we come to the only truly open bit of the brook left now. To the south is The Owl & The Pussycat, at one point my local in the sense of time spent there, if not quite the closest pub to home (the Melton Hotel just edged it). I remember it being the Herald of Peace before that, and being woken to go and see Santa’s sleigh there one December in the seventies.

You could climb over the wall of the car park / garden of the pub on to the bank of the brook, and if you were determined enough you could force your way along it at the back of the houses on Lanesborough Road, but it was overgrown and hard going even then.

To the north side was the long white boarded side of the Ford dealership, with a little wall outside the wooden boards next to the footpath. Of course, we never used the path where the wall could be walked (or cycled) on. The wall stopped about halfway along the path and was replaced with a chain link fence next to the allotments. When I say halfway, I mean between Melton Road and Cuckoo Woods.

Now, I’m not sure if that was ever their official name, but my parents called them that, and all the other kids did as well.

I walked down this whole section with my other half a couple of years ago on a trip back to Leicester a couple of years ago, and I was shocked by how little water there was in the brook, and how overgrown it was. It looked more like marsh land than running water.

At the edge of the woods there was a brick wall, which had a little collapsed (probably destroyed and removed) gap in it into the woods. To the side was a metal and concrete narrow footbridge over the brook. Underneath the bridge were more stepping stones, and this spot under the narrow bridge was the most popular spot for trying to fish for minnows and sticklebacks using the little nets we’d buy from the toy shop on the corner of my street (that’s now Ashoka). (I’ve racked my brains again to try and remember the name of this toy shop on a few occasions now, so if anyone can remember that would be great.)

Across the bridge was a footpath off to the end of Lanesborough Road / start of Bath Street. Veering off and following the south bank was another footpath that headed down to the river. No one was ever interested in taking that route, why would they be when they could go through the woods.

An old five feet high brick wall marked the boundary with a gap through to the woods. Originally it was just a boundary, and then when they fenced most of the woods off, it was a great place to climb up, shuffle along and drop down on the other side of the fence into the main part of the woods. (Or to get past the chain-link fence into the allotments to go rhubarb scrumping.)

I sat on that wall with a new pair of binoculars, testing them out whilst a teenager. I found out that if I looked straight down the path back to Melton Road with them, it was a direct line across the Rushey Fields, up Wyvern Avenue and to the Barkby Road railway bridge. At full magnification I could see people’s faces as they came under the bridge. Which I thought was great, although not really much use for another twenty years and mobile phones for all.

Even before they fenced most of the woods off, our parents would always tell us not to go into Cuckoo Woods by ourselves. Which of course we ignored. Yet they never had any issue with us playing around the brook (only with us falling in).

I was only about eight when a group of us went into the woods only to find a tramp there. He started to shout at us and made a grab for one of us, and at top speed we ran out of the woods, up the path, past the pub and across to the police station next to Rushey Fields, where we all excitably talked at once about the “monster” in the woods. We were accompanied home only to get a rollicking for being in the woods in the first place.

When the metal fence went up it wasn’t really a deterrent to us not to go in. As kids we didn’t understand the potential danger; how it was done as there was subsidence danger due to the sewerage works next to the woods. We’d seen the various pits in the woods, but they were something to play around and not fall in and get muddy feet. We could get in using the wall at one end, and then get out at the other end under or over the fence as it was offset going up the bank to the river.

For most of the path through the woods you couldn’t even see the brook, but just about halfway through the woods was a clearing, a big dusty (or muddy) shallow bank down to the brook, with a massive tree to one side. This tree had various attempts at a rope swing hanging down from it over the years. It was just rope, or it had a branch through it, or at really good points a tyre hanging off it. We would try to swing over to the far bank (failing most of the time with a big splash), or to just swing out over the brook and make it back to the starting point.

The clearing was no longer there when I was back there a couple of years ago, and there is no gap through to the overgrown brook from the woods.

And then we are at the river. The brook passes under a final concrete and metal footbridge similar to the one at the other end of the woods, and is carried away by the River Soar.

There was never an easy way down to the brook at this point, corrugated iron formed the bank, and so we would have to climb over the metal railing of the bridge and then lower ourselves into the brook, and then tentatively edge out to find where the brook ended and the river started.

I can conclusively say I know where it ends, as it’s a hell of a lot deeper when it becomes the river. My mental walk down the brook has brought back a lot of memories, of which what’s been put in here only scratches the surface. It was a lot of fun at the time and it is a shame to see so much of it now fenced off, or overgrown and neglected.

Sing A Song Of Sixpence

Someone we know put a picture on social media of a pretty much demolished afternoon tea. It was certainly different to the usual cacophony of pictures of meals before they are eaten. I was wondering whether this could become a new trend on Instagram – pictures of meals I’ve just eaten. It could even be turned into a game/app where people have to guess what the finished meal was. Perhaps with extra points for criticism of why there were leftovers in the first place.

I got into work Friday morning to find one of the little legs on my keyboard had been snapped off. Now I understand the need to clean desks, but there is absolutely no effing need to slam equipment about so hard whilst doing so, that pieces snap off it.

Friday night we had a kitchen planning appointment at Ikea. Jeez, two hours plus it took; so long we didn’t have time to buy a couple of bits we wanted to pick up. And despite cutting every corner available, I still clocked up a mile walking around the never ending twists and turns. By the time we got out it was too late to sit in and eat anywhere, so had take-out pizza sat in the car in the Pizza Hut car park.

Got the usual weekly e-mail from West Sussex County Council, and had to laugh that the snobby b@st@rds in Horsham are the most Covid-19 diseased part of West Sussex.

Charlie is mental, why has it only just occurred to me to call him a Muttcase?

We went out for the day on Saturday, which again involved driving through East Grinstead. It was interesting to note that their drivers seem even less enamoured about the Covid-19 pop up cycle lanes than Crawley ones. At the approach to one roundabout the last half dozen orange poles had been mowed down and were lying flat and crushed on the road.

It was a nice drive over to Rye, such a nice town, one of the original Cinque Ports, and at one point it was on the coast, whereas unless up a tower, you can’t see the sea there anymore. The old town on the cliff top is a wonder of beautiful old buildings. The Ypres Tower wasn’t open, as it’s too narrow to allow for social distancing. The impressive St Mary’s Church was partially open (again no tower access), and they had pens and fridge magnets J. We stopped for late lunch at Simon the Pieman’s, where at least Helen had a pie. I was going to have one, but when they came for the order the words cheese and ham Panini came out of my mouth.

After lunch we nipped into the tourist information, and got more leaflets, maps and after coming out and putting them all in my back pocket, I really did have a pocketful of Rye! (Yes, I’ve already got my coat.)

After a nice day wandering around Rye, and a drive home in the retreating light we went to the Downsman for dinner. With that, and a walk around town on Sunday morning, I draw the conclusion that Crawley is full of morons. They can’t do one way, masks, social distancing or anything remotely close to it. How we aren’t in danger of tier three is beyond me. I can’t imagine what the hell the snobby morons in Horsham are doing that is worse than us to have a higher infection rate.

Sunday afternoon means sport, and I’m pleasantly surprised to see Spurs jump into an early 3-0 lead, which we hold until there are only five minutes to play only to end up drawing 3-3. The mental fragility and defensive fragility are still there. Mourinho is a busted flush; he is supposed to be an expert in both of these areas. Well, I say that an ex is a has been and a spurt is a drip under pressure, so an expect is a has been drip under pressure, which would sum up Mourinho to a tee. We sacked Ossie Ardiles for playing his version of “we’re going to score one more than you”, but at least he wasn’t claiming to be a defensive mastermind.

On the plus side the 49ers won.

I had a bit of a blitz on Sporcle over the weekend and ended up getting my 1000th badge, which just goes to show how much time I’ve wasted playing quizzes on there in the last six years since Richard and James introduced me to it when they started working next to me.

I got home Monday night and something I’d ordered online had turned up, a month after it being ordered. Only for it to be not to be what it looked like on the web page, and for them to send me a medium instead of the 3XL I’d ordered. Furthermore the cheeky effers say that I have to pay to send it back (to China) for a refund. The postage is more than I paid for the item in the first place, so they offer a 15% refund. Effing scamming b@st@rds.

Being unsupervised on a week night isn’t great for sleep, as it’s one in the morning before I make it upstairs, and then there is at least an hour’s reading. The alarms weren’t very appealing Wednesday morning, and the constant rain wasn’t helping. It was dark in the office at nine in the morning, even with other people in the motion activated lights kept going off. A look out of the window shows that the customary lake has appeared on Hazelwick Avenue wiping out one of the pop up cycle lanes, turning it into a pop up kayak lane.

On the plus side it’s payday, not that there’s much to spend it on, save it for the kitchen I suppose.

Free At Last

It would appear that Sniffles isn’t one of the 8 out of 10 cats that prefer Whiskas. He’s been a fussy little pest for the last few months, regardless of the flavour of Whiskas or whether it was from a tin or pouch, he’s only really eaten if there were biscuits involved. We got some Lidl own brand pouches donated to us and I opened one and put it in his bowl, more in hope than expectation, only for the loon to scoff it like it was going out of fashion. Not sure how long this will last, but it is a nice respite.

Pizza Friday also included helping build the mahoosive wardrobe that had been bought for Nathan. By the time he was left to finish off the odds and ends it was already too late to go out anywhere to celebrate the end of two weeks of self-isolation.

Saturday morning came, and Helen went out with friends repeating the walk from Handcross to Staplefield, we’d done a month or so ago. I meanwhile walked into town and busted out a Maccy D’s breakfast before walking up and down the High Street, picture documenting its whole length, from the Railway line to the Leisure Park.

Once all the pictures were taken I went into the Crawley Museum to have a look around for the first time; something I’ve been meaning to do for well over a year. I was pleasantly surprised by the exhibitions. I found the gift shop in good working order as well, got the pen and fridge magnet, and a whole pile of local history books, the to read pile keeps expanding.

I had intended on getting some more maps to extend the local coverage for us on days out. I went into Waterstones and dragged myself up the stairs only to find that the whole front area where the café was is now blocked off and the book cases are across the gap now. It must have been recent as they haven’t filled all the shelves yet. Of course the shelves that were missing would have to be the ones where they keep the maps.

There was a continental market in Queens Square and down to the park, which meant even more people in town who can’t follow arrows on the floor. I really hope none of the effwits drive.

Helen only got back from her walk in time to take Nathan to Portsmouth, so whilst she was doing that I took Charlie out for a synchronised limping session. Only to get as far from the house as we were going to be on the walk, for the heavens to open. I needed to change, whereas Charlie just shook himself dry, all over the unimpressed cat.

Taking full advantage of being allowed out of the house, we went for dinner at Cinnamon. It was busier than expected, but they have a lot of screens up to separate tables. They gave me a bottle of Kingfisher (as requested) but with a Cobra glass.

The food was good, and we decided to have some port instead of pudding. Cue mass confusion. How many waiters and bar staff does it take to serve two glasses of port? At least four. The menu had two types of port on it – Taylors LBV and Cockburn’s Ruby. We ordered the LBV, but it would appear no one who worked there had ever heard of that, or any other port it would seem. They eventually come back with a bottle of special reserve of a brand we’d never heard of, saying it was the only one they had. We went for it, but it took a while for them to come back. After two abortive attempts they arrived at the table with two large (and mismatched) shot glasses. I’m not sure when the bottle had been opened, but doubt it was this century.

Sunday was another chance to leave the house, but before we did Helen was stripping the bed and Charlie was “helping”, so Helen put a t-shirt on him, and didn’t he look happy about it.

We went to Dorking and the Deepdene Trail. A series of walks around land that was part of the Deepdene and Chart Park Estate. We stayed on the more local ones, saving the longer one out to Betchworth Castle and Brockham for another time. It still meant we walked around part of the golf course, up some steep hillsides, down a load of steps and through what is left of the original estate.

It was owned by the Howard family (Dukes of Norfolk, Arundel Castle etc.) and then passed to the Hope family (of the Hope Diamond fame), and was a large estate with three grand houses. Now only parts of the grounds and a Mausoleum survive. It needs pointing out that the last of the houses was sequested as the headquarters of the Southern Railway during the Second World War, and remained so through to the sixties, at which point it was in such disrepair it was demolished. It would appear the Southern have been incompetent effwits for decades.

We had parked at the club house of the golf course, and stopped for a drink and sandwich there as we came back from the walk around. The view across the valley from the terrace made it a very nice lunch.

So, returning to speaking of incompetent effwits, the joy of being allowed out was crushed by the record breaking display of ineptitude from the 49ers, conceding the most points at their home stadium since they moved there six years ago. If someone had been asked which of the two teams had been in the Superbowl last year, and which had been one of the worst three teams in the league, there’s a good chance they’d have got the answers the wrong way around.

Back to the office on Monday, and with them allowing kids back at school, it was like a pre-Covid morning. Mentally defective parents ignoring traffic signals and the Highway Code at the bottom of Southgate Drive, and then tw@ts in Audis ignoring the new road layouts near work. Some things never change.

It’s now Wednesday evening, and I’m not sure how it got here so quickly. It certainly wasn’t a case of time flying as I’m enjoying myself; and I’m not sure what I missed when I blinked either. It may be because it’s like Groundhog Day around here – bright sunshine when I leave the house to go to work and torrential rain when going home, so it all merges into one.

Porto Review

The full write up is across five posts on Medium, so that all the full resolution pictures could be added to the posts. They are at the links below.

https://medium.com/@onetruekev/discovering-porto-day-one-arrival-a8f6b08232b9

https://medium.com/@onetruekev/discovering-porto-day-two-tours-5e10ce4fe1a7

https://medium.com/@onetruekev/discovering-porto-day-three-ill-have-a-port-40831ed8acbc

https://medium.com/@onetruekev/discovering-porto-day-four-visual-overload-e3bdd8a93162

https://medium.com/@onetruekev/discovering-porto-day-five-mooching-b95b2d646ade

A few footnotes

Beggars, there appeared to be a lot of them. On the first day alone, we were approached by half a dozen of them, none of whom (well apart from one) looked like they were dishevelled in any way. They all had the same shtick “one euro please”. It’s hard to say if any of them are genuine, none were carrying any sort of belongings, and they had clean clothes and good brands. They were also quite persistent and aggressive if you said no or tried to ignore them.

The lift in the hotel was amusing me all week. The reception was on level -1. Now minus in Portuguese is menos, but the lift kept pronouncing it as minge. Yes, I’m that immature that it made me giggle to myself all week.

Everywhere we went in Porto (and Vila Nova de Gaia), they took the Covid-19 threat seriously, maintaining distance, disinfecting surfaces (including key cards, tickets etc), wearing facemasks (indoors everyone did, and outdoors the majority did – even if it amused me that mascaras were obligatory), and generally you felt safe. Compared to the idiocy at home, it is rather galling that we now have a two-week self-isolation to go through when we’ve come back from a city with a lower infection rate than the UK. We were less likely to contract Covid there than at home, it’s just stupid.

It was a great trip, thoroughly enjoyed, so many great buildings and experiences. It took nearly as long to type everything up I’d written whilst there, and to sort out the excessive number of photos (only just under a thousand) taken. I did worry the camera might tell me the SD card was full the longer the week went on without any respite for the shutter. I would definitely recommend going for a visit.

Any Port In A Glass

As I was reading in bed my blinks were getting longer and longer, up to the point where I was probably asleep. At which point I dropped the Kindle on my face and woke myself up. It’s probably a bonus I don’t have to hold it at arm’s length to read as some people do, I’d have broken my nose otherwise.

It’s my last day in work for a while, as when I log off tonight I’ve got eleven days off, and then two week’s self-isolation when we come back from Porto, so I won’t be back in the office for over three weeks. It is amazing just how many people would be willing to get my laptop to my house if I “accidentally” left it in the office when going home tonight.

Poor little Charlie is getting very limpy; he came back from his walk this morning on impulse power. It does mean that in the space of a week I’ve gone from being the limpiest creature in the house to third most limpy, with Charlie getting worse, and Nathan being in a boot with his broken ankle. Next to overtake is probably Sniffles.

Speaking of whom, he seems to be turning into his dearly departed sister. He’s become a lot more vocal around getting let it, and he is being a fussy b@st@rd about his food. And his sense of timing is all off, he arrives out of breath at the front door only after we have left and got in the car. He then wanders off somewhere to sleep when we are out, and misses being let in when we get back.

I don’t know if I can decide. Do you have to be a d1ck in the first place to buy / drive an Audi, or does buying / driving an Audi turn you into a d1ck? Which came first; the d1ck or the Audi?

They were talking about herd immunity on the radio, and I think it would be a great thing if I had immunity from hearing anything.

Friday morning, no need to get up, no rush to do anything, just about managed to have brunch before heading off to get a haircut. As it was in the furthest corner of Crabbet Park, I went off after mine to take some photos of road signs, and some old houses, before meeting back up with Helen when she had finished her shearing.

We wandered up to what remains of the Crabbet estate, past the old houses and stables, and to the Holiday Inn, where I was looking to take a photo of a blue plaque, only to find that they are doing building work on the hotel and the part with the blue plaque is boarded off. Not to be defeated, we headed to Turner’s Hill Road and back over the motorway and to Caxtons, a magnificent old Tudor Cottage which has a blue plaque to Philip Webb, who appropriately helped form the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. As we got there my fatbit did something modern and tried to shake my arm off again.

We carried on down to Balcombe Road, past more old buildings, and themed road signs

Before heading home for a quick change and respite before going back out and doing more walking. We were met with a little deposit from limpy Charlie, who obviously was objecting to being left alone for a few hours.

Then we were off again, this time we were walking over to the Frogshole Farm with friends to meet other friends (and completing a party of six) for dinner. Most of the way can be walked away from roads, through woods and fields and by streams until popping out opposite the pub.

We were given a table and had to wait for a bit for everyone to arrive. We had been told that we had to order through the app. Which is atrocious. It took twenty minutes to order drinks and puddings, and then that ended up being through a traditional waitress service. It is an Ember Inn, and the app is called Ember Inns, which is appropriate, as if you had to use to get a fire engine for a fire, by the time it had worked, embers would be all that were left.

They hadn’t told us that the table was only for a two-hour window, so it was annoying to be told that the next booking was waiting for our table, when that wasn’t our problem. They had to wait some more as well as it took half an hour for desserts to turn up. We then wanted to have drinks, and so get a table outside, only to be told that we weren’t allowed to sit as six, we had to sit on two socially distanced tables, with a maximum of four on any one table. Mind-blowingly ridiculous seeing as they had been happy for us to sit as a six inside.

We walked home, but it was dark by then so parts of the journey were quite entertaining as it was through almost pitch black woods, and for one part even my night vision wasn’t good enough to see the path, or anyone else, and so we found the way by phone light.

If Charlie hadn’t been impressed with being left alone for a few hours earlier, he was less so at being left again, and had left two lots of presents on the kitchen floor for us to clean up. We’re so lucky.

It was a late night and so on Saturday morning, we just about got into town in time for Maccy D’s breakfast, before an amble around town and a bit of shopping. People still can’t follow signs on the floor, and it is amazing just how many people out there appear to have cold chins. I took some more photos of locally listed buildings in the next street and we had Saturday night pizza and watched films, seeing as we’d been doing other things on Friday.

Packing and preparations were the name of the game for Sunday as we got ready to fly off to Porto for five days Monday morning. Helen went to see her mum and I rang mine, there were probably similar lengths in time. And during this I levelled up to level 19 – Jigsaw Ninja.

Sports went a bit better this afternoon, Spurs scored five and won, although Mourinho looked furious with the team as they had been doing some attacking. The 49ers scored with the first play of the game and kept going for a comfortable win, but so many injuries that I might be able to get a game after quarantine.

Going to make the most of being in Porto, as it’s two weeks of self-isolation when we return, unless of course they change the rules again by then.

Just Do One

Well, on the way into work I found out why Southgate Avenue had been so snarled up the night before, the roadworks down Hawth Avenue have made their way to the junction and there are temporary three way traffic lights there as only one side of the road is open.

Work was monotonous, but having a fire drill to spice things up is something I can do without. Especially when there are only twelve people in the building, and nine of them are facilities. Just because you are bored don’t create drama to entertain yourselves. I had to restart the work I was doing because I got timed out of one of the systems. Furthermore, fire marshals are supposed to be told when there is a fire drill.

Going home wasn’t much better, I hadn’t seen that they’d added a bus and cycle lane to Haslett Avenue, and so as I turned in the usual way I suddenly had to brake and swerve so as not to drive into it. Do they think we are psychic? How about some effing warning of changes to road layout? Twunts.

I just about summoned up enough enthusiasm to write the pre NFL season blog before going to bed.

https://onetruekev.co.uk/Mutterings/2020/09/10/season-101/

Now I’m not saying I’ve been looking at SAP structures a lot recently, but as I turned in bed and pulled the duvet over me, all I could imagine was a load of org unit folders flowing over me. Not strange at all.

It’s Friday, so I negotiated the hostile new road layout and drove into Three Bridges station car park to get a breakfast baguette from Charlies, home of the Scooby burger. I thought the station looked clear; no cars in the drop off or pick up zones and only a couple of taxis. It wasn’t until I pulled up and went to get out of the car that I noticed that Charlies was shut. Seriously, it has big fluorescent signs saying it’s open 24/7. Obviously apart from when I decide I want to get breakfast. The car stereo thought it was funny as it started playing the Fun Loving Criminals’ Scooby Snacks as I drove to the office. The last laugh may be on the car though, as security reckons it’s leaving oil patches wherever it goes.

As Helen worked late and then took Nathan out for driving practice, I did get around to doing the Premier League preview for Spurs’ season, and it isn’t very positive at all. (https://onetruekev.co.uk/Mutterings/2020/09/11/abandon-hope-all-ye-who-enter-here/)

Saturday saw Helen off to a spa for the afternoon with one of her friends, so I tore myself away from the sofa and laptop, took the camera and went out around Crawley searching for blue plaques and Tudor houses, things that people don’t expect there to be, but which there are many. (https://medium.com/@onetruekev/even-more-history-in-crawley-fef3e09caf12) Whilst out the fatbit got over excited again and tried shaking my wrist off.

We had a couple of friends round for food in the evening, with the expectation that Nathan was going to Portsmouth to a party, but he came hobbling back to the house about six o’clock with a skateboarding injury. He was eventually nagged into going to the walk in centre (or hobble in centre in this case) to get it checked out. Four hours later he gets out with a cast around a break and a fracture. So much for the party.

After Saturday’s exertions, Sunday passed in a sofa session. Not having sky Sports meant I “watched” the chaotic Grand Prix via BBC website text updates, and followed it by realising my pessimistic preview of Spurs’ season wasn’t downcast enough. Then it was time for the new NFL season, with NFL RedZone still on the non-premium channel, it was six and a half hours of action, only to end with the fact that my 49ers’ season preview may have been a bit too optimistic.

Back to work, at least it’s only a four day week, with holiday looming. The hot weather is back, with it being said we’re getting an Indian summer for a few days. Well, after careful considerations, the Indians can keep the effing summer, preferably in India and away from me.

Helen made use of the hot weather to take her mum to the sea for a swim after work. I walked slowly home, trying to stay at a reasonable temperature, whilst detouring slightly to take some more photos of blue plaques (two in Three Bridges and one on The Hawth), and to use my height to take photos of Malthouse Farmhouse, tucked away behind high fences and well established trees  in Southgate.

I’m on my second day of virtual silence in the office this week, as for the second day on the trot I’ve left my iPod and speaker in the kitchen at home. I keep going to press play after coming off of calls only to realise I can’t as there isn’t anything to play. Hopefully third time lucky tomorrow.

I did remember, so work had a musical accompaniment on Wednesday. On the way in to work I stopped to get some rolls so I could make lunch for the next couple of days. At the till I saw a bag of Twirl bites for a quid, so picked them up, rationalising that I’d have some in the afternoon and the rest tomorrow. I logged on and opened the bag to have one; less than twenty minutes later the bag was empty. Worse food impulse control than the damn dog. Going to need to get the fatbit to do some celebrations to make up for it.

Borderline

Sunday saw us up and out of bed reasonably early to go out for the day, but as it turned out, for the afternoon as it was nearly one by the time we got out. We were on a well-travelled road recently as we headed out across country to East Grinstead and beyond to Royal Tunbridge Wells, before ending up at our main stop of the day – Bayham Old Abbey. As about as far as you can go in East Sussex without venturing over the border into Kent.

Not that we didn’t cross any county borders. Starting in West Sussex, we crossed into Surrey at Felbridge, back into West Sussex at East Grinstead, into East Sussex as we left East Grinstead, into Kent just before Ashurst, and then back into East Sussex as we left the environs of Royal Tunbridge Wells.

We found the driveway up to Bayham Old Abbey – which could do with some extra passing points on it, as we found entering and leaving the car park – to the English Heritage site. You don’t see the Old Abbey first, you see what turns out to be the New Abbey away up on the hill to the north west of the site first, then as you come into the car park you see Dower House. Part of which is a private house with people living in it, but the rest is normally open to the public, but is currently closed due to COVID, and has screens up at all the downstairs windows. The path to the house is usually the main entrance into the Old Abbey grounds (or with it being an English Heritage site, what is left of it), but it is padlocked, and a temporary entrance is on the other side of the car park.

It is a deceptive site, the first views you get of it (and again from what is in the English Heritage handbook and online), it doesn’t seem very big. Until you start exploring and walking around it. To the north and east of the site runs the River Teise, which thereabouts forms the boundary between East Sussex and Kent, meaning that the Old Abbey is actually in East Sussex, and not in Kent as the English Heritage handbook tells you.

Separate to the rest of the abbey ruins is what is called the summer house, but originally stood as the Kent gatehouse to the abbey. It is right on the banks of the river, and through a locked wooden gate in the old stone archway is a mass of overgrown greenery, through which you can just about make out the stone walls of a bridge over the river, which would have linked the two counties in medieval times.

The new abbey on the hill looks more like a grand stately home much like Downton Abbey, than any actual church like structure. Again, it would require a substantial detour around country lanes and tracks to get to it.

After completing the wander around the old abbey, it was time to find lunch. I had seen the words Wadhurst Castle on the map close by, and so we headed to the village of Wadhurst, through more country lanes and numerous villages and hamlets with the suffix of cross. We parked up and went into the White Hart, a nice old village pub, complete with mock Tudor frontage. The sign on the table saying “I am clean” amused me, due to the fact (not easily picked up on the picture) that it had drinks stains all down it.

The food was nice, but I’d like to know which of the old cottages in the village were missing some slates, as the food was served on them instead of plates, and instead of keeping the rain out of some poor unfortunate’s home.

After lunch we strolled through the village as far as the former Wesleyan Chapel, which is now converted to houses, one of which is for sale. Once at home I had a look on the estate agent’s website for the details. It is up for sale at £425k, and it is very nicely done out, it would be a great place to live if you weren’t bothered about gardening.

From there we headed back up through the village, going first through the grounds of the church of St Peter & St Paul, with its large graveyard – still very much in use, and an unusual spire. The church itself shows signs of having been expanded a couple of times over the centuries.

From there we headed on up to the other end of the village, to where the castle is. This is very much not a ruin, which isn’t a surprise as it only dates from the nineteenth century, and is more a castellated manor house than actual castle. It is well hidden from the road and the rest of the village, and we ignored signs saying private to be able to see part of it. It is an events venue, and with its views across the South Downs, it should be in great demand in non COVID times.

We headed back to the car and headed for home noting various pieces as we did. Upon leaving Wadhurst, we went through Durgates, and into Rockrobin before passing the somewhat misnamed Wadhurst train station. Coming back along the A264 we passed through two villages – Ashurst and Holtye – which has little diddy churches; no tower or spire with just a brick arch on the roofs with a single bell in, both smaller than the Wesleyan Chapel back in Wadhurst. Then there is a much larger church with spire in Hammerwood, a village that appears smaller than both the other two, but somehow with this much larger church.

I noticed a road sign with Blackham as one of the villages on it. No sooner had I finished saying “if your ham has turned black then you should throw it away”, then another road sign was showing the way to another village called Ball’s Green. Ouch. If your balls are green, then it is definitely time to go to the doctors.

The traffic on the way home was a lot better than it had been on the way out when it had taken twenty minutes just to get through Felbridge, and we arrived back sooner than expected. A nice day out with the bonus of a Bank Holiday Monday to extend the relaxing weekend.

Let Me Guess, Another Castle

Saturday morning and we’re off on our travels again, and we’re driving through Copthorne again, this time we carried on to East Grinstead and then carried on down the A22 all the way to Herstmonceux. Using an OS map for these journeys is great apart from when you are going to somewhere that is close to the edge of the map and you haven’t got the next one across.

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We found Herstmonceux church easily, but the entrance for cars to the castle is around the other side of the estate (the side not shown on the map). So we left the car outside the church and walked to the castle past what appeared to be an abandoned fire station, a school and an observatory (which we found out was part of the site when set up in tribute to John Flamsteed, and is now a separate attraction).

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The grounds are fully open, but the inside of the castle isn’t. It is another complete structure (and therefore nothing to do with English Heritage), and very impressive and imposing. The grounds cover a large area and include well laid out walled gardens, a maze, a couple of lakes, a folly (a nice summer house), and various wooded walks, included one lined by ancient chestnut trees.

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The visitor centre is open and lays out the history and explains the castle is now owned by the Queens University, Ontario, which explains the Canadian flag flying over the entrance, and the large maple leaf on the wall of the garden. The tea room and gift shop weren’t open, so none of the usual items were available.

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We walked back up to the church, knowing now that the school is part of Queens University, and that the fire station is part of a training centre. As we come back to the church there is a great view out over the countryside towards the South Downs. The church of All Saints is a strange mish mash of styles and looks Mediterranean from some angles. The churchyard is full of differing headstones and memorials.

We were looking for lunch, but the village of Herstmonceux appeared to be as shut as the castle tea rooms. Therefore we carried on over to the second ancient building of the day – Michelham Priory. Another independent property, run by Sussex Past, but English Heritage membership gets us half price entry. As it’s later in the afternoon than planned I get the standard items (pencil – no pens, fridge magnet and guide book) on the way in through the impressive keep, just in case they were closed on the way out.

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We made a beeline straight to the take away tea room for late lunch. Humongous sausage roll and ice cream were great, and after them and a drink we were off to tour the site. The main house is impressive, but again still closed. However it would have been dwarfed by the original priory, as later 1970’s excavations found the foundations to the larger site, and these are marked out around the grounds.

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The site is surrounded by a moat, but it is currently mainly silt; the River Cuckmere is low and the sluice to feed the moat is closed, and along with a lack of rain, means there is very little water around to fill the moat. We crossed the moat to the outer grounds. It is easy to see how badly affected the moat is. In these grounds there is replica Stone Age hut, relating to a settlement that would have been on the site.

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The one way revolving gate at the end of the outer walk is padlocked, so we have to retrace our steps back to the bridge over the moat. The site was getting ready to close at 5. The shop was shut, so getting stuff on the way in was a good idea.

All that was left to do now was to trundle back up the A22 and across to Crawley to get home, where we can have a quick rest before going out for a curry at the Downsman.