Category Archives: AROUND BRITAIN

Three ways to be beside the seaside—in London, now!

Oh I do love to be beside the seaside—especially when it’s in London, in February. Well, if Margate and Hastings can open art galleries with urban style, why shouldn’t London steal some of their holiday fun?

Classic gem: one of photographer Martin Parr’s retro seaside postcards, on show at the Barbican Art Gallery.

Every seaside foray starts with a stroll along a breezy promenade. I let the blustery winds on the Barbican’s High Walk blow me to its art gallery’s Magnificent Obsessions exhibition where 14 artists’ private collections are on show. Magnum photographer Martin Parr’s trove of 1950s and 60s seaside postcards got me straight into the sun-and-sand mood. There were, of course, the cartoon images of busty blondes in polka dot bikinis scaring wimps with knotted handkerchiefs on their heads. But I most enjoyed the nostalgic scenes that Parr himself might have captured when working as a rookie photographer in a Butlin’s holiday camp.

Many of the postcards were of seemingly mundane scenes such as the new motorway service stations that drivers en route to Bognor would have sent to impress friends. Others showed hotel rooms with candlewick bedspreads—the ultimate in postwar style. As a collection they skewered a vanished era, of innocence lost and luxuries gained.

Parr’s sharp eye was just one highlight of an exhibition that ranged through Howard Hodgkin’s ravishing Indian paintings, Arman’s African masks and Edmund de Waal’s netsuke, including the hare with the amber eyes.

But soon I was off to seafront attraction number two: Swingers crazy golf. This uproarious tee-party took place inside an abandoned printer’s warehouse near Old Street roundabout. Stepping inside I walked past the bar serving craft beers, the stalls cooking artisan street food and on to the nine-hole course. I grabbed my club from a wooden shack and tapped my ball up and under bridges, along teetering ledges, past miniature windmills and around swerving bends. I’m proud to have steered round the water hazard but confess to landing in a bunker twice.

A player circumvents the water hazard at Swingers crazy golf.

The last stop on my seaside jaunt was Novelty Automation, a witty take on the amusement arcade. This new “museum” of slot machines in Holborn is all screams and wry laughs. I slipped my tokens into “Micro Break”, and settled into a mechanical armchair that rocked and rattled as it took me on a simulated package holiday by a palm beach. At the adjacent machine, Is it Art?, I put my house keys before a model of Tate Director Nicholas Serota and was disappointed when he shook his head.

Tim Hunkin’s Micro Break slot machine experience at Novelty Automation.

Place an object in front of a model of NIcholas Serota and he will tell you whether or not it’s art.

Sadly my keys did not make the grade.

These were just two of a clever collection of machines created by cartoonist and wacky engineer Tim Hunkin. Some I had enjoyed before, in his arcade on Southwold Pier. But with the many coastal capers going on all around, they now seem perfectly placed in their new home at London-on-Sea.

Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist as Collector, Barbican Art Gallery until 25 May; Swingers Crazy Golf is a pop up open until 26 February, then returning in September; Novelty Automation, 1a Princeton Street, London WC1A 4AX

Butlin’s Bognor Regis postcard courtesy of Collection of Martin Parr.

London Slant: Bournemouth—art, fantasy and haddock by the beach

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Art is now as much a part of the English seaside as fish and chips on the beach. Margate has Turner Contemporary, Hastings has The Jerwood Gallery and then there’s Bournemouth—with the granddaddy of them all. So, one sunny Saturday found me heading out of London Waterloo bound for a splash of culture on the south coast.

The Russell-Cotes Museum, set in beautiful gardens.

Jumping down from the train, I made straight for Bournemouth Pier—then turned to look back inland at what I’d come to see. Perched high above the promenade was the flamboyant former East Cliff Hall—now the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum—the treasure-stuffed extravaganza of wealthy Victorian entrepreneur Merton Russell-Cotes. Owner of an adjacent grand hotel, he built the mansion in 1901 as a gift for his wife, Annie.

The Dining Room of the Russell-Cotes Museum.

If I was impressed by the turrets and balustrades of its fanciful exterior I was even more dazzled when I went inside. This was once home to a couple who travelled the world and brought back curiosities from every continent. When they went to Japan in 1885 they returned with 100 packing cases stuffed with objets d’art, many now displayed in The Mikado’s Room.

Page from a “manga” produced by the museum, based on Annie Russell-Cotes’ travel journal of the couple’s trip to Japan.

The couple’s enthusiasm for culture and life itself pours out of every artefact and architectural flourish. Golden peacocks strut around the wood-panelled dining room ceiling. A fountain surrounded by torchères sits at the centre of the Main Hall, its walls hung with lavish paintings including Rossetti’s sultry Venus Verticorda. There’s a Moorish alcove inspired by their visit to the Alhambra, a fanciful boudoir where Annie had tea with Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Beatrice and a room full of memorabilia associated with Shakespearean actor Henry Irving whom Merton greatly admired.

The grand staircase leads down to the Main Hall, with its exotic pool.

Victorian portraits, landscapes and genre scenes cover every surface; four art galleries unfold one after another, with sculptures, ceramics and works by artists like Alma-Tadema and Lord Leighton. Ethnographic pieces range from a Norwegian sleigh the couple brought back for their children to an Ashanti wisdom stool and an impressive model of a Maori canoe. It’s a heady mix, but there are seats among the palms in the conservatory to take a break and admire the sea views.

The Upper Gallery, crammed with art.

Even the elaborate ladies’ loo is a work of art.

As if the permanent collection was not reason itself to visit, the Russell-Cotes is currently hosting an exhibition of works by William and Evelyn De Morgan: The De Morgans and the Sea. This display of paintings and ravishing Arts and Crafts ceramics is every inch as exuberant and colourful as the house in which they currently find themselves.

William De Morgan: sea snake tile panel.

Evelyn De Morgan: The Sea Maidens.

The Russell-Cotes sits in beautiful grounds that include a small Japanese garden and a grotto. I sat there in the sun, then wandered down to the beach below. And there, right on cue, was a Harry Ramsden’s fish and chips shop offering haddock in crunchy batter to complete my classic day out beside the sea.

Journey from London Waterloo to Bournemouth takes just under 2 hours, then 15 minutes’ walk. The De Morgans and the Sea continues until 28 September 2014.

London Slant: An exotic encounter outside Brighton

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Imagine the quintessential English country scene: emerald valleys, swathes of buttercups, cows gently munching the grass. It couldn’t have been more idyllic when I climbed up the South Downs on a day out from London.

On top of the South Downs, between Ditchling and Brighton.

A path from Ditchling village led up to a ridge; I walked along enjoying fabulous views of fields flowing down on either side. Then, as I began to descend towards Brighton, a strange white dome emerged behind a slope. As I approached it took on a distinctly Moghul form; I felt as though I was being transported to the banks of the Ganges. I wasn’t expecting any sort of building in this rural setting, let alone one that appeared to be transported from a hot, sandy plain in India. Whatever could it be?

The Chattri Memorial, on the spot where Indian soldiers who died after fighting in WWI were cremated.

I drew closer and discovered a plaque describing it as the Chattri Memorial, built to honour Indian soldiers who fought alongside Britons in the Great War. Constructed in pure, white marble, I found it very moving, alone among a scattering of windswept trees.

The word “chattri” means umbrella in several Indian languages. It was designed by Indian architect EC Henriques and is now a listed building.

We’re all familiar with Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, where the future King George IV played out his oriental fantasies as the 18th century drew to a close. Less well known is that this extravagant palace was a hospital for thousands of Indian military casualties who served on the Western Front. Fifty three Sikhs and Hindus who did not survive their injuries were cremated here on the South Downs and the Chattri Memorial built in 1921 on the actual spot of their funeral pyres.

The dedication ceremony for the Chattri Memorial in 1921.

The Prince of Wales presided at the memorial’s opening ceremony. Now, every June, crowds continue to gather here to remember the dead.

Royal Pavilion at Brighton, an unlikely hospital for Indian soldiers injured in WWI.

I was pleased to have come across the Chattri by chance during the World War One centenary year. As I continued my walk down into Brighton my thoughts turned to the Pavilion: it seemed fitting that the Prince Regent’s extravagance could have also served a worthwhile purpose, and that many more men were nursed back to health under its outrageous chandeliers than turned to dust in the green hills beyond its domes.

I travelled from London to Hassocks station, walked to Ditchling village with its Museum of Art+Craft, then continued up over the South Downs to Patcham and into Brighton, for the return train journey.

London Slant: A day out in Ditchling, home of art and craft

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A couple of weeks ago The Art Fund announced its Museum of the Year 2014 award. The six-strong shortlist featured winner Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Tate Britain, Portsmouth’s Mary Rose Museum…and Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft. How come I hadn’t been to the last one? Given its illustrious company, clearly I had to go and check it out.

Entrance to Ditchling Museum in a former coach house close by the church.

A pretty South Downs village near Brighton, Ditchling makes a great day trip from London. I hopped on a train at Victoria and in less than an hour had disembarked at Hassocks station and was striding past a white windmill above meadows full of poppies along what’s known as the artists’ walk. I soon arrived at the cluster of old cottages that have attracted a community of creative luminaries from sculptor Eric Gill in the early 1900s right up to today. The village has a strong association with the written word: in addition to the man behind Gill Sans lettering, other craftspeople with studios here have included Edward Johnston, designer of the London Underground typeface, and printer Hilary Pepler.

Display of work by Edward Johnston, creator of the London Underground font.

There has been a museum in Ditchling since 1985, when it was set up by two sisters who knew many of the artists whose work is now on show. But it was transformed by a major refurbishment and reopened in September 2013 with engaging, fresh displays and those other must-haves of the modern museum, a cafe and shop.

Edward Johnston’s desk and painter David Jones’ serene Madonna.

The displays bring together hand-printed books, paintings, wood carvings and rural implements. I enjoyed the woven textiles by Hilary Bourne who, when reluctantly approached to make costumes for Ben-Hur, tried to dissuade MGM by asking four times the going rate—to which they promptly agreed.

It was also fun to encounter a display by silversmiths Pruden & Smith, which also has a workshop and boutique in the centre of the village. Its co-owner, Anton Pruden, is the grandson of the silversmith who was part of Eric Gill’s original craft guild. Visitors to the shop may be invited to tour the warren of work rooms underneath. Be warned, though, that once you’ve seen what goes into these stylish pieces you are unlikely to emerge empty-handed.

Pretty cottages and tea rooms: a slice of Ditchling village life.

On a ramble around the village I stopped at the churchyard to admire lettering in stone carved by Gill. A visit to one of the tea shops was another must. I then walked out into the fields and up onto the South Downs, en route to Brighton on the other side. From there, it was easy to catch the London-bound train—but not before I’d come across an extraordinary sight, which I’ll tell you about next time…

Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, open daily from 11.00-17.00 (Sun from 12.00).

London Slant: Inside the house of Britain’s richest man

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Imagine the house of a man who in the 1940s was the wealthiest self-made man in the UK. An industrialist who during his lifetime gave around £1 billion to charity in today’s terms.

Walls covered in Rembrandts and Monets? Vistas of formal gardens and lakes? At the very least a gold tap or two?

Nuffield Place, designed by a pupil of Lutyens, built in 1914 and acquired by William Morris, later Lord Nuffield, in 1933.

Probably the last thing you’d conjure up would be “school-of-Hyde-Park-railings” art and carpets covered with stains from his wife’s wayward Scottie dogs. But prepare to be surprised when you enter Nuffield Place, home of the late Lord Nuffield, near Henley in Oxfordshire.

When I walked into the garden of this recently opened National Trust house it was like arriving at a vicarage fete. Bunting was strung across the 1930s-style Coronation Cafe and families clustered on the lawn tucking into sponge cake with cups of tea.

Visitors to Nuffield Place had parked their vintage cars outside the house.

Some fabulous vintage cars were parked outside, their owners milling around in flat caps and tweed. The scene was set for stepping inside the world of William Morris (1877-1963), a man who left school at 15, began a bicycle repair business with £4 capital, then moved into cars in a massive way.

By the mid 1920s Morris Motors Cars was earning its founder a fortune. But instead of spending it on a fancy home he gave away the money to medicine and education. His Nuffield Foundation, College and hospitals are still active today.

As I explored the house I was struck by visitors’ exclamations: “That’s just like my grandmother’s dressing table” and “I had one of those when I was a child.” It’s a perfect time-capsule of mid-20th-century life and of someone whose driving force was business and benevolence, not showing off to guests. It’s a place to delight in the quirky innovations and gadgets that Lord Nuffield loved, such as his automatic match striker in the drawing room.

Visitors are free to ramble through the pine-panelled billiard room and the sitting room with its wireless and 1950s-style cabinet TV. Upstairs is a dressing room with the one display that shows this is no ordinary middle-class home: its owners’ velvet and ermine coronation robes. There’s a sunroom full of equipment that Lord Nuffield liked to tinker with, including fire extinguishers and an ultraviolet lamp.

But for me the house’s highlight was Lord Nuffield’s bedroom and more specifically the huge tool cupboard by the end of his bed. Every man has to have his shed and how luxurious to have it at your feet: shelves packed with clocks, wires, screwdrivers and even equipment for mending his own shoes, with stick-on soles. In among them nestle curios such as his appendix in a jar.

The multimillionaire’s bedroom, with furry hot water bottle, curiously wired reading lamp and bedside sword.

Inside the bedroom tool cupboard, just as he left it: Lord Nuffield’s pickled appendix and equipment to mend his own shoes.

So who was this dynamic entrepreneur who preferred to hunker down in padded sofas rather than to schmooze and entertain? Let’s leave the last word to a plaque presented to William Morris by his golfing buddies, dedicated to “A sportsman and good egg”.

* Even if you don’t have a vintage Morris car you can motor to Nuffield Place from London for a great afternoon out.

National Trust photographs, from top, courtesy of James Dobson, (vintage car by London Slant), John Hammond and Cristian Barnett.

LONDON SLANT: A SERPENTINE MEANDER

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The swallows have swooped in, roses have burst into flower—and the Serpentine Pavilion has sprouted in Kensington Gardens. There may be other signs to the contrary, but these three arrivals announce that summer, unequivocally, is here.

The Serpentine Pavilion: a dazzling addition to Kensington Gardens.

Anything involving London’s Serpentine Gallery is always an event. Its exhibitions invariably catch the zeitgeist: thought-provoking, off-piste, fun…I rarely regret the pilgrimage to check them out.

And what better advertisement hoarding could the gallery erect than its pavilions, temporary structures designed by international names which have popped up here every summer since 2000. Following a parade of wacky designs by starchitects like Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry and Oscar Niemeyer, for 2013 it’s the turn of a comparative unknown, Sou Fujimoto from Japan. Knowing the Serpentine’s knack for backing winners (I recall an exhibition years ago with a pickled sheep by a young artist called Damien Hirst) I think we can be assured that Fujimoto is One To Watch.

I like to use my annual pavilion foray as an excuse for a stroll through Hyde Park’s glorious swathe of green. This year I set off from Lancaster Gate and plunged straight into the freshly restored Italian Gardens. Their spouting fountains and urns with tumbling flowers made an exuberant start to my stroll.

Next landmark was the Henry Moore Arch, now happily back in place after it became unstable and was off show for 16 years. It looks terrific reflecting in the Serpentine, framing the vista towards Kensington Palace. Just beyond is The Magazine, an historic former munitions store, which is being transformed by Zaha Hadid into the new Serpentine Sackler Gallery. It’s due to open later this year with exhibition space and a cafe. Mark your cards for the opening now!

And so to Fujimoto’s pavilion, a non-building or at least one that seems to have vanished, leaving only its shimmering scaffolding behind. You can see it as many different forms: billowing mist, a mass of phone masts…but it struck me as a magical oversized child’s climbing frame. I’ve never seen so many grown-ups clambering around with such glee, beaming down from the highest points as if to say “I’m the king of the castle”. I stepped gingerly from one glass box to another, never sure whether I was planting my foot on thin air, and confess to feeling quite superior when I secured a lofty perch.

Rock on Top of Another Rock outside the Serpentine Gallery.

Rock on Top of Another Rock eventually drew me on my way. This teetering monument by artist duo Fischli/Weiss is so dramatic in this natural setting it’s a shame it will move on next March to the Middle East.

And so to a waterside coffee among yellow irises fringing the Lido as a bunch of swimmers battled the waves. And along the lake to The Dell and Rose Gardens, bursting with colour and scent. At Hyde Park corner my carriage awaited—on the Piccadilly line.

LONDON SLANT: MR FOX, I’M ON YOUR TAIL

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It started, innocently enough, around four years ago. Returning home one Thursday night, there he was. Tripping along the pavement with his nose in the air.

This was the most urbane and elegant of foxes, entirely at home in his central London domain. He’d left his top hat and silver cane with the doorman and was about to have dinner. It was all set out and waiting for him in the black bin liner for the dustman by my front door.

Over time, he became less of a bachelor gadabout and settled down with a mate. I’d spot the pair of them curled up in the sun on the conservatory roof opposite. Aaaah, I thought. They look like a cosy couple on the beach. Then, late one evening, I heard terrifying wails from over the garden fence.

Sure enough, a few weeks later three little cubs came scampering over a wall. A lighter colour than their parents, they looked like delicate ghosts flitting among my ferns.

Mmm…I wonder where I can dig another hole?

Then, one morning I awoke to find a huge pile of earth at the end of my tiny garden. Someone had dug two huge holes and uprooted plants. Next to this, like a calling card, was some unfortunate creature’s desiccated skull. My suspicions as to the perpetrator seemed to be confirmed when a cheeky face with pointy ears peered down over the fence and looked as me as if to say “What are you doing on my patch?”

So now they’re no longer loveable neighbours. In fact they’re full-on pests. Google told me they hate the scent of urine, so I peed in a bucket, poured it on newspapers and shoved them down the hole. Cayenne pepper was mooted as a deterrent, but didn’t work (perhaps because the use-by date was June 2002?). I then bought a product called Scoot that had no effect and was all set to get lion dung from London Zoo until a friend said it, too, definitely doesn’t work. As far as I can see, there’s absolutely nothing we can do to see them off.

Does anyone out there have any other ideas? Help, before we’re overrun!

LONDON SLANT: WHAT’S HIDING BEHIND THE GARDEN WALLS?

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Why would anyone open their private garden gate and let strangers come tramping in? What possesses owners of fabulous green hideaways to offer all-comers the chance to tread on their specimen plants? And, how come when the hordes arrive, they are greeted with tea and home-baked cakes?

Delightful companions: a bluebell and hosta embrace in a London garden.

The answer, as Mrs Whittington of London’s Southwood Lodge will tell you, is to raise funds for charity. As the owner of a fabulous terraced plot on Highgate Hill above the city, she has earned more than £40,000 for good causes over the past 25 years. Her method? Inviting admirers of her oasis to share it for two afternoons every year. Mrs Whittington’s garden is one of the most popular of that quintessentially British institution, the National Gardens Scheme. May and June are high points of its calendar, when, for a modest donation, glorious gardens all over the UK welcome visitors in. So from spring bulbs through to autumn leaves I keep an eye on what’s open where. Yellow posters lead me to amazing gardens that usually have an interesting owner in tow.

A seat shaded by ceanothus faces landscaped pools and cascading water.

Last weekend it was the turn of four gardens in Spitalfields attached to 17th-century silk weavers’ homes. The route between them started at Fournier Street, close to the home of besuited artists Gilbert and George, who are regularly seen striding about. Then came Brick Lane where the Bangladeshi community have put down roots. One minute I was inhaling the subtle scents of magnolia flowers, the next it was chicken vindaloo.

A green oasis behind a Spitalfields house.

Each of the gardens had its own personality. One radiated echoes of the Alhambra, with a fountain at its centre and formal hedging. Another had been landscaped with deep pools and a waterfall splashing on stones in front of a basement room. A rustic arbour faced a state-of-the-art kitchen. How things have changed since it was a backyard where Huguenots took a break from their looms.

The Gherkin peers at the peonies.

Most impressive of all was the formal garden filled with blowsy peonies defiantly fluttering among clipped hedges and billiard-table grass. Despite being right at the heart of London it was so peaceful you imagined yourself at a country village rectory. But lest you forgot you were in the most dynamic city on earth, you only had to look up. There to remind you was The Gherkin, peeking over the ancient garden wall.

Southwood Lodge is open again on Sunday 2 June. Don’t miss it.

LONDON SLANT: A COUNTRY WALK FROM LEICESTER SQUARE

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Join me on a walk through fields and woods from Leicester Square. But forget mega-cinemas and heaving bars. We’re heading 80 minutes south of central London to Penshurst village, the “original” spot to sport the name.

Leicester Square at Penshurst, Kent: a world away from its London namesake.

Early on a spring morning we set off from this cluster of ancient houses named for the Earl of Leicester who lived in adjacent Penshurst Place. We climb the hill above this 14th-century manor house and its gorgeous gardens.

Penshurst Place: a grand English manor house with a spectacular Great Hall.

The track eventually dips down to follow the Medway River. It’s the classic English scene: yellow kingcups at its edge and moorhens building their nests. But hey, what’s that nestling beneath the trees? Astonishingly, this leafy glade was a target for invading forces during the last war. All along its banks are fortified pillboxes, too firmly embedded to be removed.

Ready to repel invaders: a pillbox lurks under trees by the Medway River.

We swing left to the cricket pitch at Leigh and skirt its edge so as not to be hit. Just ahead is the magnificent park of Hall Place, an Elizabethan house. We make a note to come back on either 26 May or 16 June, two rare occasions when its gardens open to the public.

Bluebells line our way.

We continue past towering rhododendron bushes and bluebell woods, between banks of primroses and fields bright with dandelions. May blossom foams over hedges and violets nod beside streams.

We arrive at the olde-worlde village of Chiddingstone at noon—and not a moment too soon. The Castle Inn is one of those rare gastro-haunts where the food just keeps on getting better and customers follow suit. Turn up any later and every table may be taken. What a treat to rest our feet in the garden with a glass of cider and roast lamb that falls off the bone.

Aaah: a seat in the garden of the 600-year-old Castle Inn.

Now comes my favourite part of the walk: the long, slow descent through the aptly-named Eden Valley with sweeping vistas across emerald countryside.

The Eden Valley. The conical oast houses on the horizon were once used for drying hops but are now largely converted into homes.

Penshurst Place and its ensemble of garden rooms beckon. We stretch out under the magnolia trees, take off our boots and dream back over the day.

This 10-mile walk (Ordnance Survey map 188) is taken from the excellent 10 Adventurous Walks in West Kent by Raymond Hugh. The book was published in 1994 but, apart from the occasional instruction to walk through a long-gone hop field, is still surprisingly accurate. The book is one of a series featuring walks of 10-15 miles around London—by far my favourite set of walking guides.

LONDON SLANT: THE TRIUMPH OF THE TREES

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Imagine what it’s like to be a tree in London. Not a pampered sort that sits in parks and gardens, but a rough, tough plane or elm out there on the street. A tree that lives in a small quadrangle of earth and spends all day overhanging cars and inhaling their fumes.

Blossom on my doorstep: a London street cherry in full bloom.

Fortunately such trees have one big advantage: their artless beauty. They need it to get all the support they can as they struggle to survive. And now’s the time of year when it’s deployed at its blossoming best.

Every morning for past few days I’ve stepped outside to a billowing cloud of white. It’s the cherry tree I pestered the local council to plant in the empty patch of soil just outside my door. Its predecessor was pushed over by a gang of drunken yobs. I can’t describe the delight I now take in seeing it fully grown, in flower against a blue sky. But I’ll enjoy it just as much as the summer unfolds, and with it, its bright green leaves.

Now that “my” tree has grown into a stately adult, it’s just been joined by three new youngsters across the road. What a lovely surprise it was to open my door early one morning and see tree planters digging holes.

Vandals tore the top off this young tree. Why? But it’s fighting back and leaves have opened on its little branches.

Sadly, vandals have pulled the top off one, but the other two are sprouting skywards. The tattered tree is fighting back, though. It’s showing defiant signs of life and I’ll be ready with buckets of water to help it should we get some summer heat.

This leaning tree faced the axe: campaigning locals (including a pigeon worried about its nest!) stuck notices on it demanding it be saved.

Other neighbouring trees should give it courage and inspiration. A few steps away is one that was earmarked for the axe because it leans over into the street. A vigorous campaign saw a stay of execution and instead, the pavement beneath it was extended out into the road. Quite right, too.

An even bigger hoo-ha blew up over a tree that acquired its own, suitably grand name: the Rheidol Plane. Due to be hacked down for the redevelopment of a block of flats, it became the subject of a petition. Its supporters knocked repeatedly on every door.

Result!

The Rheidol Plane: saved to continue presiding over its sacred swathe of grass.

The plans for the flats went back to the drawing board simply to accommodate the plane and I’m happy to report that it’s about to burst into leaf once more. Yes, those trees might not have an easy life, but there’s enough of us out there to help them where we can. My trees might not feature in London’s best, and have plaques to prove it, but they’re every bit as important to those of us who live round here.