Garden at Stokes House, Ham

It was more by luck than judgement that I discovered on the day that a house just around the corner from me was open to the public for charity, so of course I went.


The garden is in Ham Street which, as the name implies, is the central street in Ham and it stretches from Ham Common to Ham House on the river.

Ham Street has a mix of housing from different periods, including some fairly new properties (i.e. less than twenty years old) but it is some of the older white-faced cottages that you can see in this picture peering over the garden wall.


The basically rectangular shape of the garden is rescued from banality by some structural features that divide it up into different sections. Elsewhere a hedge hides the vegetable garden and here a pergola provides a boundary and another border for flowers and shrubs.


Surrounding the house itself is another border. Here a collection of small plants provides a wide range of shapes and colours for the eye to feast on while a trim box hedge keeps them all neatly in their place.

Poetry in Sheffield

So far in my fairly limited explores of Sheffield I have managed to find two poems among the many public works of art.

The first one that I came across was actually three poems by Benjamin Zephaniah (Minds, Question and Heroes) which are on the New Student Residences in Division Street (in one of the many student quarters).

The words from these three poems are cut into the window grilles with just a few words at each window so you have to stand back a bit to get sufficient vantage to read the complete poems.

The other, more prominent, poem is What If? by former poet laureate Andrew Motion, and it compels you to read it as you climb the hill up from the station to the top of the town.

Public poetry like this strikes me as being a good way to reintroduce people to poetry, assuming that they dabbled with it and were put off it at school.

Double bill at the Orange Tree

Somehow we have got to the end of another season at the Orange Tree theatre in Richmond.

The parting shot was a double bill by two trainee directors; Sing to me Through Open Windows written by Arthur Kopit and directed by Andy Brunskill, and The Private Ear written by Peter Shaffer and directed by David Siebert.

The pairing proved to work well as both had just a cast of three, were focused on the main (male) character and developed their drama from this character's emotions.


Sing to me Through Open Windows hints at the history of a former stage magician who now finds himself living hermit like with a clown-like servant and young boys makes his annual visit to the magician.

The hint of the past comes from the references to something that happened five years ago to the day just after the magician retired to a lonely place in the woods.

The servant and the boy try to rekindle the magic by playing games and demanding to see some old tricks but these fall flat when, for example, the rabbit pulled from the hat proves to be a toy rather than the real thing.

In the end the magician spurns the attempts to rekindle his life and retreats back into his reclusive ways.

I was delighted to see regular actor David Antrobus (pictured) taking the lead role and firmly take this chance to excel.


In contrast, the lead character in The Private Ear, Bob, is a very shy young man who has somehow managed to persuade a woman, Doreen, to come to his flat for dinner.

They met at a classical music concert but she was there only because she was given a free ticket and had no real idea of what to expect.

Bob loves listening to classical music, especially opera and preferably loud.

He tries to let the music speak for him and after a hesitant start this seems as the ploy might just work.

The situation is made the worse for Bob who invited his friend, Ted, along too to cook and to provide some company. Ted is a womaniser and pushes his luck with Doreen which she is tempted by.

When Ted leaves Bob and Doreen alone (as previously arranged) they do seem to start getting on together but then Bob loses it and tries to kiss Doreen and suddenly it is all over. Doreen leaves Bob alone and in tears.

Tam Williams as Bob was magnificent and so involved in the part that he still had tears in his eyes when he re-emerged for a thoroughly well deserved encore.

The Orange Tree is a magnificent local facility and I am so very glad that it regularly puts on plays like these.

greenfest West London

I went to greenfest in West London in 2008 just to see Instant Flight play but liked the rest of the festival so much that I decided to go back this year.

The weather was good and a lot of the territory between my home and Furnival Gardens is green space (Richmond Park, Barnes Common, etc.) so I decided to cycle there.

This did not start too well with a boy riding in to me in Richmond Park but no serious damage was done to either person or bike.

The next problem was overconfidence in knowing the route which led me to cross at Putney Bridge rather than the much more convenient Barnes Bridge. The plus side of this was that I could cycle along the North bank of the river back from Putney to Hammersmith, which I had never been to before.


There was music at greenfest again this year and while I had never heard of any of the artists that did not detract from the entertainment.

This is Rocket Number 9 doing their bit to get some of the crowd dancing and some of the crowd to listen appreciatively.

Furnival Gardens follows the river and so is a relatively long and a relatively thin park. This works well for a festival like this because there is good space for a stage and sitting area at one end, plenty of space in the middle for stalls and you can explore everything simply by walking the length of the park.


A path runs through the centre of the park and this was the occasional home to all sort of bicycle related contraptions, such as this one!

The stalls were clustered around the park so it was easy to visit a few together but there was also plenty of space between them to sit and relax.

Being a greenfest the stalls naturally had an ecological slant, which meant that they were all interesting!

I managed to collect an obligatory canvass shopping bag, securing tagging for my bike and information on a host of subjects from domestic solar heating through to car sharing schemes.

Bikes featured quite prominently and I liked some of the more unusual "people carriers" such as a fairly standard upright bike with two child seats, front and back. That would have been useful about sixteen years ago!

It was also good to see plenty of things for children to do and many were occupied making and drawing things throughout the park.


The ecological stuff is good and worthy but the proof of the fun pudding is in the eating and it was clear that, wherever you looked in the park, that it was busy with happy people.

The organisers are to be seriously congratulated for delivering another successful festival which, sadly, makes the comparison with Kingston's abandoned Green Fair all the sadder.

I met two of the organisers last year and I was delighted to bump in to both of them again this year, though I had to put a bit of hard work in to manage the bump with John Griffiths, the co-ordinator of organising group.

We are Facebook friends so the next bump should be easier to arrange. As should the ride there next year.

Trumpeters' House, Richmond

I see almost every production at the Orange Tree theatre in Richmond so I was obviously going to be attracted by their Summer garden party and any doubts that I may have had were swept aside by the location.

Trumpeters' House is part of the formal Royal Palace, home to King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I before the original building was destroyed.

Richmond has changed a great deal since then, it is no longer in the country any more having been engulfed by London, but the location of Trumpeters' House is still majestic being situated between Richmond Green and the Thames. In fact, it seems to occupy most of the land between the Green and the river!

The garden is in several sections, formed by the selling and purchasing of adjacent plots of land over the centuries. There is a long informal lawn that leads from the house to the rear entrance by the river, but that is relatively boring so I've not included a photo of it here.


Instead, here we see a view of the formal lawn to the side of the main lawn. In the distance we can see the stalls of the garden party and on the left an avenue of trees that leads the way, like a troop of soldiers, to one of the many statues in the garden.

If these two lawns and there borders were all that were in the garden it would be well worth visiting, but there is much much more to it than that.


The most striking feature of the garden (or gardens) is this large pond, hidden from the lawn above by a high hedge. The pond ticks all the boxes that an ornate pond is meant to tick, it was water lilies, an eye-catching statue (not shown), several paths to it to offer many different views and attractive borders to set it off.

Once again you think that the garden has done all a garden could possibly do but again there is still more to enjoy.


Not far from the big pond, but even more hidden, is this little water feature that forms the centre piece of a tranquil and shady space with seats to encourage you to linger. The lights under the water suggest that this sanctuary is also a welcoming refuge at night.

By now we have walked down lots f paths, discovered lots of hidden places, enjoyed hedges, flower beds and statues, but still there is more.


Passing through a small gate takes you in to an arid garden (ironically) next to the river. Suddenly the formality of the previous garden is replaced by a chaos of wild flowers. There are more statues, seats and hedges but also doves and an outrageous (i.e. bright pink with castellations) working artist's studio.

It's for gardens like this that weekends were invented.