Ham Lands Butterflies Guided Walk

One of the organisations that I am most pleased to be associated with is Friends of Ham Lands and one of the reasons for that is the guided walks on Ham Lands that explain what can be found there.

My role in this is modest, I do the computer stuff (Eventrbite, website, Facebook, Mailchimp, Twitter,/X, ...) and the naturalists do all the hard work.

These walks are mostly about the plants, which makes sense given their obvious beauty, but this month Paul Cook was our guide and the subject was butterflies.

I have bit of a history with butterflies. I collected them as a boy and I also collected the butterfly cards given out with packets of tea in 1963. I still have the book. 

And several years ago I did a picture round on butterflies which I still get mocked for because the highest score was something like 2 out of 20.

Undaunted by that minor setback I went on the walk with eagerness.

Paul Cook was a fantastic guide, not only knowledgeable but also very good at explaining things, like the subtle differences between the various whites.

He was also very well prepared and he caught several butterflies gently in a soft net and passed them around in a display jar before releasing them unharmed.

I learned a lot about butterflies and in particular what to find in which parts of Ham Lands and why.

I also learned that my iPhone can recognise butterflies and it told me that this is a Comma, which Paul had already confirmed.

Paul counts butterflies on Ham Lands every week, and has done so for years, and he was able to explain how the numbers of each species had varied over those years. 2013 hd been a good year for butterflies but their numbers changed a lot from year to year, according to the weather, and so there was no cause to be complacent.

It was an excellent walk and we are already looking to repeat it next year, possibly in a different month to see different species.

Social Housing of Ham - past, present and future

Presented with an offer like "This year's annual Ham United Group architectural tour will follow a walking route with Richard Woolf, architect and building historian, as your guide." I was always going to say yes. 

Architecture is a keen interest of mine, Ham is another and Richard is a superb guide; I think I have been on all of his previous walking tours.

In my frequent walks to find pictures to feed my Ham Photos blog I have walked through all the areas of social housing many times and I was interested to learn more about the history of their development.

Richard was well prepared, as always, and in addition to the leaflet he gave us all he had several large pictures to show us with photos of old street scenes and floor plans of houses.

He also had an assistant, David Williams, who as both the former leader of Richmond Council and a local historian was able to add stories about how the various local councils in the area were involved.

The pamphlet marked out our route which started with the alms houses in Ham Street, not social housing in the modern sense but a precursor. Along the way we saw housing from various periods and, because of that, of various designs.

Our final stop was at Ham Close, where I took the picture above which is both the most recent social housing development in Ham and also the site for a new development over the next decade or so.

Throughout the tour Richard explained the national politics and social history that drove the development of social housing in various waves, perhaps most famously in the "homes for heroes" policy after WWI.

There were recurring themes of housing the poor and of making profit, and clearly these themes were often at odds with each other. Thatcher got a few mentions, and rightly so.

The variety of housing, including a few recent infills, was particularly interesting to me and Richard was able to explain the thinking behind the designs, such as the medieval inspired terraces of four houses where the two end houses were side-on to form a [ shape. I also liked the story of a row of houses commissioned by the long gone Ham Council which were designed with vegetable gardens in front of the houses.

Over two hours we walked a little and learned a great deal. It was exactly my sort of thing.

Learning about The Buildings of Ham Common

My favourite community events, by a country mile, are the local architecture walks and talks given by local architect Richard Woolf and organised by local community group Ham United Group so I was delighted to join his tour of The Buildings of Ham Common.

Ham Common, unsurprisingly, is the heart of Ham and it is ringed by an interesting collection of buildings from old cottages to substantial modern lodges. Richard squeezed eighteen of them into a fact-filled, informative and entertaining walk.

Here we see Richard explaining the rise of Neo-Georgian (Neo-Geo) houses and how the few examples on Ham Common sit uneasily with their grander Georgian neighbours.

I know the buildings on Ham Common pretty well and have photographed them all, often many times, for my community blog HamPhotos, but I was still absorbing new insights on their design and construction at a prodigious rate of knots.

This was a fascinating talk and it ended on the best possible note, Richard promised to do another walk and talk next year.

Unexpected win in the Pub Quiz

What started as a quiet evening stroll turned into a surprising win in a pub quiz.

The pub bit was not a surprise, I wanted a destination for the walk and I also fancied a pint so I headed for Ham Brewery Tap in Ham Street which is, not surprisingly, in the heart of Ham. When I bought the drinks I was told that a pub quiz was about to start and while I was reluctant at first I was swayed by it being free to enter and scheduled to last only 45 minutes or so.

The format was new to me and I liked it. There were 25 questions on general knowledge and a 5 x 5 grid to put the answers in. The clever bit was we each had to decide which answer to put where so if you were certain of an answer you put it in a box that is on multiple lines and if less sure then it went on a less useful square.

In this case we were sure of the first answer so wrote the question number 1 in a box in the centre (3 down and 3 across) because we were certain that Hercule Poirot was the detective in Murder in the Orient Express. We had no idea what the answer to 22 was so we put that in the square above it.

Once the 25 questions were completed we handed a carbon copy of our answer sheet to the quiz master for checking while we each marked our own sheets.

The second clever part of the quiz was that the answers were given in a different order, i.e. not 1, 2, 3, ... The aim then was to shout "Bingo!" once you had completed a line of five with the correct answers. We had about 10 right, and 2 wrong, before somebody shouted "Bingo!" but there was a second prize so we carried on.

We and another team both shouted "Bingo!" a few questions later and it came down to a tie-break question and the winner was the team closest to saying when Dr Who was first broadcast. We knew it was 1963 but the other team did not so we won the second prize of four drinks vouchers.

We will be going back to Ham Brewery Tap soon to claim our prize drinks and we will be doing the quiz again too.

Improving wildlife habitats with Friends of Ham Lands (10 March 18)

Friends of Ham Lands (FoHL) have sessions on the second Saturday of each month where we venture into Ham Lands to clear important sections of it to improve the wildlife habitats.  A focus of this is to keep the grasslands clear of scrub and connected to each other so that butterflies can move between them.

In March we tackled a section quite close to the junction of Riverside Drive and the footpath leading to Teddington Lock.

The map we were working to showed a path from the grasslands to that footpath but it was not very visible on the ground and I could see no sign of it at all from the Teddington footpath end. We had to go into the grasslands, find the path at that end and try and battle our way through.

The picture at the top shows what we started with. The path almost disappears under the twin challenge of brambles on the left and saplings on the right.

We tackled both and as I had some sturdy loppers I chose to tackle the saplings and small trees. The ground was very mossy on the left and I wanted to get more sunlight in there for the grass and, ultimately the butterflies.

The picture on the right shows some of the team in action. Some others were behind me and some of braver ones were beyond that group deep in brambles.

It was a very successful and rewarding session. I took this picture from about where the path disappeared in the top picture looking back to the open grasslands.

We even managed to cut our way through to the Teddington Lock footpath.

Improving wildlife habitats with Friends of Ham Lands

I have been a member of Friends of Ham Lands (FoHL) for several years and most of that time we have been talking about what we want to do with this important nature reserve and it was good to get involved with some direct action.

Ham Lands supports a rich variety of wildlife and at the moment we are concentrating on butterflies and are clearing some of the grassy patches of encroaching scrub.

It was a grey day with the promise of rain but that did not stop a group of us heading out along the main path that follows the river in Ham Lands South.

I should have taken a "before" picture but was so keen to get chopping that I forgot. Above is the "after" picture which shows a clear patch of grass.

We cleared that in about an hour and then we headed down the path in the middle of the picture making sure that it too was free from encroaching scrub and we also cleared a couple of smaller grassy areas.

We had not gone to do a litter pick but we could not ignore the litter in the areas that we wore working in and we filled a good sized bag with cans and bottles some of which had clearly been there a long time.

We worked for a couple of hours before the tiredness and impending rain encouraged us to call it a day. It was a good workout rewarded with a visible improvement to the area.

We will be back doing more work on Saturday 10 March.

HAG talk: Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck

I had never heard of Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, and I am not that interested in history but I am interested in the place that I live and I always find HAG talks interesting and informative so I booked a place at this one. I also did the poster.

Mary Adelaide lived 1833 to 1897, a period when the royal families married each other with great regularity. As a result she was both granddaughter of George III and grandmother of Edward VIII and George VI.

While she was never in the centre of the Royal Family she was close enough to benefit from it, she was paid under the Civil List (or that period's equivalent) and was given grace and favour houses.

She lived for several years in Cambridge Cottage on Kew Green, which is now part of Kew Gardens where it is a popular venue for weddings. She also lived in White Lodge in Richmond Park for a while so she had strong connections to Richmond. One of the many things she did locally was open the Terrace Gardens next to the river.

She became known as the People's Princess because of the things she did and she was helped in this in Victoria's almost complete absence from public life due to her mourning for Albert. Mary Adelaide was one of the most active royals at that time and was popular because of this.

She is commemorated by a monument just outside Richmond Gate, somewhere between the busy road and the brambles. This site was originally chosen after a full sized model, in wood, of the monument was tried in various locations in Richmond. Plans are being developed to restore the monument and to remodel the setting so that it can be appreciated by people passing through the gate.

HAG talk: Ham's Modern Architecture

My involvement with Ham Amenities Group (HAG) is not that much to boast of but I do get to produce the posters for the events. An upside of this is that I get to know about the talks early and can be one of the first to book.

I was very keen to hear this talk for several reasons. I am interested in Ham and in Modern Architecture so this talk could have been made for me, and in a way it was. I had heard Richard Woolf talk about local architecture before and it was that which made me suggest him as a speaker for HAG.

I did not know beforehand that Richard also does lecturing and that came though in a superbly composed and delivered presentation.

The content was both detailed and authoritative. Richard certainly knew his subject and was enthusiastic about it too. That enthusiasm had taken him all over Ham and down no-through-road, like Sheridan Road, which I thought that only I walked down (for my Ham Photos blog).

Richard hit all the right buttons for me in the talk, and I would have been delighted with it whatever opinions he had, so it was a bonus that he seemed to agree with me on almost everything and as he was the expert that was even more gratifying.

The aim of the HAG talks is to interest and inform residents in some aspect of Ham and Richard Woolf did that magnificently. We are already trying to find a way to get him to do another talk.

HAG talk: The History of Ham

There was something of a mix-up over this talk. Originally it was going to be called The History of Ham and then we (I am on the HAG Committee) agreed that we wanted the speaker to do more than one talk and that we should ask him to focus on medieval Ham in hist first one. So I did the poster accordingly. But, somehow, the message did not get to the speaker and he delivered a talk on The History of Ham instead.

The room was packed and I ended up standing against a wall so as not to be in anyone's way. I do not mind standing at all and in doing so I could see the screen clearly.

The presentation was not so easy to listen to though because the alarm went off when somebody opened a window for fresh air and despite several desperate phone calls we were unable to turn it off. A few people left because of this but that just released some chairs for other people who were standing. The room was packed.

All that sounds like a disaster and it could have been were it not for the brilliant and entertaining talk. Gordon Elsden used the old border of the parish of Ham as the basis of his story and he beat the bounds and told tales of the places that we passed as he did so. The talk was rich with information , anecdotes and pictures. It was also very well presented and I was enthralled throughout.

Many of these stories and pictures will appear in Gordon's soon to be published book Remarkable Ham - The Untold Story which he showed us a copy of prompting much interest. I will be getting a copy when it comes out and so will many other people who, like me, loved his talk.

I also hope that Gordon has enough material for a second HAG talk one day.

Letter to Surrey Comet on removal of houseboats

While some people may rejoice in the removal of houseboats from the river (Letters 31 March) this is not a view shared by everybody who uses the towpath regularly. I walk along it every day to and from work and I miss the boats.

The section of the river by Teddington Lock has the weir, which nobody could accuse of being pretty. In contrast, the boats brought life to the area and reminded us that the Thames has been a working river for centuries.

We have also paid a high price for the removal of the boats with the removal of the trees along the riverbank that they were moored to. These trees used to screen the ugly weir so that it was often heard before it was seen. Now that whole section of the river is barren and blighted.

And, of course, the highest price has been paid by those who lived on the boats who have been driven away and forced to seek somewhere else to live. I find it impossible to rejoice in taking somebody’s home away from them.

Traditional Craftsmanship Meets High Technology to produce outstanding houses

If ever I was going to go to a talk then this was it. In Traditional Craftsmanship Meets High Technology Peter Huf told the story of the Huf Haus with a strong slant towards the house almost completing construction less than a minute away.

The talk was arranged by Ham Amenities Group (HAG) which I find myself the publicity for, This meant that I got to do the poster for the event that was on display at the library, where the talk was given, and also the community noticeboard on Ham Parade. I like to think that my publicity contributed to the room being full to overflowing with a few disappointed people left outside. They should have paid attention to the notice at the bottom of my poster recommending that people book.

I should have read my own poster too and then I would have arrived for a 7:30pm start rather than the 7:00pm I was expecting.

The plus side of being ultra-early was a seat in the front row and a chance to have a quick word with Peter Huf in which I was able to compliment him on his 1 Like No Other shirt which I had recognised from some distance.

I had seen Peter Huf talk before, way back in 2011, and expected something similar and was very pleasantly surprised about how different it was this time.

Because I had seen some of it before, and also because I was paying lots of attention to what was being said and shown, I took only a few notes. These are them.

Design the house for the plot. A Huf Haus is built around the trees and because it is made of timber it talks to them. The point of the garden is to appreciate it from the house, not from the street.

Design features like roof overhangs and automated external blinds that follow the sun help to keep the houses very comfortable to live in while providing remarkably high levels of sustainability, far more than any existing standard requires.

The heavy wooden beams (they support concrete floors) use structural protection rather than chemical protection. For example, they do not touch the ground or the concrete floors. This also stops sound travelling through the house.

The electric cables in the house are shielded (Cat 7) to prevent electromagnetic radiation leaking into the house. There were several examples like that which showed just how much care and attention Huf Haus pay to the quality of life of those living in their houses.

Planner like Huf Haus as they are built exactly to plan.

Peter said that the planning system in the UK is too democratic leading to mediocrity as bold schemes are opposed. We have had an example of this locally with the third Huf Haus being delayed by an appeal being lodged by two residents against the planning permission granted by Richmond Council. They lost the appeal but it added an unnecessary delay to a simple project that will replace a very average house with a special one.

It was a very informative and uplifting talk that prompted many questions from the (mostly) friendly audience and, just like the last time, left me wondering what I had to do to get my own Huf Haus. I've not worked out how to do that yet so I'll just have to settle for visiting them whenever I can.

You can see more about the coming of Huf Haus to Ham and Petersham on my Ham Photos Blog.

The Character of Ham and Petersham

The Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum (H+PNF) is a neighbourhood forum (as defined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990) and so will have a big impact on the area that I live and so I am very interested in what it is doing.

What it is doing now is holding a number of consultation workshops with residents on various aspects of the neighbourhood plan that the Forum will produce and then oversee its implementation. I have been to all of the sessions so far and have submitted several comments at each of them.

The next consultation is on the Character and Heritage and heritage of the area. I was asked to produce a poster showing what I liked about the area to prompt some ideas. They asked me because of my Ham Photos blog in which I have been documenting the area for the last nine years through a collection of photographs that now numbers over 2,000.

It took a little while to come up with a format that I liked but once that was done it was a simple matter to find the 16 photos required to tell my story. I am quite pleased with the final result.

It occurred to me once I had done this poster that it very much focused on open spaces and said little about the buildings, so I did another poster of just that and they are going to use that one too as a reminder to people of the variety that there is locally.

This one was very quick to do as I could reuse the format from the first poster and the only challenge was deciding which 20 buildings to choose.

The top row are some of the many grand lodges and manors in the area, dating back to when kings hunted in Richmond Park. The second row shows some of the estate-like development in the area, including the standard 3-bed brick built social housing, the iconic Parkley's development and the Wates Estate. The third row shows some of the more exotic new buildings and the final row shows some of the old cottages that are littered across the area.

Even with 20 pictures there was much that I had to leave out but I think I met my personal objectives of showing the variety that exists and of covering the whole area. I hope that the people at the consultation workshop like it too. I will find out on Wednesday 13 April!

Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum: Sustainability workshop

The third Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum Drop In Draft Policy Workshop was on Sustainability and asked residents for their views on issues relating to energy and water.

In some ways this was a difficult subject to cover because not many people are against sustainability and those that are have a problem making a convincing argument for that viewpoint. Consequently I spent most of the hour posting thumbs-up stickers on the questionnaires though I did find a couple of points to argue against.

The first table considered domestic energy. The obvious proposal was that the Neighbourhood Plan should have policies that demand local generation, e.g. solar panels, and strong measures to control energy loss, e.g. insulation. Obviously I agreed with all that.

There were more controversial policies to retrofit these standards on to existing buildings and I agreed with those too.

Drainage was the next issue and there were several suggestions for ways that rain water could be held or slowed down rather than being allowed to run straight into drains. These include things like water butts and permeable hard surfaces and I agreed with all those suggestions too.

Flooding was the final topic and this time I had something to disagree with. I supported all the ideas to let Ham Lands flood and to look at ways at introducing vibrant wetlands while doing so but I disagreed with the suggestions that dry routes should be built through the flooded areas. There already are dry routes, e.g. along Riverside Drive, and I saw no need to build more. If the tow path is flooded then either take another route or wear wellies. Flooding is one of the things that I like about Ham, it is an attraction to promote not a problem to solve.

My final comment is on what was missing from the debate. We had micro and macro discussions on water but energy was only considered at the micro level, e.g. what individual houses could do. We are (hopefully) getting a small hydro-electric generator at Teddington Weir and I would like the Forum to consider other local generation schemes, such as managing Ham Common Woods for biomass or using local waste to feed anaerobic digestion.

Light opera comes to Ham with Seriously, Gilbert & Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan's style of light opera is not something that I go to far out of my way to see but when it's within easy walking distance then it's an easy choice to make.

I had never been inside St Richard’s Church before, though I had taken many pictures of its striking modern exterior, so that was another good reason for going.

Lots of other people thought so too and the church was packed by the time that I got there which showed that my plan of turning up just ten minutes before the start was not such a good one. I took a seat in the back row and that was fine.

We were presented with excerpts from four Gilbert and Sullivan operas starting with Mikado which was the only one I knew. There were about four songs in each segment which was enough to get the flavour of the story and of some of the main characters.

Telling those stories and being those characters were four singers, two women and two men. They were accompanied by a pianist who did his best with the church piano which must have been of a much lower standard than he was used to. The sound was a little rough but that was all that could be expected.

There was a half-time interval for drinks and nibbles and, as it was for a good cause, I bought a glass of wine in addition to the free one that I had had on arrival. I also spoke to quite a few people there, many of whom I knew from local groups like HUG and HAG. In one of these conversations came the idea for forming a local group for fans of the arts to publicise events such as this one and to arrange group visits. I really must do some more work on that idea.

The second half gave us more good singing about pompous characters and desperate lovers. It was all very jolly and very nicely done.

I loitered with some intent after the concert, first to help put the chairs away and then to talk to the singers. I had quick conversations with the two men of the "well done, you were very good" kind then two longer conversations with the two women one of whom I had seen sing before, as the Tete-a-Tete Opera Festival, and the other of whom I would be seeing twice at Glyndebourne in the coming season.

It was an evening of fine music in a local venue filled with familiar faces and that made it a good evening indeed.

Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum: Opportunity Areas workshop

The second Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum Drop In Draft Policy Workshop was on Opportunity Areas and asked residents for their views on issues relating new development.

The questions posed got to the heart of what defines Ham and, unsurprisingly, I had lots of comments to make on various forms provided for that purpose.

I said that I think that Ham Lands should remain sacrosanct with, just possibly, some minor exceptions for small sensitive buildings on the edges, such as a sports pavilion on St George's Field.

On some of the bigger potential sites, e.g. Cassel Hospital and St Michael's Convent, I was prepared to be more adventurous that most people. These are prominent brick-built buildings facing onto Ham Common with lots of open space behind them and there is an obvious temptation to try and leave things much as they are but I would be willing to see striking modern buildings take their place (apart from the section of Cassel that is listed) and to have more building behind them, subject to sufficient provision being made for wildlife habitats and corridors.

There are many examples of modern buildings sitting alongside old ones and I would much rather see a sensational new building that a bland old one or, even worse, a bland new one trying to look like an old one. We have enough of those on Ham Common already. Similarly, while the large gardens are attractive, or have the potential to be so, they cannot be seen from the road and are rarely open to the public. Ham has accepted and come to love new buildings in the past and can do so again.

I was was happy to support the suggestion of more social housing and would like this to look attractive and modern too. A display board showed some examples of what could be achieved.

Irrespective of the type of housing I wanted the character of the area maintained and that means good landscaping in the spaces between the buildings and lots of paths to make the area permeable. There are a couple of land-locked areas in Ham and I find these deeply frustrating.

Another area where I disagreed to some extent on the proposals was on building heights. This was related to the many small sites, often housing disused garages today, where it was suggested that low-rise buildings would be appropriate. I made that comment that mid-rise, say five storey, could also be suitable. There are taller buildings around, there is nothing wrong with a little height per se and we need to make the best use of the spaces that are available otherwise the pressure will be there to intrude into some of the green spaces.

I also wanted our existing good buildings recognised and protected and that includes some examples from the 20th Century, such as 59 Ham Street, and not just the historical hunting lodges.

Ham United Group Meeting: January 2016

I have been going to Ham United Group (HUG) meetings fairly regularly but have been much less good at writing them up afterwards and it is this tardiness that means my last post on HUG was two years ago, not my enthusiasm for the organisation.

I was keen to get to this meeting as it was discussing the proposed redevelopment of the Ham Close site and lots of other people were keen to discuss it too as the meeting room at Ham Library was full. I was not counting but there must have been around thirty of use there which is a good turn-out for a HUG meeting.

The main stakeholders in the Ham Close Uplift Programme are the landlord, Richmond Housing Partnership, and the other major land owner, Richmond Council, both of whom were represented at the meeting.

They opened by saying that the revised plans expected in early 2016 would not now be ready until the Summer and went on to say that almost everything in those plans was open for discussion. That was good news for residents who did not like the old plan but it made the discussion rather open ended.

For information only, this is what the previous scheme looked like. It redeveloped the whole site, encroaching on to the Village Green as it did so and it approximately doubled the number of units from around 200 to 400.

Current residents of the blocks in Ham Close (understandably) raised several issues of direct concern to them from the affordability of the new units and their size compared to the current accommodation. I am in no position to comment on the details of this but I think that securing the support of the current residents, leaseholders and tenants, is important.

Traffic was mentioned a few times by residents concerned about both the main Petersham Road that is the only way in/out of Ham and also the roads within Ham that already struggle with cars parked on narrow streets. There was a request that people be encouraged to walk, cycle or use public transport but not much in the way of ideas for how this could be achieved.

Design was the other main issue with comments like, "This is not Ham, this is just a land-grab." It was pointed out that Ham is rich with architects and one of them spoke about the architectural heritage which includes a lot of notable twentieth century development such as Parkleys and Langham Close. Several of us, including me, called for an iconic development rather than something bland like we had seen so far. It was suggested that the scheme should go out to architectural contest and that many imaginative firms would be keen to go in for this. I was reminded of a recent exhibition by Karakusevic Carson Architects at RIBA. Social housing can be exciting and I want that for Ham Close.

There were several comments made about the types of accommodation to be provided with calls for lots of social housing that is genuinely affordable and a mix of sizes to suit different families and also sharers.

It was a constructive and (generally) well-tempered discussion but while I generally support the idea of rebuild I was left with the feeling that there is a long way to go to get to a good scheme.

We ran through the other HUG news quite quickly. The Ham Hydro scheme has gone to appeal. This is an appeal against the Council so there is nothing we can do except sit back and wait. A Forest School was proposing to build a structure on Ham Lands. Not much information was known and views varied from it would only be a shed to there should be no more building on Ham Lands. St. Michael's Convent on Ham Common had been sold to a developer of retirement homes. While this suggested its new use but it was pointed out that in planning terms residential is residential so it could be any residential use, or mix of uses.

I left the meeting enlivened by the engagement with things that impact where I live and heartened that so many other people care about these things too.

Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum: Travel and Streets workshop

The first Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum Drop In Draft Policy Workshop was on Travel and Streets and asked residents for their views on issues relating to cars, public transport, cycling and walking.

These are topics that I have strong opinions on and I made sure that they were known. Other views were expressed that opposed mine and most of these seemed to be from people who used cars complaining that other people were using cars and so were filling up the roads and parking spaces. I very rarely drive and had no sympathy with that view.

As we were talking about streets and paths there were lots of maps. I love maps.

I'll start with the topic that everybody seemed to agree with. The Thames rolls in a large S around Ham and Petersham and there is a large gap between the footbridge at Teddington Lock and the road bridge at Richmond. There was a strong consensus that we needed another foot/cycle bridge and that the obvious place to put this was somewhere near the end of Ham Street. A bridge there would open up Twickenham and beyond to those on the Ham side and give those on the Twickenham side easy access to the wild areas of Ham Lands and Richmond Park.

I was generally supportive of the plans for improving the streets for walkers but with two exceptions. I though that they were somewhat limited in scope, e.g. walk to school, and I was against any idea of "improving" the tow path to make it passable during flooding.

I love walking through Ham and exploring the little alleyways and twittens as I do so. I suspect that nobody has explored them as much as I have. This knowledge needs to be shared so that other people can make use of these routes. One of the things that I am doing is updating Open Street Map which is a better map than most for showing paths (Google is useless) but still has some significant gaps.

Once I have got the map right I want to work with the Forum on maintaining and publicising these routes. I think that we can do a lot of simple things quickly and easily which would all make a noticeable difference.

All my walking has also made me aware of places where the paths disappear or are unsuitable. For example, the route down Ham Street to the river and Ham House means taking to the road for about 50m. This is one of the main routes that should be made more pedestrian friendly, especially if a bridge is to be built at the end of the road.

I have spent many an happy hour on the tow path while it is flooding, often through deliberate planning and sometimes by accident. The rising and falling tide is a fascinating thing to watch, even if it means standing on a bench to do so. The tide and associated flooding is a nice feature of the area and I am against any plans to raise it or to make it more substantial during the short high tides.

One of Ham's problems is easy to see from the map above, the only way in or out of the area by road means using the main Kingston to Richmond Road that has a significant bottleneck as it goes through Petersham (turning sharply past the house where Tommy Steele used to live). We are not going to solve that problem so the only answer is to discourage car use and, preferably, take a few off the road.

Personally I would make it a one-way road, except for buses, and let cars find other routes, or have them left behind in the garage while the owner takes a bus or walks. We should assume that cars are a bad idea whose day has gone and plan for a future without them.

Ham: Know Your Place, another fine talk by Sir David Williams

A talk on Ham is always of interest to me and I had another opportunity to go to one thanks to Richmond Council's Know Your Place season of talks.

The Ham: Know Your Place talk was given by Sir David Williams with the subject Open Spaces in Ham and Petersham, Pictures, History and Management. This was the third time that I had heard Sir David talk this year so I knew that I was going to learn some interesting things, especially on the history of some of the places. One of his earlier talks, The History of Ham Riverside Lands, had covered some similar territory and that had been a fabulous talk.

But first I had to get there and I made bit of a Horlicks of the travel. I was working in Leatherhead that day and had made the mistake of buying a return ticket to Kingston. My first plan was to buy a single from Leatherhead to Richmond but the queue at Leatherhead for the one ticket machine there was far too long so I used my return ticket to get me on a train to Clapham Junction.

The second plan was to use one of the check-in Oyster card readers on the platform at Clapham Junction to start a new journey with my Oyster card. Unfortunately Clapham Junction does not have Oyster card readers on the platform, presumably because there is no interchange with the Underground there.

The next plan was to exit at Richmond using my Kingston ticket in the hope that it would let me out thinking that I was just ending my journey a little early. It didn't. Finally I showed my ticket to the person on the barriers and she let me out. A 65 bus from there, and a good walk from Sandpits Road got me to Ham Library at 6:50pm, in good time for the talk starting at 7pm. It all worked out well in the end.

Sir David took us on a logical journey through the major local open spaces from Petersham Park (part of Richmond Park) to Ham Lands via places like Petersham Meadows, Petersham Common, Great South Avenue and Ham Common Woods.

With words and pictures he told us about their history and their current status, particularly how they are managed. He talked about how the deer and cows help to maintain the vegetation in Petersham Park  and Petersham Meadows and how Petersham Common benefits from active management (funded by a Trust) while Petersham Copse suffers most from not being managed.

Management can be a mixed blessing and the recent major clearance works in Ham Common Woods had not been appreciated by a lot of people, myself included. Sir David was able to explain the context of these works which helped me to understand them even if I did not yet agree with them. The Woods had been an open space as recently as the 1920s and had been left to develop as a woodland rather than being managed and so there were some issues with dead and overcrowded trees.

There were many historical photographs to illustrate the talk and the one that made the most impression on me was of young girls dressed in their Sunday best outside of an orphanage on Ham Common, a building that was a hunting lodge and is now a collection of apartments.

Management came up again when talking about Ham Common and St' George's Field both of which suffered to some extent from the proliferation of signs and other urban clutter. I agreed with Sir David on that one.

The final problem area that he mentioned was the Thames Young Mariners site that all but divides Ham Lands, only the tow path connects the two sections. Surrey County Council own the site but make little use of it and had not been a good neighbour, as their major clearance of their land had shown a few years ago. That had caused The Friends of Ham Lands to be formed and me to join them.

It was, as I had expect it to be, a thoroughly entertaining, interesting and informative talk and it helped me to understand a little better the place that I have chosen to make my home.

Gardens at Ormeley Lodge (June 2015)

The gardens at Ormeley Lodge are not open very often, only once or twice a year, and it is always a special day thanks to the range of beautiful things on display. The large gardens are divided into several good-sized zones so it is like visiting several gardens at the same time.

My favourite part is the wild flower garden in the orchard which is the section furthest away from the house. There are several paths through and around it and I walked all of them several times.

The garden next to the house is the most formal and is designed more for sitting in than walking through. I took the hint and sat and had a cup of tea while enjoying the way that this hedge had been allowed to grow around a stone planter capped with large flowers.

Returning to the wild orchard I renewed my acquaintance with the friendly rhinoceros. It has been living there all the years that I have been going to the gardens, and I suspect for a good few years more, and I still delight at the way that it stood patiently in the long grass waiting for a naughty child to play with.

The many gardens at Ormeley Lodge are linked by many paths and these have seats planted in strategic locations to allow people to rest and savour another aspect of the garden. One of the grander seats lies under a spider's web of a pergola which is definitely worth spending some time under.

The rhinoceros may be my favourite animal in the garden (there are also lots of lions, dogs and birds) but the gorilla is special too. It lives far away from its African colleague in the front-right corner of the garden hidden from the formal lawn and borders by a tall hedge.

This was just a few highlights from an excellent garden. I've just checked the times on the photos and there is just over an hour between the first and last ones shown here which gives a good idea of just how much there was to see. And I hope to see it all again, plus a few new things, when the gardens open again next year.

St Michael's Convent on Ham Common (June 2016)

I like to visit the gardens at St Michael's Convent on Ham Common when they open for the National Gardens Scheme because the gardens are so large and varied. One section of the garden is a vegetable plot and one corner of that has a neat lean-to greenhouse that looks all the better for being a little shambolic.

It is not a particularly architectural garden and it prefers the more traditional delights of flowers. I like flowers too so this garden and I get along fine. This bright selection is in the border at the far end of the lawn from the building. The lawn does little, as lawns often do, but that does not matter when it ends with a display of flowers like this.

A few of the flowers prefer to be nearer the building, wanting some shelter perhaps, and these red beauties seem determined not to be out done by their relatives in the garden proper.

A large part of the central section of the garden was once a nursery as a few remaining trees testify. The grass here is given more purpose by having lazy paths cut through it. At another time of the year the grass is peppered with tulips and looks even better.

Finally, some more flowers this time accompanied by a path, one of the many paths that lead around and through the garden allowing residents and visitors to get among the flowers, which is the best way to appreciate their fragrances as well as their colours.

Sadly these gardens may becoming off-limits, or even disappearing, as the convent is moving away from Ham and I doubt if the new owners will be as generous with the garden.