To date, our Sundays have both been rainy, albeit intermittent drizzle that you can walk in, that is more mist and mizzle than mud-making. Today is no different. Our plan was to walk a stretch of the Thames, though it turned out to have almost no overhangs or protection we realised once we arrived there. Even then, and despite thick grey skies the colour of heavy dirty wool, we eventually arrived back home at the end of the day dry and warm. The temperature, despite the drizzle, has been lovely, and many days, this week, has been up to 16°C or 17°C. I am knotting my coat around my shoulders most days, going without: just keeping it there, in case.
From our bus stop we took a grim little alley through an even grimmer large housing estate and came out on the river just underneath Hammersmith Bridge, a lovely piece of iron work that has withstood three IRA bombs and tremendous bridge crowds leaning over its parapet cheering on the Oxford to Cambridge rowers. Such cheering crowds were the death of an earlier bridge which barely lasted 60 years.
It seems fitting that this replacement bridge be of iron, in this district named after Saxon words, hammer and smithy. Hammersmith. It looks indestructible. But was literally saved from a near-death experience by a local hairdresser crossing the bridge at one o'clock one morning back in 1939. He heard the sound of ticking, tracked down a suitcase fizzing on the bridge, then bravely, daringly, picked it up, sparks and all, and threw it into the river where it exploded in a 60' waterspout of flume and explosives. In the subsequent excitement he was much applauded, and awarded an MBE, but no one appears to have asked what on earth he was doing taking a walk at that time of the day. Which I still want to know.
We followed the river predictably passing many rowing clubs along this stretch of the Thames. Here, the first mens' rowing club, there the first women's. Then a plaque siting this as the home of the British Rowing club whose oarsmen have done so well in many Olympics.
We came across many blue plaques and some with sad tales. One about an oarsman, Andy Holmes, who went to Laytmer Upper School which sits on a prime site here overlooking the Thames. His plaque is on the school rowing shed in memory of him. At this school Andy learned to row. And practised and practised in the Thames, so close. He won gold in two Olympics, but died terribly young after contracting Leptospirosis a disease carried by water contaminated with animal urine. Andy's passion had likely become the source of his plague. The Thames, many river men know, can be deadly.
There are quite a few breweries and lovely old pubs along the waterfront that were long ago the hangouts for watermen who docked their barges here to unload their wares and their hops and to have a wee dram. The Dove is reputed to have the smallest bar in all of Britain and it was here that Charles 11 indulged in little trysts with his mistress, Nell Gwynn. Elizabeth Taylor was known to pop in here, too.
It is not far at all to The Black Lion which comes with its own ironic ghost tale twist. So terrified were locals by tales of a white-clothed apparition visible to many that when one poor soul committed suicide in crippling fear, a local ghost buster named Francis Smith, boldly loaded up his blunderbuss, charged outdoors, and there, finding a man in white he thought to be the ghost got him in his sights, then shot him stone dead. Locals carried the body back into The Black Lion, but there, in the candlelight, identified him as the one of their own, the local brickie, covered in work dust. His ghost, it is said, haunts The Black Lion still.
Then, there is the Old Ship House dating back to 1720, where we later indulged in a Sunday roast with huge Yorkshire puddings accompanied by crisp sprouts, parsnips, carrots and crunchy taties. Our favourite lunch on a Sunday anywhere in England, this. Beef with a sharp horseradish sauce. Pork with crisp crackling. Lamb with mint. We each had a different roast meat. And the best part is always the 'afters' when you soak that Yorkshire pud into the leftover gravy, then pop it all into your mouth. I could eat that all week.
I resisted the temptation for 'seconds', but hounded the kitchen for a photo of the pile of puds yet to be consumed this day. So many do they cook on a Sunday that they need three ovens, and have to start extra early in the morning to manage to cook the number they need.
What was equally interesting during this little episode, was that of the six chefs and sous chefs and kitchen hands in sight only one could understand my queries about the food. They had to call across the maitre d', who, though from abroad, spoke fluent English. From elsewhere they may be, but all have learned well how to cook a fine English Sunday feast.
A further interesting point: one of the pubs along this stretch where we first tried to find a table at noon, told us the earliest slot they had available for lunch was at 4 o'clock. All else was Reserved until then. So, even on this grey dull day, runners and walkers and lunch goers were out filling the seats in these ancient picturesque pubs. Lovely.
Residents around here pay in the vicinity of £4 million for a terraced house along the Thames, and around £10 million for the larger places facing the mall, closer to Chiswick. We came across on old coal hole cover along one of the footpaths, a remnant relic.
One of the more expensive homes, Said House, was rented to the producers of the TV series, The Apprentice one year, only to incur a £12,000 damage bill once the contestants moved out. They had left a mess and destruction. Another, Bedford House we passed, was the Redgrave home: here, Vanessa and her sisters lived when they were young.
Some houseboats are moored here, in front of these million dollar properties, with wee gates and fences protecting their small plots on the riverbank. Other more derelict looking houseboats float aimlessly on anchor, gradually being inundated by the litter and rubble of the incoming tide.
Homes and houseboats look out over Chiswick Eyot, a delightful lean long island just metres off the riverbank, stretching down the Thames. Chiswick comes from olde English for cheese farm. Eyot, here, is pronounced ate, or eight: a lovely word, I had never heard before.
This island once grew willows which were harvested to make baskets and locals used the channel of water between the island and the riverbank to trap fish. Until the Thames became so polluted that that was no longer a viable option.
Not far on from the Redgrave's house the Thames was lapping the street. A passing cyclist told us that in another hour the water would cover the road and lap the footpath. We had no idea this would happen. Some of these parked cars will have to move before then, or suffer the consequences. These expensive homes are daily under duress from the river just in front of them.
We came, finally, to the Church street causeway. This was once a war ship and torpedo ship-building site until larger ships demanded more draft and height than the shallow Thames with its low bridges allowed.
No comments:
Post a Comment