Blog Archives: Travel by Rail

Late Autumn in Derby & Ilkeston

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Bus, Travel by Rail

Another of our monthly short breaks inspired by a railway TV programme, not this time Michael Portillo’s journeys, but Tim Dunn and his series on railway architecture. It was in the first episode of the series that we saw the Bennerley Viaduct, the ‘Iron Giant’. One of only two remaining wrought iron viaducts left in Britain, we learned of its rescue from dereliction  and opening to pedestrians, and so on a lovely sunny Sunday morning, we were heading there.

First to London (via a stop at the newly opened Beaulieu Park Station), to St Pancras with its wonderful, vast single-span glass roof – although it has to be said the refurbishment 15 years ago was a missed opportunity to capture solar energy, like we saw a month ago in the even more impressive Rotterdam Centraal Station.

Thence to Derby, stopping amongst other places at Market Harborough (the destination for our forthcoming July trip) and East Midlands Parkway, one of the high points of last November’s exploration of the Trent Valley, those iconic cooling towers, a memorial to a hopefully receding age of fossil fuels…

Into Derby just after lunchtime, our first stop of course was for a drink, in Waterfall, imposing but sadly lacking atmosphere, in the 1892 Midland Railway Institute, one feature of a remarkable triangle of railway buildings. Built as a cultural and social centre for Derby’s rail workers, it once housed a large library and a ballroom with a stage and seating for 500 people.

The railway cottages themselves date back half a century previously to the arrival of the railway network into Derby, and are considered to be the first and one of the finest examples of such a purpose-built development to house the workers. Threatened with demolition in the 1960s, the estate is now restored and listed. On one of the other angles of the triangle is the Brunswick Inn which formed a neat bookend to our trip.

All the buildings are brick, from presumably local clay, a lovely rich red in colour, matching perfectly the colours of autumn strewn across the pavements:

From there, we followed the green corridor along the River Derwent among the autumn leafscapes and groundscapes, with a few fungi and galls, especially on Lime.

And before we expected (we hadn’t appreciated just how compact the city is), we were at our hotel, on the edge of the city centre. Holiday Inn – Derby Riverlights may be very modern but it is a rather striking design, with good views of the city, very comfortable and good value. The food was good as well, including breakfast (overcooked eggs aside) at which the presence of paper carrier bags made one feel very comfortable taking things from the breakfast buffet for consumption later in the day!

Neither had we realised just how many impressive historic buildings there are. The mid-19th century Market Hall, reopened after refurbishment only six months ago, is one such, both inside and out although the inside seems not yet to have attracted sufficient traders to drive out the feeling of it being a cold, empty void.

But the Cathedral was a much more welcoming presence, except for the annoyingly over-repeated recorded bell peals (which later on in our stay started to emanate from a completely different church!)…

Although rather modest from the outside, it was lovely and airy inside, flooded with light from the largely clear glass windows, the walls and ceilings relatively free of intrusive ornamentation; some organ practice was a delightful added bonus.

 

This made for much easier appreciation of the artistic features of the church – effigies (including Bess of Hardwick), two stunning modern stained glass windows and decorative wrought ironwork everywhere…

… and then the Derby Plank, a lovely painted bit of wood whose symbolism and function is shrouded in history and mystery, but probably dates from around 1600, give or take a decade or two.

Around the city centre, there were many other historic buildings, some of which we saved for our last day. The Standing Order Wetherspoons pub, a repurposed bank, was worth a visit for its secular interior décor, and then there was the rather strange structure in the market square. Memorial or urinal, you decide?! In fact it seems once to have been a piece of public art with water flowing over the top in a pleasing waterfall, but the costs of maintenance fell foul of local authority cash constraints in 2016 and since then simply gathers pigeon poo.

A look at the weather forecast next morning showed us a clear slot of some three hours up to lunchtime before cloud and rain that was coming in for the rest of our stay. So we mobilised quickly and headed out by bus for Ilkeston and the Bennerley Viaduct, the main reason for our visit: oh, the joys of a proper, modern, comprehensive bus station. Colchester could usefully take note!!

We could not have timed the break in the weather better. Calm, sunny, glorious autumnal weather for our walk along the Erewash Canal was perfect, the distant lock gates reminding Jude of giant dragonflies at rest, and the ambience ruined only by the ugly spraypaint handiwork of local ‘patriots’…

And before long the viaduct appeared, almost twenty metres in the sky, spanning the valley, over the railway line, the county boundary and River Erewash, a name that seems to spring straight from the realms of Tolkein’s Middle Earth.

The wrought iron structure was a bespoke solution when it was built in 1876 arising from the need to keep the weight of the viaduct down, given that the underlying ground is riddled with poorly mapped coal-mines. The line was closed to rail traffic in 1968, and much of the railway infrastructure removed, but fortunately the viaduct remained intact, a beacon of Victorian ingenuity.

But only just. Time has taken its toll, and there have been several plans to demolish it, though its wrought iron construction meant that it would have to have been demolished bit-by-bit, the reverse of its original construction, which always proved prohibitively expensive. And so the resources were found to make it safe, and open it to pedestrian and cycle traffic in 2022, although as yet the eastern access ramp is not finished.

No matter, walking there and back across the 400 metre span without the risk of being mown down was simply delightful, with lofty views southwards over the green valley towards the high ground of Ilkeston and the Trent Valley beyond.

And looking north a completely different picture, a developing nature area based on a brownfield site, with Silver Birch and Aspen trees turning golden in the low sunlight.

The autumn colours complemented perfectly the rusting structure in mutual recognition of the passage of time…

It was a great vantage point for birdwatching, with more Redpolls than I have seen in a long time, plus Goldfinches, Fieldfares and Ravens. Feral Pigeons have adopted the structure as if it were a cliff, and the south-facing brick and stone piers at either end proved attractive to basking insects and other invertebrates: the micromoth Blastobasis adustella, Stable Fly Stomoxys calcitrans, the woodlouse Porcellio scaber and the spider Platnickina tincta.

Back on terra firma we walked through a section of developing woodland between canal and railway line, finding a few fungi including Jelly-ear, luxurious aerial mosses, the micromoth leaf-mines of Stigmella microtheriella in Hazel and a dew-dropped Hawthorn Shieldbug.

Particularly under Wild Cherry trees, the groundscapes were spectacular, as were the raindrops hanging below Alder cones, the colour of black tea, presumably stained by tannins leached out from the woody cones.

As we walked back into Ilkeston, the weather closed in and the forecast rain started to fall heavily. But what a lovely little town, with a real high street, a market square, Art Deco commercial buildings, and an historic cinema dating back to 1913…

And a hole. Look on the Web for tourist attractions in Ilkeston and it isn’t long before you find the ‘Nat West Hole’, apparently created to reassure uses of the ATM ‘hole in the wall’ that the wall isn’t hiding ne’er-do-wells. As impressive in the rain as at any other time I guess, and it did get me photographing analogous structures, for example in the back of the Costa chairs!

And that’s not all. A walk through town took us past the General Havelock pub. Right time, right place: it was raining! Also very welcoming: being ‘Muffin Monday’ we were treated to a free, huge, delicious blueberry muffin with our drinks.

Ilkeston seems to do ‘big’: the Iron Giant, the giant muffin and at our final stop, the Ilkeston Giant. Just down the road was Stanton Road Cemetery, the last resting place of Samuel Taylor who died aged 59 in 1875; at 7 feet 4 inches (224 cm) tall, he became a local celebrity and earned a good living performing in travelling fairs and freak shows.

By now the rain had really set in so it was back on the Ilkeston Flyer to the comfort of our hotel room, before venturing out later to sample very well prepared food from all four corners of the culinary world at Cosmo World Buffet, making good use of a retired cinema.

Our third and final day dawned dull and cool, though the promised rain never materialised. Not that it would have mattered too much: we had planned a museums and pubs sort of day. First it was Derby Museum & Art Gallery, with collections of local porcelain, art of Joseph Wright, natural history and much more. But for us, the highlights were the visiting exhibition Human Natures, exploring our place in the natural world and presenting strong messages, and the remarkable surrealist art of Marion Adnams.

Then we were down to the Museum of Making in the former Derby Silk Mill that forms the downstream end of the 25 km-long Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site that runs all the way to Matlock Bath. The site encompasses a series of 18th- and 19th-century cotton and silk mills, considered to be of high historical and technological interest as being the place where the modern factory system was developed and established. It was in effect the birthplace of the industrial revolution, which like it or not cannot overestimated in respect of its importance of it in shaping the world we now know. And reading about it made us think we should visit the whole site on another occasion, as all are conveniently linked by rail – one perhaps for 2027?

Opened just last year, the museum is housed partly in the restored silk mill, itself a rebuild from the early 20th century, on the site of the original. At the entrance are the Grade 1-listed Bakewell Gates, designed by master ironmaker Robert Bakewell, which have graced the front of the silk mill in Derby since 1725.

There is lots more too, including the temporary exhibition EarthBound, the Story of Connected Life through Rock, Earth and Community, including outstanding photography of close-up nature and black-and-white people portraits. And the utterly bewitching complexity of the dissected Rolls Royce jet engine. Again for good or bad, the ingenuity of designing and building something like that which can keep an airliner aloft is simply staggering.

Just next door, the Old Silk Mill pub provided an excellent lunch, before our walk back by the Derwent, reinforcing again the compact nature of Derby’s delights. Back among the railway cottages, there was just time for a farewell drink in the very traditional surroundings of the Brunswick Inn, the whole building adapted to fit into the sharp end of the triangle of streets before heading across the road to the station just before dark. And home four hours later!

Another half-term break in London

Britain's Wildlife, Eleanor's photos, Travel by Rail, WildEssex

In what now seems to be becoming a bit of an autumn half-term tradition (see last year’s trip here) we headed to London for a couple of days with Eleanor. The weather was fine, if somewhat breezy, so we all had fun, as well as helping provide her with material for her school project about Rivers.

Emerging from Liverpool Station into a forest of high-rise is always a bit of a culture shock …

… but the shock is tempered with interesting sculpture and art.

First stop was Finsbury Circus for a picnic lunch among the pigeons and squirrels. Some interesting planting among the magnificent London Plane trees gave us all chance to indulge in a bit of photography, and Fatsia japonica in full flower was, just like its relative Ivy, drawing in all manner of insects from Honeybees to hoverflies and social wasps.

Thence to the SkyGarden, seen peeping round other buildings long before we reached it.

This is one of the amazing free attractions of London (although online booking is required). Our first visit there a few years ago was in very different circumstances with no queuing, but the half-term crowds this time meant we didn’t get in until about 45 minutes after our booked slot. Still, not as bad as Disneyland in February! And once up the lift to floor 35, the view was of course remarkable, for Eleanor especially looking down on the Thames, the famous sights and the tiny people.

The garden itself was certainly lush, although there wasn’t all that much in flower, as might be expected in an essentially non-seasonal garden: plants flower as and when rather than all coming out during particular times of the year.

The clocks had changed the day previously so twilight came quickly and it was well under way by the time we reached our Ibis hotel by Barking Creek, the last rays of sunset just lighting up the tide-mill at more-or-less full tide. Why Barking? It is an interesting area, well connected to central London but far enough out to be affordable. And she loved the bunk bed!

Another sunny morning on our second day, so it was a lovely opportunity to walk down Barking Creek, and across the complex barrier that marks the start of the transition from tidal creek to the freshwater River Roding.

This time it was low tide, and the gulls, Coots and Mallards gathered argumentatively (as always!), while Cormorants rested on the wrecks and piers. A Kingfisher flew out of a patch of bankside reeds, and both Pied and Grey Wagtails trotted around the margins.

Through Barking Abbey grounds, the Ivy was covered in pollinators including a Red Admiral and a brief Hornet Hoverfly. And the Grey Squirrels, dozens of them, were busy provisioning for winter and making a little girl very happy. Where would London be without its squirrels, pigeons and parakeets?

Our route to the Young V&A involved a quarter of an hour walk from Stepney Green, as Mile End station was closed by an incident. But even the walk was interesting, the damp, dripping, seeping rail underpass providing a home for ferns, specifically the non-native Cyrtomium falcatum, now starting to colonise such niches by spore dispersal from cultivation but not reported from anywhere in east London on the NBN Atlas. And then right next to the railway bridge there was a Buddleja showing leaf-mines. We have never seen these before in this host, and despite their very different appearance, both galleries and blotches, it appears they are from the same mining fly Amauromyza verbasci. Again there are no records of this species from east London, or indeed from most of the south-east of England. Under-reporting surely but always interesting. The other fascinating thing is the fact that ‘verbasci‘ relates to its other main host Verbascum – and DNA sequencing has only just recently made us realise that mulleins and buddleia should be placed in the same plant family.

Then it was an hour at the museum, before all heading home tired but happy.

Eleanor, as she often does, took many photos, and some of our favourites are included below. It always surprises and thrills me to see the world as she sees it, a world witnessed through protective bars and fences, a world of giant trees and a world where leaf patterns are just as important as showy flowers. We can all learn a lot from that!

 

Holidaying across the North Sea: Part 3 – Den Haag, Scheveningen & Leiden

Overseas Tours - other, Travel by Rail

Just an hour from Amersfoort on the intercity train brought us to Den Haag, The Hague, clearly a booming city, to judge from the skyline of cranes and high-rise glass and steel, especially around the station.

 

But the charm of the old city is only a block away, embracing more modern fare like the former US Embassy, built in 1959 and now one of its many art galleries. And water and greenspace (with some fine displays of Honey Fugus) are never too far beyond that, in which the noise of Parakeets is rivalled by that of the Jackdaws.

Our hotel, the Townhouse, proved another good choice, in terms of location and comfort, although let down by the lack of atmosphere in the bistro, something to do with the lack of food, apart from rather good fruit pies and (free) soup! And it provided shelter from the showers,  watching earnest people of all nations  coming and going, perhaps related to Den Haag being at the epicentre of international jurisprudence.

And there was no shortage of real food just a couple of minutes’ walk away around the main square next to the government buildings; indeed here, in Leopold’s, we had the best meal of the holiday on our first evening. The second evening was less successful  though as the eateries were crammed: perhaps Thursday is the new Friday in a country that is on its way to embracing the four-day week.

Art is everywhere, including homage on the hoarding, behind which the former Ministry of Justice is being converted into a museum, to MC Escher. Fittingly so as Escher’s prints feature in an excellent museum nearby, a former Royal Palace:

There we spent a very happy morning exploring his work,  from the early, technically superb but hardly ground-breaking realism…

… to distorted and unexpected perspectives …

… through geometrical shapings and  fascinating, morphing tessellations…

…to his most famous, mind-bending impossibilities.

The inspiration for the impossible staircases was clear from a photo of his school in Arnhem: if that is ever opened to the public we could well be tempted to visit.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

There is probably much, much more to Den Haag than we found on this, our first visit, given that we spent much of our time using it as a centre to travel out from.

One such trip was by tram to the coastal resort of Scheveningen, complete with requisite pier, grand hotel and broad sandy beach. Where better to eat mussels than in a beach bar with the smell of the salt and sound of the distant lapping waves?

This is a place that would be worth revisiting at other seasons. The dunes had Marram and Lyme Grass, , thickets of fruiting Sea Buckthorn, and a few plants like Sea Rocket, Dwarf Mallow and Narrow-leaved Ragwort in flower. How much more would there to be found in summer in the vast dune field that stretches north from the town?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Den Haag was also the ideal stepping stone from which to visit Leiden, just ten minutes away by train. A small city, it wasn’t really on our radar until we noticed an advertisement (and voucher for reduced price entry!) for the botanic garden Hortus botanicus, but much of a day visiting there was time very well spent.

Of all the places we visited it was the one most reminiscent of home, especially of Harwich and the Dutch Quarter of Colchester, due to its geographic similarity and the commonality of architecture and boat design, indicating strong cultural links. Little did we realise the commonality until we saw the name ‘Mayflower’ appearing regularly: yes, the Mayflower that sailed from Harwich in 1620 collected some of its Pilgrim Fathers from Leiden (to which they had exiled themselves following persecution for contravening religious orthodoxy back in England) in Southampton.

The waterways were flanked by old brick-built houses, many with a familiar stepped profile: one of these, the former carpenters’ house was a gallery and open to look around, revealing an interior tiled with Delft tiles.

   

Old, attractive buildings everywhere, including two windmills:

The larger canals and rivers, branches of the former Rijn (Rhine) delta, had numerous historic trading boats, as well as those for modern tourism, all of which provided a very pleasing backdrop to our al fresco lunch on the floating Vlot Grand Café.

 

Another name to put Leiden on the map is Rembrandt, who was born there in 1606:

Leiden is also prestigious academically, home to the country’s oldest university, founded in 1575. Hence its equally prestigious botanic garden (I had forgotten I knew that!) whose origins date back to 1590, making it one of the oldest in the world. And its collections have been built up by a veritable Who’s Who of botany through the 16th to 19th centuries, including Clusius, Linnaeus and Siebold.

Despite the season there were plenty of interesting flowers in the garden…

… with autumnal colours and fruits from many others.

Add in the fungi, including a honey-fungus (probably Armillaria ostoyae on account of its scaly cap),  the bracket-fungus Ganoderma lipsiense and The Prince Agaricus augustus…

…and a scattering of invertebrates, such as Dogwood Aphid, adult Syrphus ribesii hoverflies along with their tartan-clad larvae, some well marked Common Carder-bees and a Clubiona sac-spider.

And of course the birds: Great Crested Grebes on the canal, and Ring-necked Parakeets everywhere, competing with the acorn-foraging Jays for the label ‘noisiest birds’.

The glasshouses too were impressive with all sorts of frost-sensitive and therefore unfamiliar blooms.

And in the warmer greenhouses, it suddenly became clear the trilling sounds came not from a speaker but from living frogs. Poison dart frogs at that, in which their skin can contain a chemical hundreds of times as strong as morphine. Perhaps fortunately, the toxins are in part derived from the plants growing around them, so if the environment is controlled, so too can be the risk of visitor poisoning!

Clearly an impressive botanic garden and one that would repay visits at different times of year.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

And so our holiday finally drew to a close with a last example of the efficiency of public transport. Our intended train was going to stop short of our destination due to weekend rail works, but we were able easily to change plans and get back to the Hook of Holland by metro instead, in the same length of time.

Onto the ferry for a comfortable, calm overnight crossing, we were back in the UK as dawn broke, under the same leaden skies as when we departed a week previously. There was still not a stirring of breeze, as though autumn had held its breath for the whole of our trip, a holiday that left us wanting more so I suspect we will be back before too long!

Holidaying across the North Sea: Part 2 – Utrecht & Amersfoort

Overseas Tours - other, Travel by Rail

Just forty minutes out of Rotterdam on the Intercity train brought us to Utrecht, our destination for the next two nights. The journey was almost all across flat, drained, agricultural former marshland, and the upper deck of the train made for good viewing. Half a dozen Great White Egrets and a Kingfisher were the most exciting sightings amongst the Coots, Mallards and Canada Geese.

And from one futuristic station to another: the entrance to Utrecht Centraal is overtopped by a massive honeycomb canopy.

The old city itself is contained within, and presumably formerly defended by, a perimeter canal, alongside which we needed to walk to get to our hotel. But the newer parts of the city, outside the canal, had some pleasant surprises including the massive hulk of the headquarters of ProRail, responsible for the railway network infrastructure of the Netherlands. This is the largest brick building in the country, dating from 1921, Art Deco in style and made of more than 22 million bricks. Put that into perspective: our iconic equivalent Battersea Power Station in its current restored state contains 7.6 million!

And what of the flying saucer on top? Well that is not original – it was part of a Millennium art festival, and has somehow survived, giving the hulk a very distinctive profile.

Right next door, and going back an era architecturally is the Art Nouveau building of the former Hygenic Laboratory, a reminder of Utrecht’s historically prestigious university. The façade of the building is decorated with memorials to some of the important scientists of the time, some of whom like Davy, Bunsen and Priestley are still household names today.

The canal too is fascinating. It seemed timeless, but we learned that in fact once the city walls were demolished in 1830, its defensive function faded and it fell into disrepair. In 1973 it was drained and in part converted into a sunken motorway, but from 2010 the motorway has been removed and the canal restored as part of a general pedestrianisation of the old city. And importantly most of it now is flanked by greenspace, good for people but also for wildlife. There are now some splendid trees, dead wood is celebrated, fungi (like Shaggy Ink-caps) were springing up and there were even a few flowers for autumnal nectar, including Duke of Argyll’s Teatree and Shaggy Soldier, the latter seemingly everywhere in the urban parts of the country, perhaps an indication of what will happen in the UK.

And right next to the canal the Muze hotel, our very pleasant home for two nights in stylish surroundings, our room being themed on the nearby Centraal Museuem. On the first evening we stayed local, found Piero’s, the local Italian restaurant, and had one of the best meals of our whole trip.

For much of the following day we also stayed close by, visiting places just across the canal. We had intended to go out to see the iconic Rietveld Schröder House, built in 1924 at the very dawn of Modernist architectural design. but the Centraal Museum was so good we spent much longer there than we had expected to. A very good excuse for a return visit!

The museum was eclectic and well laid-out, exhibits ranging from the tenth-century Utrecht ship (more than 17m long and hollowed out of a single oak trunk) in the basement to a reconstruction in the attic of the studio of the graphic artist Dick Bruna, creator of the Miffy character, who lived and worked in the city.

Between the two were numerous other delights, including chairs by Rietveld (designer of the Modernist house), ladies’ fashion, a full-sized papier-mâché horse stripped down to its internal anatomical details and art from across the ages. Of course there were Mondriaans (he hailed from nearby Amersfoort), although not the abstract forms most associated with his name now, but what struck me most was a 1923 drawing of trees by Dick van Luijn, the perfect natural model for the Cube Houses we had seen in Rotterdam the day previously.

 

There were also cyanotypes of local ‘pavement plants’ and a 1913 Tourism Club poster discouraging littering: worthy messages all round and to judge from our experience the anti-littering message seems very largely to have worked.

The museum is housed in a former monastery, and its associated church was worth a visit, especially for some lovely stained glass:

Just around the corner for the museum is the Oude Hortus, the historic former university botanic garden (the main botanic garden is on the outskirts of the city, beyond the Rietveld Schröder House, and so must await a return visit). Although quite small, it packs in a lot of features:

Autumn colours were starting to blaze through the foliage…

… and special trees included a vast, ancient Ginkgo, a fruiting Medlar (showing blatantly the reason for its French name ‘cul de chien’) and a Paper Mulberry with its distinctive orange fruit clusters.

Among the herbaceous plants out in the garden were Pokeweed, Deadly Nightshade and Castor-oil Plant. All are deadly poisonous to us, but the latter two species at least hosted the sap-sucking Southern Green Shieldbug, seemingly oblivious to the toxins. And not just surviving but thriving to judge from the clusters of multicoloured nymphs, quite a contrast to the green adults.

Other invertebrates included both Roman and Banded Snails, and a few fungi around the garden included the ink-cap Coprinus micaceus.

And then there were the glasshouses, with the less hardy and often showy plants:

Of course none more showy than the centrepiece Giant Water-lilies. Interestingly one old leaf had been laid out in the dry but upside down, showing well the struts that support such a vast leaf and the fearsome prickles that presumably give it protection from aquatic herbivores.

Later in the day and on the next morning we walked up into the centre of the old city, along the attractive canals that run through as well as around the centre, forming watery threads among the many historic buildings.

But pride of place among the historic buildings must go to the fourteenth-century Dom Tower, centrepiece of the city and visible from almost everywhere, at 112.5m the tallest church tower in the country.

The cathedral that was intended to accompany the tower was never completed, and a portion of it stands across the square as the Domkerk. It may be only a portion, but it is a towering space inside, and again features some impressive stained glass.

All this in one day, followed by an al fresco dinner (with excellent local beer) under the watchful gaze of the Dom Tower…

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Next day it was back on the train, first to Amersfoort, just 15 minutes’ east, a journey which took us through some rather different countryside, of dry, sandy lowland heath and woodland.

A small city, Amersfoort comes with the seemingly de rigeur modernised railway station, and as the home of Mondriaan, his artwork (or copies thereof) are everywhere. It was also one of the few places we noticed unofficial graffiti, and even that was really quite charming in its simplicty!

Like Utrecht writ small, the old city is surrounded by a canal, with further waterways running through it, including the Eem (or Amer) river which lends its name to the town.

The watery entrances to the old city are fortified, most impressively the Koppelpoort, completed about 1425.

 

And of course there is also the huge tower in the centre, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwetoren, more than 98m tall, the third tallest church tower in the Netherlands.

Its associated church was destroyed by a historic gunpowder explosion, but that has left us with a pleasant open square with good food and drink outlets, and a very helpful Tourist Information Centre that kindly looked after our bags while we did our walk around the city. All very pleasant, and clearly on the tourist trail, but after a couple of hours we were happy to be back to the station, to head off for the next stage of our holiday, a couple of nights in Den Haag…

 

Holidaying across the North Sea: Part 1 – Harwich & Rotterdam

Britain's Wildlife, Overseas Tours - other, Travel by Rail

Our planned holiday to the Netherlands by ferry and train started a day early. Turns out that the first train to reach Harwich International ferryport on a Sunday arrives after the close of the ferry check-in….the only example all week of unjoined-up public transport! So we had to stay the (expensive) night before at the nearby Premier Inn. All very convenient, but costly because it was the weekend of the Harwich Shanty Festival. But that did give us the chance to take around our own little pirate!

When the lure of the shanties, burgers and ice cream waned and all the maritime photos had been taken….

… we headed down to Harwich Beach for a stone-skimming, shell-collecting walk.

On the beach, there was still Sea-holly and Sea Spurge in flower, alongside the increasing non-native Narrow-leaved Ragwort. Increasing, but arguably more valuable than a matter for concern: it seems not to be squeezing out native plants and unlike everything native it is flowering year-round.

And then the fruiting species – the Ragwort again, with Rock-samphire and Japanese Rose, the latter presenting a riot of colour:

Insects were few and far-between, but included a mining-bee, to guess from the date and habitat probably Sea Aster Mining Bee, while snails covered the upper beach. Most were the Striped Snail Cernuella virgata, an Essex Red Data species not previously recorded here according to the Essex Field Club map, but even more special were the hundreds of Pointed Snails Cochlicella acuta. First recorded here some 20 years ago by Jerry Bowdrey, this is still the only Essex locality for this primarily western, coastal species in Essex.

 

And then there was of course the Firebug, expertly, almost nonchalently, identified by Eleanor…

Next morning we were off early, walking down the port approach road, as so often in such localities fringed by adventive plants: Green Amaranth seems to be the flavour of this year. And so onto the ferry, with the sun trying to struggle out:

From the vantage point of the vessel, there were good views of places familiar to both of us, but not normally from this perspective. Less familiar was the sight of the Sir David Attenborough research vessel, although I neglected to take a photo amid the excitement of seeing that which so nearly became ‘Boaty McBoatface’!

On the other side of the river too, from the rolling country of the Shotley Peninsula to the trade hub of Felixstowe Port and the defensive fortifications of Landguard Point:

 

And we were off into open waters, the coast receding steadily. First recognizable waymarker was the Roughs Tower, the ‘Independent Principality of Sealand’, a WW2 gun emplacement:

Then on past the Greater Gabbard windfarm and Gannets, our first birds apart from gulls following the vessel:

 

Around mid-channel, our first and only Harbour Porpoise broke the glassy surface of the water, and several parties of migrating Brent Geese headed to the Essex coast. Migration of smaller birds was also under way, with fly-by Starlings, Redwings and Meadow Pipits going west.

And before too long, signs our journey was coming to an end, with the vast windfarm arrays off the Dutch coast and the remarkably busy shipping channels heading for the ports at Rotterdam and elsewhere:

We docked at the Hook of Holland a little ahead of time after such an easy crossing, and took the Metro into Rotterdam city centre for a lovely comfortable night in the Holiday Inn Express.

Next morning, down to the maritime area, all canals, bridges and former docks, Great Crested Grebes and Coots, and especially in the old harbour, historic vessels, the sort of barges we have in Essex for shallow coastal waters which would have also traded between the two areas.

But all of this wateriness is now in the context of massive modern development, given that the city was essentially flattened by Nazi bombs in 1940. And what wonderful, crazy development, where the imagination of architects has been left to run riot, seemingly the only design parameters being to look completely different to everything else!

And the best example of these are the Cube Houses. Wonderful to look at, like tree-houses clustered around a glade, on the bridge over a main road, on which the sun decided to shine for almost the only time during the whole holiday …

… they are equally bizarre inside (one unit is open for public visiting), with three stories, angled walls and ceilings, and windows facing in all directions (including downwards). I’m sure one gets used to the spatial disorientation given time!

Other ultramodern buildings include the Markthal, a Swiss-roll of flats around an open market space, lined with what has been described as the largest artwork in the world. The blog of our previous visit describes (and illustrates) why this is so important to us!

But, there was history as well. Erasmus’ home is long gone, but celebrated, next to the (sadly closed) Laurenskerk, Gothic but extensively rebuilt after bomb damage:

Nieuwe Delftse Poort by Cor Kraat is a modern reconstruction of the skeleton of one of the old city gates, adorned with original fragments salvaged from its bombing.

And reputedly the only remaining original building by the old harbour is the impressive Art Nouveau White House:

Then, to complete the picture, the wild space, whether deliberate, like grass between the tramtracks, or street trees bringing colour into the grey day, including something we had never seen before – Holly leaves nibbled extensively by (we presume) Vine Weevils….

.. or unplanned, nature fighting back, in the form of pavement plants. Among the usual suspects like Shaggy Soldier there was also a Pokeweed growing out of a crack at the base of a wall, something we have seen previously only as a deliberately cultivated plant, and Death Cap mushrooms thrusting themselves between the paving blocks.

And so after a fine lunch at the Baek restaurant, it was off to Rotterdam Centraal Station to continue our journey. What a remarkable building that is, and indeed what an amazing experience to embark on an intercity journey with only the flash of a plastic card, and to be waiting under a canopy, both letting light flood in but also capturing its power with a full array of solar panels. That’s civilization for you!

Some snapshots of London: Elephant & Castle, Fitzrovia and the Barbican

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Bus, Travel by Rail

For our September short break it was again a one-nighter, another inspiration from the Guardian series Where tourists seldom tread…: the Elephant & Castle in south London.

Vibrant, bus-rich, a mix of Victoriana right through to Erno Goldfinger’s Modernism and bang up-to-date high-rise glass and steel (including our Travelodge in Ceramic Tower), we were successfully navigated around the sights by following one of the walks on GoJauntly.

Sunday afternoon, the skies were clear blue, and the atmosphere buzzing especially in the East Street market, the perfect antidote to an era of disconnect from food, with fast food deliveries and pristine, overpackaged supermarket fare. The Elephant & Castle pub provided the fuel for our walk, supplemented half way by the very best cup of coffee ever from Hermanos, underneath the arches, one outlet for the Colombian community hereabouts. Highly recommended!

Architectural highlights included the Victorian tenements …

… and workhouse (now a cinema museum) with associated water tower:

The old Southwark Town Hall (now called Walworth Town Hall) is another magnificent historic building, with Art Deco features and a wonderfully wild garden fronting the main road:

The tube station itself is also classic, one of the red-tiled originals designed by Leslie Green, now sporting a green wall on its back side:

The delight of this walk is that it doesn’t take in just the recognised highlights, but other points of interest, from the Victoria sewerage stink-pipes, to the ‘memorial’ metal cladding of an electricity substation to celebrate the life of Michael Faraday, and the backdrop to Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ C’mon on Eileen… just the sort of fascinating randomalia that excites us!

And then of course the green spaces that we always seek out. Around the backwoods of the Cinema Museum, it felt like nothing could intrude on the peace and quiet, remarkably just 2km from Charing Cross, the usually stated centrepoint of London. Buddleia was springing from the margins, Shaggy Soldier from the cracks in the pavement, and in one cracked wall, a seepage colony of ferns and Wall Pennywort (or Navelwort). Typically found in the westerly fringes of the UK, just two localities of the latter are shown in Greater London on the NBN Atlas, both north of the river.

In St Mary’s churchyard, the church long gone, it was a delight to see a group of girls at once intrigued and horrified and thrilled as a Common Darter tried to land on their outstretched hands…

In the allotments, signs of micromoths: the leaves of Figs bore the scars of the Fig-leaf Skeletonizer and scrambling Hops with blotches of the Hop Beauty, another species not shown from Greater London on the NBN Atlas:

The street trees too were interesting, including profusely fruiting Pride-of-India Kolreuteria paniculata and Honey Locust Gleditsia triacanthos, with long purple-blotched pods, as well as Norway Maple, its leaves bearing the mines of the micromoth Stigmella aceris: 

Finally, the newest green space of all, Elephant Park, naturalistic planting, exciting hard landscaping using fully interpreted rocks, formed as a series of inviting nooks and spaces for adults and kids alike: sadly we didn’t have Eleanor with us!

The Elephant & Castle was a great place to spend a sunny Sunday, everywhere the Strata building looking down on us like a benevolent old owl….

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Another blue-sky dawn (unexpectedly so) for our second day, although the breeze delivered an equinoctial chill as we headed out by bus to Oxford Circus to walk the area of Fitzrovia.

In such vibrant light, Broadcasting House was irresistible to the cameras:

Wise words: George Orwell’s should be etched on our hearts as well as the stone. Sadly they are as, if not more, relevant today as when written, but even chalked aphorisms have resonance…

A walk around Fitzrovia and parts of Bloomsbury and Soho took us past many fine photogenic buildings and features …

… but none more iconic of the London skyline than the BT Tower, like the Strata building at Elephant & Castle an old friend peering over our shoulders at almost every step.

When our thoughts turned to food, we made an excellent choice of the Fitzroy Tavern, after which the district was named apparently. Very good food and drink, all in the most sumptuously ornamental surroundings:

 

But the ornamentation of the Fitzroy Tavern paled into insignificance compared with the opulence of the main reason for us visiting the area. The site of the old Middlesex Hospital has now been redeveloped into luxury high-rise, with some attractive public space, but tucked in the middle is the sole survivors from former days, Fitzrovia Chapel, now restored and fairly recently opened to visitors.

Rather unprepossessing from the outside, stepping into that gilded space was like being transported to Italy, without the crowds. Built in the latter years of the 19th century, its Italianate interior is clad with almost Byzantine mosaics and marble, vibrant in the flickering candlelight.

Marble features everywhere, but most remarkably in the wall panels that showcase the inner patterns and colours of the different forms. You can see anything in them, but for me the top two are as different as the fire at the heart of a John Martin dramatic landscape and the Great Wave graphic Japanese art of Hokusai:

A remarkable building and well worth our visit by itself. But surprisingly there was a last delight to come, much more recent in origin. Just outside Tottenham Court Road station we chanced upon the Outernet London experience, immersive spaces of colour and imagery, just as at the Chapel but with added movement and sound. Awe-inspiring in its own digital way, we hadn’t heard of it before, but since it opened in 2022 it claims (on its own website) to be ‘the most visited cultural attraction in the UK’…

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A couple of days later, it was back to London for an afternoon and evening, to see a concert in the Barbican Hall.

The weather was the same as the weekend: sparkling sunshine, producing intense light and shadows: when Brutalism gives its best!

Concrete and sharp edges…

Art …

Historical remnants….

Greenery to soften the lines…

And water to provide life and movement. What’s not to love in the Barbican?

 

A day out in Sudbury…

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail, WildEssex

The next in our series of explorations using public transport of the towns that are so near to home that they get overlooked in search of more distant delights, following our day in Needham Market a couple of weeks ago, was to Sudbury. Suffolk but almost Essex, in that part of our walk was south of the River Stour which everywhere but here where Suffolk invades Essex would have placed us firmly in the land of the Saxons.

One of the great things about Sudbury is arrival along the Gainsborough Line, from Marks Tey, up the Colne valley, crossing the Chappel Viaduct. Then over the watershed to the Stour valley, through Bures, then arriving into Sudbury. Stepping out of the station, and in just a few paces we were out onto the water meadows, a gentle and pastoral landscape with willow copses and reed-fringed dykes, and just occasional glimpses of the river at its heart.

Thence onto the old railway line, the vital cross link from Sudbury up to Bury, the closure of which must have helped split East Anglia in half, and of course contributed to the dominance of the motor vehicle, one of the least pleasant aspects of the town. Whatever, the old track which continues apparently at least as far as Long Melford provides a very pleasant, tree-lined walking route, with the metalwork of the bridges  providing a direct link to its previous incarnation.

In the dappled shade when the sun came out, the air was thick with the alluring musk of Ivy, and Ivy Bees were still active. Other invertebrates included scavenging Velvet Mites, sun-basking flies like Phaonia valida, an autumnal species with red-brown legs and scutellum, and a Kidney-spot Ladybird.

Galls were everywhere on the tree leaves, from spangles (caused by the gall-wasp Neuroterus quercus-baccarum) on the Oaks, to hairy Eriophyes similis mite galls along the edges of Blackthorn leaves and those of the gall-midge Hartigiola annulipes especially adjacent to the midrib of Beech leaves.

Lots of other symptoms of other organisms in the leaves as well: Beech had leaf-mines caused by the caterpillars of the micromoth Stigmella hemargyrella, Field Maple hosted the related Stigmella aceris (until recently very rare in East Anglia), and Sycamore leaves were blotched with the fungal Tar-spot Rhytisma acerinum.

While galls, mines and blotches are especially a feature of tree leaves, they are elsewhere too: there were mines of the fly Agromyza reptans (or pseudoreptans, as the mines cannot conclusively be separated) and midge galls of Dasyneura urticae on Stinging Nettles. It was only when I looked at the photo later that I realised there was a photobomber, a tiny parasitic wasp, presumably seeking to parasitize the gall-causer: a food chain in a photo!

Crossing and recrossing the river, on one side were the fringes of Sudbury, on the other the open valley…

Thence to King’s Marsh and the Common Lands, much more open, save for the sloe-laden Blackthorn-lined river.

Glaucous Bulrush and Arrowhead indicated at least reasonable water quality, and the open water was teeming with fish. A Little Egret, its plumes whipped up by the stiff breeze, stalked and stabbed, but its only success was a half-aerial lunge when it grabbed and ate a passing Common Darter dragonfly. The neighbouring Grey Wagtail was, quite sensibly, keeping a respectful distance…

Time for lunch: as we were beside the Mill Hotel, what better? And it was a very fine plate of fish and chips for us on this occasion: not even the ‘feature’ of a mummified cat could put us off!

Returning through the town, it was a wander through history. Starting at St Gregory’s Church, it was closed, but the immense flints in the walls provided the backdrop for several bunches of Firebugs. This is a species that is going places, having first colonized mainland Britain only five or so years ago, then found mainly in warmer, coastal fringes, but now spreading further inland. While the NBN map shows no sites around Sudbury, there seem to be few limits on its East Anglian distribution now. And churchyards are a des. res., often containing both of its foodplants, Mallow and Lime.

Flints also featured in a much more modern building, Gainsborough’s House, along with some artistically laid brickwork, bricks fired from clay being the other local building material, after timber and flint. But neither of us being fans of his art, we didn’t venture inside….

Looking down Market Hill, the hipped roofs show the Flemish influence in its development, the persecuted Huguenots settling here and bringing with them the silk-weaving industry for which the town then became famous.

We passed numerous half-timbered houses, then towards the town centre, historic municipal buildings …

… reaching the centrepiece, the former church/now arts centre. And there we learned of the not always glorious history of the town, including its anonymous caricaturing as a rotten borough by Charles Dickens, and its role in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1391. Simon de Sudbury, then Lord Chancellor of England, pushed the peasants too far by introducing a further poll tax, effectively triggering the revolt, and lost his head in the process, now to be found preserved in St Gregory’s Church, apparently, while the rest of him lies in Canterbury Cathedral with a cannonball in place of the head!.

All that was left then was to settle in the sun by the water outside the Quay Theatre, watching Willow Emeralds in the marginal vegetation, while waiting for the train. A fascinating day out, and only 20 miles from home!

 

Sunbury & Surbiton

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

Dipping our toes back into our world of monthly short breaks by public transport, we headed out to Sunbury-on-Thames. For no other reason than Jude had seen an embroidery museum that interested her … and there are pubs, a hotel and of course the river Thames. All we need for a couple of days away!

So we headed there, with the prospect of glorious summer weather changing for the worse. Sunbury Park looked interesting, but it was remarkably dry. Like the Serengeti when we arrived, deluged the following night, and no doubt within a very few days it will be greening up.

In the park is the very well preserved walled garden. Not my idea of a good garden in its over-regimented formality, but there were a few interesting plants including Trumpet-vine in flower and Carolina Silverbell in fruit.

And of course the café, and refuge from the first of the sharp showers that came our way. Right next to it was the embroidery exhibition, featuring the Sunbury Millennium Embroidery, a remarkably detailed piece of work highlighting the important features of the local community, including its historic buildings and abundant Thames-side wildlife. While perhaps most meaningful to locals and not worth the travel from afar just to see it, as part of a wider interest visit as ours was it certainly passed a good few minutes. And kept us dry!

And so down to the River Thames. Not the easiest of access, because too many long stretches of what should be a public asset have been privatised by wealth. But wherever access is possible the views of the river are very attractive, encompassing a well-wooded southern shore, islands, moorings, locks and weirs.

And as always, green space and natural margins provides for wildlife, including Harlequin Ladybirds and a Green Shieldbug; a distinctively marked Gelis ichneumon wasp (possibly G. areator) and a wax-secreting aphid; as well as several galls including the sawfly Euura bridgmanii on broad-leaved willows and the mite Eriophyes pyri on Rowan.

Perhaps the best view of all, from the Magpie pub with its riverfront terrace. As we discovered, the umbrellas are pretty water-resistant, and as the afternoon showers merged into heavy rain, the open, dry terrace seemed a good place to linger for the duration. Lots of time to appreciate the local birds, from Red Kites and Rose-ringed Parakeets, to Mute Swan families and Egyptian Geese, and even a couple of Kingfishers. Ripples in the river, stirred up by the freshening breeze and sprinkled with raindrops, made for photographic opportunities that lasted for a good pint or two! Indeed, it was so welcoming that we returned there for our evening meal.

Lower Sunbury had plenty of other interesting buildings as well, including our very comfortable accommodation, the Flower Pot.

And, after a very rainy night, an excellent breakfast. A bus drivers’ strike thwarted our plans to move on by bus, but it did give us the opportunity in the morning to look at and into St Mary’s Church. Some interesting-looking lichens in the churchyard were completely eclipsed by the interior glass and decor, in pre-Raphaelite/Eastern Orthodox style. Very impressive indeed!

And then it was off by train to our final, much anticipated destination, the Art Deco masterpiece that is Surbiton station.

And as an added bonus, once inside we found it is now the home to the restored William Blake-inspired mosaic panels of art and poetry that we had last seen several years ago in a rather battered state underneath the arches near Waterloo Station.

So far as the rest of Surbiton is concerned, it felt a whole lot more real than Sunbury, populated by real people living normal lives. Sadly St. Andrew’s Church that looked so  dramatic inside online was closed. But then there was always Wetherspoons, a converted early 20th century lecture hall. However we eschewed the charms of the cheap for the lovely atmosphere, good beer and great value lunch at the independent Elm Tree pub, complete with Guinness mural. A fine way to round off our return to the world of short breaks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A day out in Needham Market

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

Our first day out for a month, and so much has changed. The memory of rain while I was in hospital has long evaporated, and we are back into drought. Summer has become autumn already. We headed by rail to Needham Market, somewhere we haven’t been, other than speeding through on the train, for a decade. Just because we can!

Our walk was along the River Gipping, starting at the impressive station, Grade 2 listed in ‘mock Elizabethan’ style, one of the few stations to have been unceremoniously dumped by Beeching but subsequently reopened. Thence, through the Cattle Tunnel, it was onto the grassland known as the Camping Ground, recreational both now and in history: ‘campan’ was a mediaeval ball game that was played there and variations of which evolved into both rugby and soccer.

Little to see in the droughted grassland itself apart from that hardiest of late summer nectar sources Yarrow, and surrounded by tree plantations, including Field Maple covered in the mite galls of Aceria macrochela, another sign of the advancing season. Another gall was that of the midge Dasineura crataegi, forming clustered shoots and spiny leaves on Hawthorn. We hadn’t seen this before: it seems to be only sparsely known on the NBN in East Anglia, although there is one recorded site just a kilometre or so down the valley.

At least by the River Gipping there was moisture, even though the flow was evidently at a low ebb. A few Banded Demoiselles, Willow Emeralds and Common Darters were out hunting, as indeed were flocks of pondskaters searching for trapped insects to suck dry on the meniscus. In common with so many other rivers at this time of year, the dominant plant was Himalayan Balsam, undeniably beautiful despite its habit of choking out native plants. But without it, what would bumblebees do…it was buzzing! Only Purple Loosestrife was fighting its corner valiantly against the balsamic onslaught and yes, it too was feeding insects, including Small and Green-veined whites.

In just a few more open locations other water plants included Water Mint and Gipsywort, while up on the drier bank sides, struggling through the Nettles, were some lovely specimens of Small Teasel, only to be found in this semi-shaded, ‘near to but not in water’ niche, and not a common plant hereabouts.

The shade was provided by Alders, and fruiting Blackthorn (a good year for sloe gin is in the offing!), Alder Buckthorn and Dogwood, with scrambling Hops, not yet pollinated showing there is still life in summer yet!

Plentiful insect life in the riverine corridor included Commas, Peacock caterpillars, a lumbering Elephant Hawkmoth larva seeking out bare ground for pupation, and Dock Bugs in a complete range of instars. A smart parasitoid wasp might have been Bracon otiosus, but they are legion and there are no accessible sources of information and images.

Further upstream the river has been made to work, with channels cut from it to power the water mills, the still, impounded waters covered in dense mats of Least Duckweed …

… while Hawks Mill now stands impotently (but attractively) over the waters it once harnessed, creating abstract reflections of the Mill Stream walls.

Into the town, first stop was the impressive St John the Baptist Church, with its magnificent double hammerbeam roof. It was here ten years ago that, encouraged by Jude, I first let my eyes and heart appreciate the wonder of ecclesiastical architecture: it’s not just ‘a pile of old stones’!!

And the rest of the village is also impressively historic, with a fine High Street, although  sadly suffering from the curse of cars, all seemingly driving on through, not stopping and spending. Thank goodness then for our final stop the Rampant Horse pub: an outstanding lunch, including some of the best whitebait I have ever had, plus sea bream for me and Mediterranean vegetable risotto for Jude. That and a couple of pints and it was back to the station. A fine first foray out, all in the name of a sustainable recuperation, and we will be back, especially to that pub! And next step, back into the pattern of monthly short breaks…not long to wait now!

 

A Steaming Day at Crossness Pumping Station

Britain's Wildlife, Miscellaneous, Travel by Bus, Travel by Rail

Crossness Pumping Station is a key part of the sewage treatment system designed by Joseph Bazalgette in the mid-19th century to try and ensure that London never again suffered from a ‘Great Stink’ from untreated sewage pouring into the Thames, as it did most famously in 1858.

The components of this system have stood the test of time, delivering the capacity needed until the construction of the Thames Tideway tunnel, opened and completed in 2025, although not without controversy, given its cost, and missed opportunity to manage combined rainwater/sewage flows sustainably, by opening lost rivers and retaining and enhancing water-absorbing greenspaces.

Bazalgette’s system included an extensive system of street sewers, with two intercepting outfall sewers, one each side of the river, reaching pumping stations at Beckton (north) and Crossness (south), which lifted the sewage for gravity discharge into the Thames. Of course times changed and sewage treatment works were retrofitted at each of the pumping locations, and now Beckton is claimed to be the biggest treatment works in Europe.

Those who delivered public works in the Victorian era were clearly not afraid to spend a little more money to raise the utilitarian to a thing of beauty. We have seen Abbey Mills Pumping Station from a distance in the past in the middle of the vast Beckton works, been fascinated but never had the chance to visit, so when we discovered the open days at Crossness, including ‘steaming days’ when the giant pumps would be in motion, we just had to go!

Crossness Pumping Station, on those special days, is approached on a vintage (rattly!) Routemaster bus from Abbey Wood rail station, thence a narrow-gauge railway out to the Pumping Station itself, the air laced with a reminder from the modern sewage treatment plant of its past purpose. 

From the outside, the station seems so much more ornate than the 20th century public utilities we are used to …

… but then you get inside, and are greeted with a riot of colour and ironwork. Closed in 1956, the building has been substantially restored, and opened to the public on special days since 2016. And the restoration lives up to Pevsner’s description: “a masterpiece of engineering – a Victorian cathedral of ironwork”.

At the heart of the pumping station were four (others were added later) huge steam-driven pumps, raising sewage by 9 to 12 metres, 6 tonnes being lifted by each stroke (11 per minute) of each engine into a high-level holding reservoir to be discharged on an ebbing tide.

The pumps are in various stages of restoration but one was operating on our visit, thrillingly so even for one like me who is definitely not of the ‘cloth cap, smell of the grease, covered in soot’ fraternity!

And the unrestored, rust-laden sections are engagingly artistic and worth the visit in themselves.



Apparently, nature on the adjacent Erith marshes is good, but not for today with some torrential downpours. So the only wildlife of note was the remarkably abundant fruiting of Wild Plums, the fallen fruit forming into unusual groundscapes.



Then it was back on the bus to Abbey Wood, into the Abbey Arms for one of the best Sunday roasts (pork belly) I have ever had the pleasure to consume.

Afterwards we still had a while before our train, and the sharp showers had blown through, so we took a walk to Lesnes Abbey, an interesting area and one we felt merited a longer visit some time.

So, a fascinating day out, an one which fulfilled its primary aim of taking our minds off what was to come, my major vascular abdominal surgery just five days hence!

Well that is now in the past. Recovery continues and thanks to our wonderful NHS all went swimmingly, from initial diagnosis to surveillance to a plan of action, with delivery of the repair within three months from action being triggered. A week ago right now I was under the knife. Six days later I walked out of Colchester General with a stapled tummy and new plastic abdominal aorta, looking forward to the next 65 years. And nothing but fulsome praise for our NHS and its rainbow of wonderful staff #♥theNHS: I just hope other countries who have provided staff have the trained staff for their own needs as well…

 

From Blackpool to Leeds, via Blackburn and Burnley

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

Our second short break of this month was a trip with a purpose, to see granddaughter Eleanor dance in a national competition at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens. Which she did beautifully, and it gave us the chance to explore that remarkable set of buildings. Last time we were in Blackpool, it was March, pre-season and closed…

So this time plenty of opportunity to enjoy the surroundings of the Empress Ballroom and the photogenic Art Deco delights of its setting:

   

Away from the dancing, Blackpool was  of course loud and lairy, night and day, as the holiday crowds sweltered under incessant sun or sweated through the airless nights. But it is not without its charms, one being the tower always looking on over your shoulder…

… and others being the piers and beach. Sitting on the North Pier, watching the tideline figures, like a live-action Lowry beachscape or even Another Place (just down the coast from here), we also noticed good numbers of 7-spot Ladybirds, potentially some of the many we had seen sweep into East Anglia a week previously, boldly going ever westwards…

And then there are other architectural delights, including the cinema-turned-drag show venue and department store-turned-Wetherspoons, the telephone box street-art and even the rather elegant façade of our Premier Inn.

But after the weekend, the weather turned and it was time for us to head off. Burnley was our stop for the night, but first Blackburn gave us a great couple of hours’ break on our train journey. The cathedral, almost next to the station, was a wonderful mix of architecture, art and wildlife, all delivered to us with a warm welcome.

Externally, a church of two halves – the traditional and the excitingly modern…

… with lofty interiors…

… filled with colour and light…

Art, both outside …

… and inside…

… together with geology, from the lovely pastel colours of the stone columns to the marine fossils featured in the interior flagstones.

And then outside in the Cathedral Court, a very pleasant herb garden with Rosemary Beetles on most Lavender flower-spikes, a leaf-cutter bee on the Tansy flowers and on the Sage leaves, two species of leafhopper: the common Eupteryx melissae, and the much scarcer E. decemnotata, here at the very northern edge of its known distribution.

Although this was the only spot in Blackburn we visited, we both felt quite drawn to it and we may well return to explore further. But this time, Burnley beckoned. Why? Well it has railway stations (three of them) and it has featured in our favourite source of travel inspiration, Where tourists seldom tread, in The Guardian.

And, as we discovered, a landscape of old mills, the River Brun through its centre, and almost surrounded by the Leeds & Liverpool Canal…

 

There were Grey Wagtails feeding and breeding alongside the water, together with Rosebay Willowherb and Tufted Vetch in full flower, Burnet Rose in fruit, and all manner of pollinators visiting the canalside flowers.

Half way along the stretch of canal we were intending to walk, there was a very convenient pub, the Finsley Gate Wharf (and a bridge to get to it!) for a rest and refreshment, with the view of an attractively decaying disused rail bridge…

Here in the old wharf basin, marshland vegetation has colonised: Purple Loosestrife, Marsh Woundwort, Hairy Willowherb, Water Mint, Water Forget-me-not and Hemlock Water-dropwort, with large numbers of dragons and damsels, including Common Blue Damselfly, Banded Demoiselle and Brown Hawker, all very active in the warmth.

Then it was the long northward straight, a high-level canal, above the rooftops, offering panoramic views, including Pendle Hill as a backdrop.

Alongside the towpath much of the way ran a stone wall, upon which there were numerous mammalian scats, full of Cherry stones, among the hairy moss-cushions of Grimmia pulvinata. The scats had all the appearance of Pine Marten poos, and were in very typical, prominent locations. But their presence in the area is far from established: while they are spreading in the northern Pennines, down to Settle and also the southern Pennines, from Bradford to Sheffield, the latest map on the National Biodiversity Network Atlas shows the nearest record in the vicinity of Todmorden, over the watershed into Yorkshire, near the head of the Calder Valley. The canal and towpath certainly provides an excellent dispersal corridor.

Our Premier Inn was not the best. Some distance from rail stations and rather basic in facilities, the room was at least well insulated from the nearby road noise. But the food provision, especially the seriously inattentive service, was perhaps indicative of a ‘captive audience’: there are no other outlets within easy walking distance, so perhaps they didn’t need to try…?

On the other hand though, it is convenient for those walking the towpath, and it is set adjacent to a large greenspace, Thompson Park, through which runs the River Brun, fringed by Alders, their leaves with numerous mite galls and many munching Alder Leaf-beetle larvae…

Our last day, and heavy rain was forecast, so we decided to head early for Leeds, hoping to get into the rain shadow east of the Pennines. Trudging to the station in the rain through Burnley probably coloured our perception of the place, but it felt unloved, with dereliction and litter all too obvious, despite the pleasantly pedestrianised town centre. Not a place we feel moved to revisit…

The rail journey to Leeds was very attractive, albeit in the rain, downhill all the way once over the watershed, through Todmorden, Hebden Bridge and Bradford. But once in Leeds, we soon found ourselves immersed again in an urban cityscape featuring canals, locks, rivers and bridges… and the very best meal of our holiday in the Adelphi Pub!

We had an afternoon to wander around, in improving weather. The Minster was closed, and felt rather bleak and forbidding from the outside…

… whereas the Cathedral was welcoming, with some very positive messages of compassion and inclusivity, so often lacking in such establishments. Read the story of the Lampedusa cross here…

And finally it was into the City Museum. with everything from a Miffy exhibition to a Roman mosaic with a remarkable Wolf illustration! And the natural history section was equally interesting, with very strong conservation messages (lacking only the ‘elephant in the room’ – to breed less!!)

Leeds felt very vibrant, the second time we have been there in three years, and a destination we may well return to in the future.

The Ladybird Blizzard at Walton-on-the-Naze

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail, WildEssex

Our long-planned day out in Walton last week was hijacked by circumstances: it came at the height of the recent massive insect immigration event. Everywhere the air was thick with flying ladybirds (seemingly just one species, the 7-spot) while every Fennel, Wild Carrot and Hogweed umbel was covered in hoverflies (mostly half-a-dozen species):

… and Buddleia was a-flutter with butterflies, of which the Large Whites and Red Admirals at least were likely immigrants, alongside presumably locally bred Brimstone and Peacocks.



The beach was clearly a first arrival point, with many hoverfly and ladybird casualties, and the lucky ones just resting after the rigours of a sea crossing. While not on the scale of the ‘red tide’ I saw in Bridlington in 1976, the simple number of flying insects was phenomenal.



However, our main reason for visiting was to look at the back-side of Walton: the town celebrates its beach and cliffs, its pier and amenities. And rightly so. But it has another side, the Backwaters, a tidal embayment which almost turns the outer part of the town into an island on spring tides.



As we found, the back-side is lovely, saltmarsh with Sea-lavender and Golden Samphire, sea walls with Crow Garlic, each bulbil a tasty mouth freshener on what was turning into another hot day. Alexanders too, the seeds now ripe, becoming aromatic peppercorns, and Duke-of-Argyll’s Tea-plant, soon to be the source of goji berries. A feast indeed!

Around the yacht harbour, there were in excess of a hundred Swallows, no doubt relishing the abundance of aerial food, more Swallows together than I have seen in the whole of Essex this summer. The way their activity ebbed and flowed, erupting every few minutes in twittering crescendos, seemingly unrelated to the presence of any potential predators, was fascinating. It was almost as if we were witnessing the internal battle between two competing and contradictory forces: the urge to migrate, and the counter-pull of the rich supply of food, right there, right now…



Walton Mere, a former boating lake captured from the estuary in times past is now barely visible, the sea walls surrounding it now largely broken down. The Mere has been welcomed back into the Backwaters. This was a pleasure to see…last time I was there twenty or more years ago was to express my official disapproval of plans to fill in the Mere and build flats on it, changing the whole face of the town (and no doubt the bank balance of the proponent). Still, had the worst happened the flats would probably have sunk into the Essex ooze by now!

The problems with exploring the back-side of Walton are the interruptions to access round the sea wall. But the one stretch that is available was very pleasant, alongside a bank of extravagantly scented Japanese Rose, the leaves of which harboured large numbers of Box Bugs, in all instars save for adult, as well as clutches of golden eggs, like precious jewels.

And so we crossed to the beach, moving from solitude to the summer masses in just a couple of hundred metres. But the young Sea-slaters on the groynes were oblivious to the beach activity, and very active in the sunshine.

All that was left to complete our day by the seaside was a lovely snack and pint in the Victory and an ice-cream overlooking the sea, with battalions of ladybirds and hoverflies still thick in the air.