Antique Victorian gas lanterns are much treasured these days. What really amazes me is that I can clearly remember, in the 1950s, these street lanterns were still in use and still gas powered with incandescent mantles. (It's worth enlarging the photo to see the delicate little crown pieces at the corner edges).
There was a church and an important ferry crossing here in the year 965 - 100 years before the Normans arrived. The existing tower is medieval, the mass of the church is a modern building following a destructive fire in the 1940s. The London Apprentice inn building has been there since the 18th century. The river tide is low, exposing the beach. In the past it could flood up to the church and protective walls were built.
Just a quick glance from the riverside terrace outside, towards the bar inside.
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.....we have walked through Bentford canal docks, seen the "Golden Mile", passed through Syon Park with the magnificent glasshouse and rare breed cattle, stopped for an apple pie in the London Apprentice inn, and are now halfway back to Richmond. We take a glance backwards, seeing the old ferry landing-point at Isleworth and in the distance the rising towers of "greyscale" Brentford on the Golden Mile. A tiny world of past and present, and the bit in the middle of that, all in the cup of your hand.
Grey day or sunny day, it's always a good photo.
In Isleworth, beside the Thames, is the London Apprentice inn. It's old. It sits beside the even older church and the ancient ferry crossing over to Richmond. It serves nice apple pie.
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Moving westward out of the idyllic atmosphere of Syon Park with its grazing cattle and magnificent glasshouse, and its great house we see the tower of the medieval church by the river Thames at Isleworth.
No matter where I am, city or country, here or in foreign lands I am drawn by the effect of buildings and landscape grouped together in their unique local styles.
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Traditional, rare breed longhorn cattle (I think they are most likely Scottish Highland Longhorns, but I'm not certain) graze in the parkland of the Duke of Northumberland's great house at Syon, near Isleworth.
This parkland also contains the magnificent glasshouse I showed several days ago.
From Brentford canal docks we cross the River Brent and enter Syon Park. We move from the Industrial Revolution and urban "grey" into the "English Landscape" within little more than 200 metres.
Over the next few days we'll walk from there back along the Thames into Richmond.
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You've already seen this from a slightly different perspective, but I wanted to show this wide-angle shot because it places the glass-house in the Duke of Northumberland's parkland at Syon House firmly into its "English Landscape" setting. You enter the park and come round the bend and... !!!!... there it is!!! It's quite breathtaking to see in this context.
Even more interesting: the Duke's parkland and his great house are on the west bank of the Brent. Here we have "noble magnificence", but immediately opposite on the east bank of the river we have the highly industrial Brentford canal docks. These contrasts make a walking tour even more interesting.
The great glass-house in the gardens of Syon House.
Camera: Olympus E3
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