At the Village Flower and Produce Show - # 08/175

It looks as if Mrs. Smith has won First Prize for her courgettes yet again.

Hotel - # 08/170

Experimental night shot.

Take a balanced view of things - # 08/47

There's always a nice shot, even on grey, damp, apparently featureless days. Coming up over the crest of a slope on Richmond Hill I saw "the Hotel", "the Tree", and "the Church Tower" (lower down) - a nice threesome: I was in the right position to see the symmetry.

Camera: Olympus E3

In good company - # 259

Here's my "bar fly" shot for this week end. No dramatic deep contrast with moody b&w treatment. No ambiguity or existential inferences. Just a nice drink and a good chat after a job well done.

The Dysart Arms (an "Arts and Crafts" English style pub crafted in 1902) has been refurbished, preserving and enhancing the best of the "Arts and Crafts" features and combining them with a very clean minimalist 21st C uncluttered decor.

The music programme is now extensive and nightly, with excellent musicians in jazz and classical styles, vocal and instrumental. The sound system is top notch. (Yes, I do know the owner, but that is incidental).

Karl Moritz admires the steps of Douglas House - # 152

A couple of hundred yards from Rutland Lodge Karl pauses to admire delicate iron work and planting around the steps of a large mansion called Douglas House, built in 1680. It would please him to know that today this mansion is part of the campus of the German School for London. The grounds now host a very fine modern school building developed in the late 1970s.

Karl Moritz pauses to admire Rutland Lodge - # 151

Only a few paces from Petersham House, Karl's eye is drawn to it's neighbour, the three storied Rutland Lodge, also dating from about 1680, and he pauses to admire the decorated line dividing the first floor from the top floor, the colour and quality of the brickwork, and the overall proportions of this large "house in the country", fitting for any "gentleman of the first rate".

At this point one might turn to the painter William Hogarth and his comments on London society in the series "the Rake's Progress".

Karl Moritz notices the architectural gems of Petersham - # 150

Within the tiny area of Petersham Karl would have noticed a dense concentration of country mansions built by "first and second rate" gentry needing to be near the King when he too was "out of London".

I'll try to delight you by showing extra special little details of the mansions. We can be certain that this is almost exactly as Karl would have seen them, and it is the kind of detail he would have picked out.

After passing St. Peter's church in its tiny lane, Karl turns right into the narrow main road (now almost overwhelmed by motor traffic), and passes No. 143, Petersham House, built about 1680, and admires the unusual doom shape over the elegant front door. He also notices the "fire insurance plate" pinned to the wall, to advise the firemen that they will be paid for tackling the blaze.

A walk down into Petersham - # 149

I'm imagining that Karl Moritz probably spent his morning in Richmond exploring the villages of Petersham and Ham. So you'll get the benefit of seeing what he probably saw but did not write about. (Although Daniel Defoe did write about it in his "A tour through the whole of the island of Great Britain").

If Karl Moritz had walked directly down the slope of the meadow towards the white house (Petersham Lodge) he would have come first to St. Peter's church. Here you can see the church with it's early 18th century "new building": a christian church had already been here for about 1,000 years before even Karl Moritz arrived.

Spring in the city - # 75

.....turning a sharp bend in the road I was suddenly amazed by the scene. The natural beauty of this grouping of trees is truly remarkable. The cedar tree is probably 300 yrs old. Spring has dressed the others in their full blossom of red, white, and leaves of soft green. This is the A307, a very narrow but extremely busy urban road linking Richmond to Kingston, at the point where it passes the Fox and Duck pub and the long "Eastern Avenue" approach to Ham House.

A good night of live jazz - # 48

A good night out on Thursday! Live jazz at the Dysart Arms, at the bottom of the Star and Garter Hill in Petersham.
http://www.timeout.com/london/venues/62411/dysart_arms.html

Have a good weekend, everyone.