Well what a weekend … I’ve walked above the Fleet and traversed the Crouch, some way inland.
The mate wanted to visit a Sherlock Holmes exhibition at the Museum of London and look up St Pancras Old Church where a little something of interest stood. We’d tickets for the Royal Society of Marine Artists annual exhibition too, so on Saturday (yesterday), eschewing the weekly work party down at our club (which I have recently started doing after a 10 month lay off…) we went up to London Town.
Evening in the Pool, River Thames – 1890, by Frederick Winkfield. It shows the Pool looking from a vantage point near where Tower Bridge sits looking towards London Bridge and Billingsgate…
The exhibition about Sherlock Holmes runs for a while longer. It not only covers what he wrote, but where the settings were and what London (in particular) was like at the time. To do this some fine art works were on view including some by the likes of Whistler and Winkfield – who also painted one of the earliest pieces depicting the new Houses of Parliament after its rebuilding. Personally I prefer the glorious work by W L Wyllie. The exhibition interested me for those asides … lovely views around the river. Grand.
Leaving the Museum of London we headed north to St Pancras and found the old church on its hill lording it above the Midland Road on one side, under which sits the Fleet River, and the massive width of those rail lines that sneak into those two fabulous stations of St Pancras and Kings Cross… Why go here?
An early 1800s etching print of Old St Pancrass Church, sitting above the Fleet River.
Thomas Hardy, whilst working for an architect based at offices off Covent Garden, was tasked with reorganising the church grounds including the removal of graves (bodies too) to allow the digging of the railway cutting in the 1860s… Well, an almost unknown number of head stones were stacked round a young ash tree … the tree has grown. The stones still remain stacked against oneanother and are now largely embedded within the base of the tree. Others barely poke above the surface. It is a place of pilgimage for Hardy fans … several people from abroad arrived while we were standing looking!
The ash tree with Hardy’s tombstone arrangement…
Hardy, of course, dropped architecture and concentrated on writing his stirring novels – many of which have passed through my hands… In fact, I think I’m more of a fan than the mate!
The fact that the waters of the Fleet were running almost beneath our feet tickled me: a day or so later they’ll be trickling out with the tide in Sea Reach!
Our next stop was The Mall Gallery where the annual exhibition of the Royal Society of Marine Artists was taking place – sorry folks it finished today… There were many excelent paintings to admire and lust after! I particularly liked a batch by an artist, local to me, Alan Runagall. Two of the ones I could have hung on my wall had been sold … such is life. My wallet is a bit thin though!
What an enjoyable day it was too.
A display of paintings at the Mall Gallery showing pictures by Alan and others…
Today, Sunday, with a forecast given for winds of up to F6 I quickly kicked into touch any thoughts of a sail with the mate.
Went went walking instead, taking a flask of soup and a sandwich for a picnic on the way. We chose a rambling walk back and forth across the Crouch valley west of Wickford. Here we gazed down into crystal clear fresh water running sea wards to meet the tide at some point above Battlesbridge. Some of the views we saw were glorious indeed.
So, although the boat has sat all alone this weekend, we have been close to waters that flow into the estuary we love… Can’t be bad, eh!