Once a year London has and event called Open Garden Squares. There are about 200 private gardens for this two day event, we were only able to see about ten in the time we had.
When we moved over here we saw all these beautiful gardens with fences around them. Only the people that live in the surrounding houses have access to them.
Some were over 3 acres and some were just small as an alley way.
An occasional large statue
and some small ones.
This one is Edward Square, which is just a few blocks from our house. Leanne goes by it just about every day walking Coach.
It has a grass tennis court that we would love to play on.
A few of the squares like this one had large trees and shrubs on the outside. Once inside you could not see the houses that surrounded it.
Time for this old guy to take a break.
This was a walkway around another garden. On the left was the road and on the right was an open area.
There was also a lot of history to some of the squares. During WWII one was used as an army barracks and a place to park tanks. Another had a air raid shelter that is still there under a tennis court. Also during the war the metal fencing was taken down and used for the war effort.
Some of the squares had entertainment for the kids.
This square added a Punch and Judy show.
and some had entertainment for the adults. This one had music, food and drinks.
As I had mentioned before some had statues in them, here are a few.
This statue is called Girl with Doves
This is a statue of Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man
Leanne walked by these on her walk with Coach. This first one is from the weird category.
This is called "Still Water" and is 33 feet tall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_Water_(sculpture)
Also on Sunday my sister Mary and her group came back from Paris. We had a nice dinner and a few glasses of wine---change that to a few bottles.
On Monday Leanne was off to work and i would be taking my sisters group to Hampton Court
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_Palace
Leanne had been to the grounds around Hampton court a while back. Today we would be going in the building itself.
The first part was the kitchen and cooking area, the open ovens were massive.
This chef was cooking two roast on a spit. He was turning it the entire time we were there. That was the cooks job, just turn it all day .
The British are known for there meat pies, back in the day this is how the food was served. The crust of the pie was more of a serving plate. The person would take the top off the pie and eat what was inside and discarding the crust.
This was a series of charcoal stoves.
The Dining area, very ornate wood work in the ceiling. This was the Henry the VIII wing of the Palace, it also had a chapel but we could not take pictures.
Another section, there seemed to be rooms everywhere. The last king to live there was George II in the 1700's In the 1800's it was open to the public.
My sister Mary and her group headed back to the states on Tuesday morning. It was great to have them over.
Tuesday night we were invited to the Leighton House Museum for an open house.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leighton_House_Museum
He was a famous British painter and his house (now a museum) is just across the street from our house. We had not been there yet, Leanne and I have a running joke that it was to far to walk to.
The event was brought together by the friends of Leighton House and was a catered event.
All the beautiful people were there.
We did not know that there was even an open area behind the house.
This statue was in the open area behind the house, the British love there statues.
Thursday night we would go see the Opera La Boheme at Opera Holland Park. This is held in the park that is a short walk from our house. It was another beautiful opera, and a nice night to walk home. We have three opera's and one ballet to go to this summer at this venue.
Saturday we would do another walk from Leanne's Secret London walks book.
This is Sussex Place, It had 26 town houses when it was built in 1822. Today it's the London Graduate School of Business Studies. Across the street from the building is Regent Park.
This guy always a day out, he'll walk till he drops.
Still walking around the outskirts of Regent Park we came upon the Cambridge gate. This was built in 1878, to the right of it is Chester Terrace built in 1820. When ever we read up on the buildings built in London there are two names that always come up, Christoper Wren and John Nash.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Wren
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nash_(architect)
This section of houses were designed by Nash.
The street behind this beautiful building was the Regent's Park Barracks. Built in the 19th century it now houses a number of army units.
This was a small street with houses that look out of place for the area. Our book says they look like something from a Jane Austen novel and they do.
This tree has been here a long time.
As you can see it has grown into the fence. It looks like someone pored the tree into the fence.
An archway to a row of houses. If you look back thru our blog there are a lot of archways. I think whenever they had extra material they built an archway.
Just a good looking Pub. It was not open so we could not partake in an adult beverage.
This is St. Pancras garden and graveyard.
A statue in the middle of the gardens
This is St. Pancras old Church, not sure where the New church is.
A Saxon alter from 600 was found here.
Sunday was a day trip to Winchester and Alresford.
We arrived in Winchester by train and took a cab to the town of Alresford. We hoped to see some lavender fields in this town but it was not going to happen this time. So we went to plan B and checked out the town.
At an out of the way place we found this driveway to a house.
The town like all the other we have see have some very old buildings, this one dates to 1767
Walking down a side street we came upon this beautiful yard.
From there Leanne found a lane that turned into a trail. Sometimes i'm not sure where she is taking me. The trail ended up running next to a stream that was only ankle deep. Around a corner was this fairy tale thatched cottage complete with swans. It was such a beautiful sight that neither of us noticed the thatched roof on the cottage. The water ran under a portion of the house so it must have been a mill at one time.
An open field from were we had walked.
We caught a bus back to Winchester and were dropped off in front of the 18th century Guildhall of Winchester.
Another town with old buildings and closed streets to walk down.
And a some interesting art work.
This is a water trough memorial for the horses that were killed in the South African wars of 1899-1902. There are a lot of war memorials all over the UK from wars i never heard of.
History, lot of it over here.
Well its the start of Wimbledon, we will be watching some tennis the next two weeks.
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