Taste of Autumn

This week it is a Taste of Autumn at RHS Garden Wisley with lots of food stalls, apple tasting and cider making, advice and grow your own tips from RHS experts. It started out very wet, but gradually improved to become a fine autumn afternoon.

RHS Garden Wisley

Wisley Flower Show 2013

This week it was Wisley Flower Show. Basking in sunshine for most of the week, record numbers of visitors enjoyed the exhibits from the many nurseries, the National Dahlia Society, NAFAS and the RHS.

We visited Kew this month with the family and enjoyed a lovely day out.

Loseley Park Spring Garden Show

We had a visitor to stay this weekend and decided that a great place to visit would be Loseley Park as they were holding their Spring Garden Show. We were not disappointed, least of all with the scorchingly good weather. We arrived quite early but even so plenty of people were already there and true to form, we went looking for coffee to start with. The courtyard café wasn't yet open, only the coffee tent in the garden, so we went straight in and found the end of the queue. Before long we had our drinks and began to look around.

There are loads of nurseries at the show as well as garden related artisans and goods stalls.The garden is also looking good despite the lateness of our spring. We spent ages looking at all the different things, eventually buying some little dianthus to go in the front garden. We stopped for a sandwich, which we ate on the wall above the canal, enjoying a bit of shade from a strong sun.

Tour of Britain

Today was the eighth and final stage of Tour of Britain featuring Team Sky with our Tour de France/Olympic cyclists needing cheering on. This final stage came through Guildford twice, so we planned to try and see them both times. We found the whole of the High Street barricaded off with our usual side all parked up with the huge support vehicles, so no good for viewing, but managing to cross at an official crossing, we just had time to get a carry-out Starbucks and find a space opposite Vacansoleil's truck before the circus began.

Was this a track tester?

Who is that in the lead?

First of all we had the speeding police bikes with blue lights aflash and sirens blaring. Then several support vehicles with anyone from commentators, guests, judges, controllers and medics inside came hurtling by. A couple of lone cyclists raced up the road, but no numbers and no followers, so we thought they may be 'testing' the track for the real racers.

The Peleton

At last came the lead group, flashing by in an instant and then a long gap to the peleton, who also raced by with plenty of cheering, whistling and waving.They went off into the Surrey countryside, leaving the spectators with a couple of hours to kill before their return for the finale.

   

We struggled through the crowd down to the top of the High Street and took a sharp right down Jeffries Passage to the relative quiet of North Street. We soon wheeled round the corner at the bottom and came back onto the High Street where they were holding a little side show race between several folk connected to the sponsors and broadcasters.

 

A Bamboo bike by Zamboo

They went off a ramp in pairs competing against each other up the cobbles starting with 16 and eventually ending up with a grand finale where Mr Johnson of Johnson Health Tech was narrowly beaten by the winner, whose name we didn't catch!          

Even the event mascots had a go!

Time for another break, and when we got back on the track, we found a place on the bridge over the Wey Navigation where the riders would sweep round the corner from the Godalming road, across the bridge and then up the full hill of the High Street.

We had quite some time to wait, but eventually the whole jamboree came whizzing by; and at last the cyclists all tightly bunched, cheered on by thousands of fans as they swept up the hill to the finish line. Amazing fun, enjoyed by all!

Up the cobbled High Street

The finish line

For the presentations

The Winner, Jonathan Tiernan Locke

Mark Cavendish gives an interview

Tour of Britain
Visit Surrey
Guildford

Olympic Torch

Tonight the Olympic Torch Relay ran through Guildford to Stoke Park and we watched it hurry by.














There was lots of razzmatazz with bands playing, police on bikes high fiving the crowd and eventually the jamboree of sponsors' coaches, buses with runners and their torches, and at last the main event which hurtled by with hulking bodyguards in grey running suits.

In the middle of it all was Gemma Howell, Team GB Judo medal hopeful in her white track suit, holding the flame aloft and suddenly she was gone and it was all over. But what a great thing to see the flame on its way to the Olympic Stadium for next week's opening ceremony and the rest of the Games.










Olympic Torch Relay 2012
(for as long as it lasts)

Watts Gallery

Watts Gallery is in Compton, Surrey. G F Watts and his wife Mary built the Gallery by their house and workshop/studio in Compton, using local people and materials. The building was to house G F Watts art and also that of his contemporaries and was inspired by his friend, Frederick Leighton;s Gallery in his house in Kensington. Although Watts, himself only lived a few months after it was open, his wife continued working and exhibiting there, employing local people to help her in her kiln and with her pottery in a charitable way, keeping them from the streets.
Gradually, the Gallery had fallen into disrepair and threaten the works of art on display, so much so that the trustees decided drastic action was required. A Heritage Lottery grant was applied for and they were successful in being awarded one. Other donors were found and with this money they were able to put an ambition programme of renovation in motion.


In May 2011, they invited HRH The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall to open the newly renovated Gallery. It is a beautiful light and airy place with loads of display space for paintings as well as a sculpture gallery downstairs. Here are plaster casts and sculpture that Watts made including a huge plaster model of an equestrian sculpture as well as Tennyson's statue that can be found in Lincoln Cathedral.
Attached to the Gallery is Mary Watts pottery which has become the ticket office and gift shop; and an excellent cafe, The Tea Shop, that serves wonderful refreshments. There is a new project afoot to raise money to acquire and renovate the Watts' home, Limnerslease. They hope to win The Art Fund Prize 2012, which would go a long way to achieving this.

Just down the road, you pass it on your way up to the Gallery, is the Watts Chapel. This was created by Mary Watts and her fellow potters when G F Watts died. It is an amazing Arts and Crafts building, highly decorated in terracotta on the outside and richly painted on the inside. It is a must to visit when you are visiting the Gallery.






Watts Gallery
Watts Chapel
G F Watts
Mary Watts
The Art Fund Prize 2012
Compton
Frederick Leighton
Leighton House

Chinthurst Hill

A beautiful sunny day, so boots on and off for a tramp. We headed up the hill to Pewley Down and from there turned towards St Martha's, but took Halfpenny Lane before the big climb up to the church. This footpath plunges downhill towards Chilworth.

The Tiilingbourne and the Gunpowder Mill pond

We crossed the little bridge over the weir for the gunpowder mill ponds on Blacksmith Lane and soon turned right onto the footpath again. Chilworth, a small village on the Tillingbourne River, dates back to the Doomsday book, but has the reputation of being the gunpowder village as gunpowder was made here for 300 years until the 1920s. When the Wey Navigation was completed the gunpowder was taken to the wharves at Shalford and then onwards by water to its destinations. There are remains of the gunpowder works and some of the old buildings have been made into houses, but we didn't stop to look at the remains.
The path now took us around the back of the village, across the railway and eventually across some sports fields. The next obstacle was to cross the A248 and follow the path around Lower Chinthurst Farm. We turned towards the hill and eventually found the path up to the top and Lord Inchcape's Folly. He built this tower in 1930 and it has become a listed building. The sun shone and the sky was deep blue and the pine trees looked very picturesque.

Chinthurst Tower, the pines and the birches

Looking across to St Martha's Church.

So, we began our descent and took the footpath towards the Wey and Arun Canal. Our route took us along the right hand side and we were soon at the old gunpowder store on its raised legs.

Along the Wey and Arun Canal to the Gunpowder Store

Time for a sandwich at the Parrot - much better service this time, before we took a familiar route passing Shalford Mill to The Chantries and back up to Pewley Down and home. The sun was setting as we arrived back.

Shalford Mill pond

Evening smoke

Sunset at Pewley Down

Walking with friends

Today we met up with some friends for a walk to a pub and beyond. Their day started with dodging the crowds and closed roads due to the London-Surrey Cycle Race. This was a rehearsal for the Olympics next year - twice up and around Box Hill (SSSI) in the middle, a strenuous uphill zig-zag to test the best of them. We started off walking up and over Pewley Down and down to the Wey where we crossed over by Guildford's golden sands.

 There were plenty of people out and about, walking, biking, rowing and kayaking; and even trying their hand navigating the Navigation in a narrow boat. We made good time to the Parrot, arriving around 13.15, but they seemed to have overlooked our booking although there it was in the diary.

Nevertheless, we did get a table, and soon had our drinks and ordered lunch - roast beef and turkey. We chatted away, catching up on the news from both sides, but no food was forthcoming, so at just after two, we inquired as to what was going on. They had lost the order, so we had to start again, although it was tempting to up sticks and go elsewhere. We could have free drinks as compensation, but that's slim consolation. At 14.35 the meals arrived and after we had dessert, too, we were on our way by 15.20.

Our first stop was to visit Shalford Mill, a National Trust property since 1932, but built back in the late eighteenth century, one of twenty five mills along the length of the Tillingbourne river that rises by Leith Hill and joins the Wey, just across the road from this site. We had a comprehensive tour from our guide, David, who is a complete enthusiast. He has done plenty of research into the history and working of the place and has even built a working model on display inside. 

 

 We clambered  up the steps and ladders to the top to where the new grain was hoisted from the farmers' carts, and then began its journey down the various shoots to arrive to be gathered into sacks as flour on the ground floor.

Now we took the footpath in front of the mill, over the mill race, and up to the Chantries. It was pleasant under the trees, then coming out into the sunlight at the top of the slope, only to plunge down the other side. We turned left eventually, to follow the narrow path between the fields  where harvesting was taking place, even on Sunday.

Neat square bales lay where the combine dropped them. Soon we were back up on Pewley Down to complete the circuit, and we got back home by six for a welcome cup of tea, and to see the start of the last day of the USPGA Golf from Atlanta. Mark Cavendish had won the cycle race, in the meantime!


The Wey
Shalford Mill
Tillingbourne River
Box Hill
London-Surrey Cycle Race