Battersea

A couple of weeks ago, it was a fine morning, so we took ourselves off to Battersea Park. Via a Victoria train, Clapham Junction and the Parker café.

Started off on the wrong bench on Platform 3, not fully in the sun We would have done better nearer the country end, out from under the canopy.

Then on the train, we had one of those rather hopeless mums, who did not know how to keep her young children happy and quiet. Not least because she spent most of the journey with her nose in her telephone, rather than attending to the child.

Off at Clapham Junction, to get a bus which took a new-to-me route to Battersea Bridge Road, but we did manage to get off at more or less the right place, not far from the art college sculpture shed mentioned in the last post.

Into Parker's of Parkgate Steet, a café we have been using occasionally for quite a while now. My impression is that, from being a rather poky little place, they have gradually upped their game, to the rather flashy place it is now, complete with flashy website at reference 1.

We took sausage roll, tea and coffee. The sausage roll was very much the same sort of thing as that sold by Olle & Steen, but this one, for some reason went down rather better. Not like the fat ball wraps sold in National Trust cafeterias and suchlike places at all.

Tea, in one of those superior tetrahedral tea bags - some kind of fine plastic net rather than the usual paper - from the Chiswick Tea Company, was better than average. The rather foodie website at reference 2 reminds me of the Oolong tea from Sea Dyke that I used to buy from Gerrard Street. I remember the packet above, but I also remember a yellow packet - which Bing fails to turn up. Don't drink the stuff now, after I learned from Superintendent Wexford that it can do funny things to your heart - although memory gone slightly astray here in that reference 3 talks of inspector. Maybe it was a long running series and he was allowed to advance in rank.

Out to notice the trolleys outside Bayley & Sage, a place from which we may once have bought something, but not on this occasion.

Gemini agrees that the name is entirely fake, albeit almost a heritage style of faking given that it has been around for so long, with this small chain having been founded in 1997 by one Jennie Allen. Dressed up in cod old clothes; all of a piece with foodie fashion and the gentrification of this part of town. Contrariwise, the cafe was quite modern in style: no fry-ups swimming in a sea of baked beans and tinned tomatoes there. No fags either, at least not inside.

Into the park, to be greeted by a fine bed of sun-lit celandines. We had made the park by just after midday.

A bit further on, our first metropolitan sighting of wild garlic, albeit quite a small patch of same.

And then, rather later and after our first bench session, complete with a large party of what I took to be South Koreans, a family of exotic geese.

I dare say Google Images is right enough about their being Egyptian geese (Alopochen aegyptiaca), but he appears to think that Battersea Park is one of the royal parks. 

Wikipedia confirms that it is not a goose, rather something of a taxonomic oddity, native more to sub-Saharan Africa than to Egypt, name notwithstanding. While Google Image's gloss 'not actually geese: Despite their name, they are technically members of the shelduck subfamily' is not wrong - but it is a bit economical with a complicated story.

Then the list of royal parks at reference 4, eight plus two hangers on, is rather longer than I was expecting, but does not include Battersea Park.

A bed of daisies, to complement that of celandines. From there to the sub-tropical gardens.

Which included this vigorous specimen. Google Images says 'Fatsia japonica, also known as Japanese Aralia or the False Castor Oil plant', not really tropical, but a hardy plant which looks tropical so it does well here. He adds: 'the Sub-Tropical Garden where this was photographed has a long history, first created in 1863 by the park's first superintendent, John Gibson. It was the first of its kind in the country, designed to showcase exotic and unusual plants. While much of the garden was turned into allotments during World War II, it was restored to its original Victorian-era plans in 2004'. Which is much the same story as that read by BH from an information board on the day.

After the gardens, thoughts turned to lunch. First thought was the cafeteria on the edge of the big pond, but this had been made-over since we were last there and now featured a large and slow moving queue. We decided to try our luck outside and headed east.

And, having declined a sandwich from a forecourt Waitrose, found ourselves in a cluster of high rise flats. They may have been very high rise and there may not have been a lot of open space, but they had thrown some money at the space that there was. I wondered how difficult it was to get a pool of this sort level enough to work properly. Then was it apt to move about after having been installed?

An elaborate staircase, leading to a small upper garden, mainly a play-space for children. And there was a family party putting it to its intended use.

It also overlooked the dogs' home. We wondered, not for the first time, whether they had been tempted to sell up and move out. Or was there some restrictive covenant which stopped them doing that?

Google Maps told us about various eating options nearby and we headed south, vaguely intending to try an Indian. But actually we popped out on the main road and wound up in the Mason's Arms, a place where I had once taken a rather noisy Christmas lunch. It was during my time at the Treasury and it was the year that Gordon Brown thought it would be a good idea to switch from the fussy and pedantic - if grand - official Christmas cards of old to something more child-cuddly. Maybe a competition for children? Which switch the Sun had some sport with on the very day of our lunch. We arranged to get one of these cards, we all signed it and then presented it to the staff of the Masons' Arms, along with the relevant page from the Sun. They were quite busy and we never got to know what they made of it.

Once again, the Internet memory of all this is not quite the same as my memory. Something of the sort happened, but what exactly? The dates don't quite work either, as I finished work around 2006, having done a few years at the Home Office. The snap above being lifted from reference 7.

In the twenty five years or so since then, the house has been taken over by Fullers - the people who have the Wellington Hotel in Waterloo, previously noticed, and has, much more recently, been the subject of a refurbishment: now gastro pub rather than boozer, although there was a steady trickle of the old-style trade. The yellow bench roughly where one of the bars used to be.

With appropriate decoration, possibly original, although it looks rather newer than that to me, to the front windows; plus reflections. According to my copy of their 1947 Constitutions, a pastiche of the jewel of a deputy grand master. But I have no idea how literally the 1947 illustrations are to be taken. Maybe it is all a bit free and easy, maybe not. Would a lodge meet in a public house with such a thing outside?

Gemini is quite fulsome on the whole subject. He was also rather amusing when he built a story on a typo on my part. Plus further evidence of his interest in branding and image.But the bottom line seems to be that the windows are a bit of masonic flavour added during the recent refurbishment. All puff and no substance.

I did not think to ask him about the apostrophe, which seems to me to be in the wrong place.

Back at the bar, we had a very cheerful young waitress - possibly the manageress or the partner of the manager - who, when I was confused by her accent, was happy to explain that she came from California and had spent time in various places before winding up in London. I had thought that she might have been Irish - a confusion I get into from time to time - although not with a correspondent from the far south of Ireland.

An interesting line in humus, with toasted sour dough. Plus some extra bread which arrived a little later. Only very mildly sour I am pleased to be able to report.

Followed for me by fish and chips; not a bad effort for a public house. The peas were not much like the mushy peas of a chipper, but they were, I think, made from processed peas rather than frozen peas, which was a considerable improvement.

Access denied to the two tone brick, Catholic church across the road from the pub. I had thought that it might have been open, Catholic churches generally being much better than Anglican churches in that regard.

Access including a curious pair of arches and a chunk of the site is now something called the 'Cloisters Business Centre'. Were the buildings behind the arches a post-war rebuild after bombing? While gmaps describes the pub as a boutique hotel in Bridport. Perhaps they simply put up whatever people care to tell them. He preserves the position of the apostrophe.

On the way back to Clapham Junction, I noticed that the arty street art underneath the big bridge had been executed on some kind of metal panels and was presumably washable, graffiti proof, unlike the street art here in Epsom. Bing turns up reference 9 where I read that:

'... The newly installed panels come from the Isle of Wight, made by A.J Wells & Sons Ltd, a company that specialises in the manufacture and installation of signage, cladding and products for outdoor use and train stations.

Each panel was meticulously crafted using durable vitreous enamel—a material used widely across Transport for London network, known for its resilience and longevity of up to 25 years...'.

No spiral sausages to be had at the Italian flavoured grocer which has taken part of the ground floor of what was Arding & Hobbs, once visited by our late Queen. Flavour notwithstanding, I thought that the lady who explained that it was all because of needing to restock after the then recent Easter holiday, probably was a real Italian.

On the platform, no aeroplanes to be seen, although I did hear some in the clouds. And there was some confusion about which coach was penultimate, with us actually winding up in coach 6 of 10 rather than than the coach 9 of 10 I had thought we were in. I blame the 'London Pride'.

PS 1: this time around, we did not come across any of the young Wellingtonia, some of which were found on a previous occasion. See, for example, reference 6.

PS 2: I was intrigued by the ladies who had turned out for this parade of the Revolutionary Guard. Maybe in support roles rather than combat roles - or maybe if the latter, they are allowed to wear something more suitable when going into battle. Lifted from a recent number of the Financial Times.

PS 3: Gemini now tells me that the well known Charnwood is an ancient forest in Leicestershire, with the name meaning 'stony wood', which fits. Well known for building stone and fossils in its day. The marketing men probably thought that 'Charnwood' was a good name for a brand of wood burning stoves while the owner of the holiday cottage probably had some connection with the company and borrowed the name for his cottage.

Ex reference 12.

A zoomed and orange spotted version of the relevant bit. One of the smaller streams and creeks feeding this part of the Thames. About the spelling of which BH was complaining only yesterday. Gemini tells me today that the 'h' was the work of overenthusiastic Renaissance scholars. Didn't used to be there - and the pronunciation did not acclimatise, as it did with 'author'. This last theory being confirmed by Bing.

References

Reference 1: https://www.parkerlondon.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.chiswicktea.com/.

Reference 3: https://inspectorwexford.info/.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_goose.

Reference 5: https://www.royalparks.org.uk/.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/wellingtonia-88.html.

Reference 7: https://axelscheffler.com/who-is-he/official-christmas-gordon-browns-treasury.

Reference 8: https://bayley-sage.co.uk/stores/parkgate-road/.

Reference 9: https://www.cjag.org/2025/11/19/falcon-bridge-transformation-takes-shape-as-first-artwork-panels-go-up/. I had never heard of Falconbrook before. See below.

Reference 10: https://ajwells.co.uk/. The Isle of Wight connection. And a Charnwood Cottage connection - a cottage in which we holidayed for many years. I have yet to find out what etymological significance the name has, if any, on the island.

Reference 11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charnwood_Forest.

Reference 12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falconbrook.