Solo walk around the southern side of Newbury

29 October 2010

Greenham House

Caught bus number 1 from Blagrave Street and enjoyed about an hour's meandering journey to Newbury Bus Station, via Theale village and Thatcham. On leaving the bus station on Market Street, I briefly considered popping into the Empire Café for a hot chocolate - this little café on Cheap Street has been there for years although I never remember frequenting it much - but decided to get going instead.

Crossed the railway and wandered into the grounds of Greenham House, which appear still to be a public park and looked well kept. The house itself was looking a bit scruffy but still there. I can't remember its official function during my childhood, but I remember my brother and sister going there for eye tests so it must have been used as a clinic of some sort. It seems now to be some sort of family centre. According to a Google search, the house was built around 1845 and bought by the Corporation of Newbury in 1920 when it was turned into a children's clinic and the grounds turned into Greenham Park. When we were small children, I remember there being caged budgerigars, and quite possibly other animals, round the back of the house, but these went years ago; there used also to be a children's playground.

Left the park and walked along St John's Road to the junction with Catherine Road, where I took a quick pic of these flats (left) that have replaced our old family doctors' surgery, evidently now demolished. After a bit of web scouting, discovered that the practice itself seems to have moved to Monks Lane (along with both Newbury College and Newbury Rugby Club) and is now called the Falkland Surgery.

Looking down Howard Road

Turned up Tudor Road and then left into Howard Road, the eastern end of which has since the 1970s ended abruptly in the Sandleford Link road, a new bit of the A339 built in 1979 (here's a picture of its construction). Prior to its being built, I have dim memories of a tarmac footpath leading from the end of Howard Road, though I can't remember where it led to - over to Greenham Road I suppose. I walked through the subway that goes under the A339 and came out by The Blue Ball pub, which used to be a favourite watering hole of my father's and grandfather's when we were children (probably because it must have been about the nearest pub to our house). The pub is still there, although I don't actually think I ever went into it. According to this, it won a stay of execution in 2008 after being threatened with demolition and replacement with flats.

Turned into Racecourse Road and was pleased to discover that the lovely line of poplars is still there. Continued to the end of the road and bore right into New Road and the Westwood Road estate, where I remember visiting a number of people as a child. I have to say New Road looks a bit bleak today, although I don't remember the estate appearing so as a child. Continued along to the point where the road ends in a short footpath (although today it also ends in a development of large executive homes, just to the left of the footpath) that comes out by St Mary's Greenham. I might have had a quick wander around the churchyard but there was a man loitering in the gateway so I continued on up the road, past the entrance to the vicarage. Unfortunately this can't be seen from the road, but I swear I remember my family going to view it once when we were house-hunting. It was in serious need of renovation at the time and I can't really believe my parents were seriously contemplating buying it, but perhaps they were just curious for a nose around. The main thing I remember about it is that one of the rooms had a hole in the floor. Found a photo of the vicarage here taken in 1987 - this would have been several years after my family viewed it. I wonder what happened to it - whether it's still there, and whether somebody renovated it.

Newbury Retail Park

Came out onto Pinchington Lane and trekked along to Newbury Retail Park and the large Tesco opposite. The Tesco has a branch of Costa inside on an upper level, allowing you to sit and look out over the shop floor, which I did over a cup of tea and a ham and cheese toastie. After lunch I had a quick wander around the retail park, built in the mid-1990s - never been there before but apart from M&S it's pretty lowbrow (Matalan, Peacocks and Poundstretcher Extra all next to each other). It was also packed with cars and people so evidently does well.

Houses on Monks Lane

Crossed over the A339 and briefly admired the new Newbury College buildings on Monks Lane, where it's been since 2002 after moving from its old site at Oxford Road, on the north side of the town. Wandered a little way down Newtown Road and noted that a new development called The Oaks has replaced the Sandleford Rise development - according to this from Sovereign Housing, it forms the third social housing development on this site. Evidently Sandleford Rise itself replaced a 1950s development called Camp Close. I have a dim (and quite possibly incorrect) memory of this name applying to the row of council properties that are still at the eastern end of Monks Lane (see right) - maybe these are vestiges of the former estate. The houses are very similar to those in the Skyllings development on the northern side of the town.

Despite being a bit footsore by this time, decided to walk the full length of Monks Lane and then down the Andover Road back into town. Passed the new development Heather Gardens, which must have been built in the back gardens of houses in Tydehams - cursed infill. This Geograph photo confirms that. I just hope the residents of Heather Gardens feel SUITABLY ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES.

Tydehams, one of Newbury's most exclusive roads, contains the impressive Internationale Moderne mansion 'The Haven' (1929, by Thomas Tait). This house fascinated me as a teenager and I managed to snap a picture of it during a wander down Tydehams in about 1990 (see above left). A bit of a tragedy that it's evidently since lost much of its garden to the Heather Gardens development - this Google Earth shot from 2004 (right) would seem to confirm that. The Haven is in the centre, top half of the picture. Here's an awesome back view of it from around 1930. At least the house is still there, and I have to hope that the money gained from the loss of the garden has allowed some kind person to do it up sympathetically. Here's hoping.

Walked down Andover Road past my former school. The Luker building (seen behind railings in the photo) was threatened with demolition a couple of years ago, but seems judging by this to have won a reprieve and is going to be converted into flats. According to the Newbury Today article, St Bart's new 'sustainable school', built with a Building Schools for the Future grant, is scheduled to be in use as from this academic year. The Willow Close development of retirement bungalows opposite the City Playground appears to have been razed to the ground, judging by this hoarding (left), which claims confidently that it's providing homes where people want to live. That's nice. At the roundabout, noted that St John's Post Office, a frequent stop-off point for sweets years ago, is still there.

Made my way back into town and called at Griffin Butchers on Bridge Street for bacon and a game pie.

Cosy conference; Notting Hill; mobile movements

Went up to London on Friday to attend a conference organised by the Further Education Research Association (FERA), a charming organisation that has apparently been around since the 1960s – from the approximate ages of the committee members present, that’s probably when most of them joined. The conference was held in the Regent’s College Conference Centre so involved a pleasant walk through Regent’s Park – the Nash terraces looked to have been recently repainted and were positively shining in an appealing clotted-cream-type fashion. The conference wasn’t well attended – about 30 of us – but that made for a friendly and pleasant gathering. Met up with my friend Amelia from Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Lifelong Learning Network (try saying all that when you answer the phone) and discovered over lunch that Amelia had dropped out of the University of Warwick aged 19. Shared that I had dropped out of Durham at a similar age, and we decided that at least we dropped out of good universities. Always best to be a dropout from a prestigious institution ....

As Ray is currently working on another contract in Chelsea, I accepted his offer of a lift up to London in the morning, even though this meant being ready for 5.45am. We had a rather indifferent breakfast at a branch of Eat on King’s Road and I then made my way over to Baker Street, but was still so early for the conference that I was forced to go for a second breakfast at the Base restaurant on Baker Street (much nicer, but left deservedly rather over-stuffed and caffeine-d).

Went up to London again on Saturday to meet up with Sarah again, this time at Ladbroke Grove tube station. We had a wander around Portobello Market, which is fun but so crowded on a Saturday that you have to concentrate more on fighting through the crowds than on actually looking at things. Sarah observed that there had been a big increase in the number of stalls selling fur, and theorised that fur seemed to be becoming acceptable again. We did indeed see a number of fur stalls and a couple of women looking at fur coats - I had assumed that fur was still not quite the thing to wear but perhaps public opinion has relaxed a bit on this. I can't say I've personally noticed more fur around locally, but probably Reading isn’t the sort of place where many people wear fur coats. We walked down to Notting Hill Gate and took a while to locate a suitable café for a cuppa given necessity of finding somewhere that served soya milk (Sarah is a vegan), but eventually discovered that Caffè Nero does. Later we met Sarah’s partner Chris in the Earl of Lonsdale and had a pleasant catch-up. The pub serves vegan-friendly stout (this is apparently a trademark of drinks from the Samuel Smith Brewery - though I’m not sure what stout generally contains that makes it not). Declined this as I’ve never developed a taste for stout but had a couple of pints of Sovereign Best Bitter.

Minor triumph on Monday as have had a paper accepted for publication in ‘Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning’. Yay me. It is, admittedly, co-authored with the person who actually did the work the paper reports on. A fair division of labour, I feel.

Seem to have finally managed to sever myself from 3. Received a phone call at work on Monday apologising for the telephone customer service, and transferring me to a chap in the cancellations department who had apparently been instructed not to offer me any deals. Subsequent call went fine and I was duly issued with the PAC code, but blimey, what a palaver. Have just made my decision and signed up for a Galaxy S contract with Vodafone. Looking forward to receiving my new phone and exploring its capabilities, which hopefully include brewing my morning coffee, contacting aliens etc.

Gay gags; social media; call centre frustrations

On Saturday night, Ruth and I went along to 'Laugh Out Proud' at South Street Arts, part of the Reading Comedy Festival 2010. It was MC-ed by the excellent Rosie Wilby and featured Julie Jepson, Shelley Cooper and headlined Tom Allen. Wilby and Allen were brilliant; Jepson was OK in that traditional dyke sort of way; Cooper seemed fidgety and nervous of the audience (echoed in this Edinburgh Fringe review from 2007) and her act at South Street contained little about the transitioning process, which you would think would provide fairly rich material for a comic.

Spent Monday afternoon in a >3 hour training session on social media and its applications for businesses. Was briefly introduced to lifestreaming, mashups and Delicious, as well as other more familiar stuff. We were given some academic references on social networks, and there was talk of interconnected nodes. Ho hum.
Recent talk of smartphones, apps etc has made me fancy upgrading my phone, so have been browsing online for deals. My boss Fay has just acquired an HTC Desire, which she claims not to know how to use yet, but it looks pretty. Kate spent some time at our last dinner showing me her Galaxy S, which looked jolly nice. Should probably restrain myself and be a bit sensible though. In the meantime, am currently spitting feathers at 3 Customer Services after two abortive phone calls in the last week or so. On the first occasion, I called to check the end date of my contract. The call went something like this:

Me: Hello, could you tell me the end date of my contract please?
Call Centre Drone: How are you today, Ms Thomas?Me: I’m extremely well, thank you. Could you tell me the end date of my contract, please?CCD: Before I tell you the end date of your contract, let me just say this: You have been a wonderful customer.
Me: Thank you.
CCD: I would like to tell you about some deals we have that may interest you.Me: I don’t have time for a long conversation. Could you please just tell me the end date of my contract, please?
The conversation continued a while longer in this fruitless vein before I hung up and sent a message through My3 asking the question, and received an answer a day or so later. Foolishly, I tried to ring them again yesterday to place a request for a PAC code pending imminent likely switch to another network. CCD2 (although it could well have been the same person) refused to action my request until he had had a chance to tell me about all the tempting deals available that might induce me to stay with 3. Another hanging up ensued and have put in an electronic request for the code. Telephone contact is evidently best avoided.

More Raja Yoga; substandard art; crafting

My new Alce Harfield painting is now ensconced on the living room chimney breast. Am mightily pleased with it.

On Saturday, went to Part 2 of the Raja Yoga course. As is the way of these things, several people who were at the first session had dropped out, including two overly religious types, which made for a pleasanter atmosphere. Marginally more time was spent practising meditation, and some of the lecture was interesting/useful - we were introduced to the concept of 'sanskaras' which seems to relate to the standard positive-thinking-book advice of using positive affirmations to overcome subconscious thinking patterns, though it sounds more poncey to say it in Sanskrit.

While killing some time before the class I went for a wander around part of the new West Village, a housing development that's being built on the former site of Battle Hospital, along with a mammoth new Tesco. According to this piece from 2007, it's intended to be "a vibrant 'happening' place to live". Not sure about that. I've certainly seen the Oxford Road referred to as a 'vibrant' and 'colourful' area, but sometimes suspect that to be a euphemism for 'high crime rate'.

Tesco caused a certain amount of controversy while preparing the site a few years ago by felling a large number of trees that were protected by Tree Preservation Orders - and presumably then just going "Oops, sorry" when challenged. I sent them an outraged letter of complaint at the time together with my cut-up Clubcard and since then have only shopped there when there's no alternative - not that I imagine that bothers them in the slightest. There's little remaining of the old hospital buildings apart from the entrance gate, which seems to have been kept. I was, my mother tells me, born in Battle Hospital, though I don't remember it myself.

Trekked up to St Joseph’s Convent School on Sunday (via Burger King to address Ruth’s low blood sugar) to support the 3rd Annual Reading Art Exhibition & Sale. We paid our £3 to get in and spent a while browsing the exhibits, which were mainly paintings with a few ceramics thrown in. Apart from a few cute pots, didn’t see anything that particularly grabbed me, and some of the stuff was truly frightful – series of paintings of cutesy animals in clothes, sort of cross between Beatrix Potter and Sylvanian Families, and ghastly New Agey fat nymph/angel surrounded by stuck-on flowers and glitter. In fairness, I think it was open to both amateurs and professionals.

The school itself looks somewhat in need of a refurb – one wonders if the decision to accept boys as of this year, and the change of name to ‘St Joseph’s College’, is part of a drive to improve its financial position. They do have a pleasant garden out back with some mature trees, and what looked like a grotto-type area with a statue of the Virgin Mary. The exhibition featured presumably recently-produced bannerstands with pictures of boys strategically inserted.

We made our way home via the Forbury Retail Park and a peruse of Hobbycraft, where Ruth surprised me for lingering for quite a while looking at technical drawing equipment, while I hung around aimlessly feeling somewhat footsore. There are an amazing number of magazines dedicated to crafting, it seems. Was also intrigued by an entire book devoted to designs for knitted toilet roll holders. Have been vaguely ruminating for a while over the idea of taking up sewing, thinking that it would be useful to make one’s own clothes – though I daresay it takes one a while to reach the necessary degree of proficiency. May attempt to acquire a secondhand sewing machine and learn the basics – may set an initial target of making a kaftan out of an old duvet cover.

On Tuesday we duly trooped up to view Temporary Office Building 1 and were entranced by the sheer drabness of Spur K, the ‘wing’ that is to be our new home. At present it looks as though it was last occupied around 30 years ago, but apparently an express paint and refurb job is planned prior to our arrival.

Sulham Valley; Raja Yoga; impending new premises

Parked up with Ray at Sulham Woods early on Saturday morning for the first in what is supposed to be a regular series of once-a-month walks to aid with general fitness (in between all the other good things I am obviously doing, like going to the gym, Pilates, running on the spot etc). We had coffee and bacon rolls in the car park off Sulham Hill while watching a whole crowd of militant-looking dog walkers arriving and striding off into the woods, and then ambled off the other way down the hill to the left turn into Nunhide Lane, a public bridleway running north-south from Sulham down to Theale. It was misty when we started out (about 7.45am) but once the sun broke through it turned really quite nice. Saw a number of pillboxes (including this cute one that appeared to have a tree growing out of it) which Ray thought could have formed one of several 'stop lines' of the little concrete cuties; this document suggests that an anti-tank ditch was dug from the Kennet & Avon Canal through the Sulham Gap to the Thames at Pangbourne, so I guess they were probably connected to that. Anyway. Military history not really my thing. This person appears to have done a whole photographic study of pillboxes in the Sulham Valley, which apparently offers rich pickings for pillbox enthusiasts.

The walk passed Nunhide Farm, which has a beautiful old farmhouse (not the house that can be seen in the Geograph link - that's just a regular house although probably it belongs to the farm) which looked to us as though it was empty and in need of some TLC, and then off up behind the farm passed the listed dovecote known as The Pigeon Tower, built by a local Reverend for his lady love so that she could see it from her house and think of him. The walk skirted the edge of Tilehurst and down Pincents Lane, past Pincents Manor and the now-defunct Pincents Manor golf course, to the retail area that has, really quite excitingly, been acquired by IKEA, although nothing further seems to be happening at the moment and there seem to be the usual objections on traffic grounds, although as the site is just off a motorway junction and not near a residential area it would seem more than ideal, but maybe I'm missing something. Anyway, the rest of the walk took in a footbridge over Sulham Brook and the Moor Copse nature reserve, which, along with approximately 2,000 other places locally, is reputed to have provided Kenneth Grahame with inspiration for The Wind in the Willows and, rather more interestingly, has apparently been the scene of some woodland naughtiness, although I can't say we saw anyone lurking about hopefully. We walked down a section of the old A340 over Hogmoor Bridge and Ray spotted the cat's eyes still in the old road. We then made our way to Tidmarsh and then across country back to Sulham Woods.

In the afternoon, I went along to Battle Library for the first session of a three-part 'Introduction to Raja Yoga Meditation', run on behalf of Brahma Kumaris UK by the charming Clive and Esme. Rather more academic than I had expected and rather less time spent actually meditating, but I shall go along next week and see how it pans out. Met Clare, who seemed to share my view that we were just hoping to calm and focus the mind, rather than being particularly interested in God, the soul, etc. Our homework was, among other things, to spend the week repeating the affirmation "I am a being of light".

Our team's office move to Temporary Office Building 1 is getting ever closer and is now scheduled for mid-November, although it seems to have run into a number of hitches. Despite having been scheduled over a year ago, the 'new' building apparently still has no computer points and has water leaking from the ceiling in one place. In addition, several of the rooms are apparently locked and the keys cannot be found. Given that the university owns the buildings, why the locks can't simply be changed is a bit of a mystery, but there you go. Not starting to pack quite yet.