Faversham opens its doors - 11 July 2009

After visiting the London Open Home programme each year, it was interesting to visit the original Open Home scheme in Faversham. The Faversham Society was formed in the 60's, when a radical rebuild of the town was opposed by a group of citizens, who formed the Society. They still exist, and introduced the Open Home scheme to the UK. This year was the 40th anniversary making it the longest running scheme of its type in the country.

Faversham has about 500 listed buildings, in fact the whole town centre appears to be historical, so it is an ideal town to have a look behind the scenes. Unlike London, most of the Open Homes were actual homes; most with exposed timber beams and impossibly steep and narrow stairs to the top floor.

The day provided a fascinating peep inside many front doors. As a contrast to the private homes, the craftsmen's workshops on the quay were also open, and the huge Abbey Barn complex, has now become the local timber merchant.

To 1625 and back - 5 July 2009

After a fun MG treasure hunt and excellent pub lunch at Abinger Hatch, we did a little exploring in the area.

Hatchlands is a stunning house, made even more interesting by the world's largest collection of historical keyboard instruments, many associated with famous composers such as Chopin, Bach and Elgar.


South of here is the Tilling Bourne river valley system. We did a most interest tour of the Shalford Mill. The complexity of the pulleys, gears and wheels rotating from the central 30 ft solid 'tree-trunk' shaft is fascinating. Obviously a subject of great interest to the volunteer guides. They were just as passionate and fascinated by their subject as our Milton expert yesterday.

This mill is here today thanks to the fund raising efforts of the Fergusson Gang, a band of eccentric, rich yet secretive band of women who rescued the mill in the 1930s and subsequently gave it to the National Trust. This band gave three properties in all and their identities remain a secret to this day.

A mile or so upstream, are the abandoned gun-powder mills that were in use from 1625 to 1930. The area is tranquil enough now with streams, ponds and remnants of buildings, machinery and mills.

Traffic jams on the motorway home jolted us, unpleasantly, back into 2009.

Tour Guides - 4 July 2009

With friends visiting from NZ we planned a 'cute villages' tour close to London so that we could get them back to London in good time for them to make their evening appointment.

At less than 20 miles from central London, Denham is a very attractive village to start such a tour. After a walk around Denham we drove to Chalfont St Giles and visited Milton's Cottage. The entry fee is superb value simply for the narrative from the curator. We enjoyed some great repartee and banter with him as he warmed to his subject in a witty and amusing way, not at all dry and dusty like the many first editions in the display cases. At one point he warned us that we were about to “have our gasts well and truly flabbered.”

Then it was on through Old Amersham to Wendover; to enjoy 'Elevenses' at the wonderful chocolate cafe and explore the town before setting of for Startop End to show our guests a canal and watch the narrow boats traversing a lock. Canals and locks often come complete with a nearby pub and so it was that we enjoyed our lunch at a canal-side pub before our last stop at Aldbury.

The return trip was via Chesham and Beaconsfield before returning them to their hotel beside Hyde Park, Having noticed the traffic heading out of town on the A40 as we came in we decided to postpone our return journey on the A40 and strolled across Kensington and Hyde Parks, past the crowds enjoying themselves in the Diana Memorial fountain or in boats on the Serpentine.

Since we typically head out of London on summer weekends we were quite impressed at how busy these London parks were, with hundreds of couples, families and groups out playing, strolling, paddling, sunbathing or just relaxing.

Old ruins, new blooms - 28 June 2009

After a fun MG Naviscat on Sunday, as we were in the Sussex area, we decided to visit Cawdrey Ruins. The Tudor house was burnt down 200 years ago, and makes it an interesting study for the experts to analyse Tudor building methods as unlike most other building from that era, it has not had any more recent alterations or renovations.

We found this interesting; but next to the ruin, inside the old kitchen garden walls, is an inspiring garden only started 5 years ago.

We fell in love with this garden, it was attractive, but felt achievable, without the need to wait a lifetime for a garden to mature.

Kent hit or myth? - 27 June 2009

Our first destination this morning was on the A2 just south of the Blackwall Tunnel. The satnav took us through some areas that we have heard of in the news, such as Holloway (prison) and Haringey (Baby P).

Hall Place is a medieval Tudor mansion that was built by a Lord Mayor of London in the reign of Henry VIII. It is now in the care of a Trust and the local council so is open free to the public. It has extensive award winning gardens that we enjoyed in beautiful sunshine,

Nearby is a National Trust property called Red House, a home of William Morris, so we stopped off there to have a look. Unfortunately we did not realise that booking for a house tour was necessary and although we were there shortly after it opened at 11 a.m., the first available tour was not until 2:30 p.m. We decided to move on and take a circular tour of some Kentish towns and villages we had not visited before.

The tour started in Hollingbourne round to Lenham, which is a stunning little town. We have passed through Ashford in the Eurostar, but never explored by foot before. They have developed a pleasant pedestrianised town centre. The tour continued to the picturesque town of Smarden. This has over a 100 listed half-timbered houses, away from busy roads, it is a lovely spot. Not far away is another attractive town with an interesting history. Back in 1100, twin girls were born, joined at hip and shoulder. They lived until age 34, that seems a pretty fair age in those days, let alone for co-joined twins. Their will set up a foundation, which may or may not still exist. Depending on the web site you read, some say the charity is no longer operating, others say the charity still operates but that the likelihood of it having been set up by co-joined twin females who owned land in feudal Norman times is simply a myth. The truth may or may not be out there.

After the final stop at Sutton Valence, we decided to find somewhere closer to home to eat, as the historic pub there was not serving dinner yet. That was a bad move, and we experienced our first proper traffic jam on a motorway, due to an accident, Having previously passed stationary queues when travelling in the opposite direction, we had the frustration of idling for an hour to cover one mile to the next off-ramp.

Leaving Lubeck - 21 June 2009

After a wonderful breakfast in our hotel at the foot of the Marienkirche steeples we set off to complete the walk that was interrupted by yesterday's rain. This neatly finished at the waterfront where the various boat trips leave and we settled ourselves on the boat for Travemunde.

We had not gone far when the rain caught up with us and thus, for most of the 90-minute trip, we were confined to the cabin rather than enjoying the views from the open deck.

Fortunately the rain had finished by the time we disembarked at Travemunde allowing us free rein to explore the town and the Strand along the beach front. The oldest lighthouse in Germany is a feature of the skyline but is, unfortunately, completely overshadowed by an extremely ugly hotel/apartment tower block.

Typical of the beaches here are wicker chairs that one can hire for a day, a week or a season. These allow you to enjoy the beach while providing shelter from the cool Baltic breezes.

Our boat ticket included the bus fare for our return trip to Lubeck where we had enough time for a short recap around the square before heading back to the airport and home.

Loving Lubeck - 20 June 2009

The best way to maximise a weekend in Europe is to get up before the sparrows and catch a flight at 0625 which, even with the lost hour, had us on the ground in Lubeck well before 0900,

We dropped our bag at the Hotel and set off to explore the old centre before the promised rain arrived. Unfortunately, the rain arrived a little sooner than forecast so we were forced to shelter in a cafe that served the best apple strudel in Germany and the best Florentines we have ever tried.

When there was a short pause in the rain we made a dash for the station and caught a train to Hamburg as this was our alternate wet-weather destination. The rain was just beginning in Hamburg as we arrived at the Miniatur Wunderland in the redeveloped warehouse and dock area. The Miniatur Wunderland is the world's largest model train set and is absolutely amazing.


Currently there is more than 12km of track over two floors and when completed they aim to have in excess of 20km of track. To get the “world's largest” accolade they have to be able to drive a train from one end to the other so that means the trains have to climb 6m between floors.

More than 500,000 man-hours have been spent on the model and the modellers clearly have a keen sense of humour as there are so many sight jokes to enjoy. One could easily spend a week there and still not see all the detail there is to see. As well as trains, trams, funiculars etc there are chair-lifts, gondolas, aerial rope-ways and model ships sailing in real water with a tidal rise and fall. A working airport is the project currently under construction. There is an outdoor concert with 20000 miniature attendees and a football stadium with another 12500 cheering spectators many of whom are taking flash photos of the action on the pitch,


But the feature which really sets this model apart, and is apparently unique, is the traffic management. Cars, trucks and buses move around, brake for traffic lights, indicate for turns and circulate around the model on roads that do not have groves or tracks for them to follow, it is all very impressive,

You think you have seen it all and then you arrive at the main fire station in Knuffingen: the alarm is raised and a fleet of model fire engines and emergency vehicles rush out of the station and off to an emergency call-out. Having caught wind of this from across the model you position yourself near the “burning building” so that you can have a good look at the “action” next time. Sure enough, after a night time sequence, the alarm is raised again and the emergency vehicles race out once more; not to the building that you are positioned by waiting for the flames and smoke to appear, but to a truck fire on the motorway on the far side of the model from where you are patiently waiting.
Click here for more pictures of the model

We had time for a quick look around the dock and warehouse area and the redevelopment that is underway and then walked back to the city centre before catching the U-bahn and train back to Lubeck.

Dinner that night was in the old Sea Captains' Guildhall; possibly the oldest such building in Germany, but certainly in Lubeck. Hearty local German fare was efficiently dispensed to dinners sitting on benches at refractory tables that you shared with other patrons. It is probably quite 'friendly' if you can communicate with your randomly assigned neighbours.