A couple of weeks ago - April 6th to be precise - to Hampton Court for a preview of their tulip festival, then due to start in a few days. As it turned out, the tulips were in pretty good shape for our visit and we wondered about the vagaries of timetabling tulip festivals long before you knew whether they were apt to be early or late. Vagaries one can presumably mitigate by offering a range of early, maincrop and late tulips.
The weather being fair and mild, we thought to make it the first picnic of the season, with the bench set in north wall of the east terrace in mind. A picnic that would involve the sour dough bread from Gail's, bread already noticed in the depths of reference 2.
A lot of flashing lights from a chap coming the other way when I turned into the station car park at Hampton Court Station. His idea was that I was supposed to cross the bridge, go round the roundabout and come at it the other way, but I am not sure that he was right about that. We have always turned right into this car park. But I did have a spot of trouble with the RingGo car parking app on my camera, not using it often enough to be finger perfect.
On the way into the gardens, a very talkative young lady, maybe four or five years old, with her dad. We thought that he was going to be a bit tired by the time that he got out again.
Not best pleased to see that the Palace was running an Easter Egg hunt. For people of our years and inclinations, tiresome that all these big visitor attractions feel the need to put on these special events for the school holidays. As if there was not enough to look at and do already. In this public-subsidy-free, pay-your-way age, all about competing for footfall I suppose.
Another irritation being these large-format plastic advertising sheets you get strung along walls and fences everywhere. At least this particular one is temporary.
But the tulips were in good form and we spent some time peering inside them. One could see how people became collectors - or even over-excited, as in the great tulip craze in what was then called Holland in the seventeenth century, a craze which is covered in the book noticed at reference 3.
We are getting used to the new model rose garden, part of which is snapped above. Didn't much like it when it was very new, I suppose not liking the change.
While there were some massed ranks in the Royal Cabbage Patch, if not much in the way of cabbages. And, not for the first time, I wondered what they did to their box borders to keep the bugs at bay which destroyed our box bushes - along with a great many others in our part of southern England.
The label in front says 'Fritillaria Crown Imperial Acme'. At the time, I did not think that the tall plants at the back looked like Crown Imperials at all, upper leaves all wrong and not the right sort of buds for clusters of flowers. Still, Bing and Google both turn up examples rather taller than I expected, so maybe.
While Google Images suggest elephant garlic or leeks, both of which seemed quite plausible, both proper to a vegetable garden. But the elephant garlic flower buds snapped above look quite wrong too, so further investigation called for - the catch there being that unless we get back there rather quicker than seems likely, these plants will have been moved on.
Still some daffodils left in the area called the wilderness.
At the back of which we had the lorry from Bidfood. It's not just most of the pubs and restaurants that we eat at they supply boil-in-the-bags to, but national treasures too.
A flower which caught our eye, but which did not photograph very well. According to Google Images, Erythronium 'Pagoda' , a cultivar of the genus Erythronium in the family Liliaceae.
It was probably somewhere nearby where we found a few of the yellow archangels which do well in our garden.
A coastal redwood, a handsome tree, split trunk. notwithstanding. Tree G0288, with a very faded metal ticket confirming my identification. The ticket did not photograph at all.
Some more large ivy on exit from the wilderness. One day, hopefully, I shall find out what the leaves are sometimes so large.
The intended view to the south from our picnic bench. Canal to the left, chequerboard wall to the right.
Graffiti, ancient and modern to my immediate left.
Identified by Google Images as the six-petalled, garden Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum), sometimes regarded as an invasive pest in North America. It's not just human migrants that they can get exercised about.
The were some fine displays of daffodils in some of the formal beds. A pleasant spot, with a good sprinkling of holiday makers, young families and older couples such as ourselves enjoying the sights and sounds.
Heading back to the car, a shiny new fence along the top of the river bank. The river itself seemed very high.
Google Images a bit more tentative about the yellow plant, but with the most votes going to alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum), an edible flowering plant of the family Apiaceae or Umbelliferae which I was getting exercised about a week or so ago. Some votes going to lady's-mantle (Alchemilla mollis).
More positive about this rather better identification snap from a bit further along. Alexanders it is. Google Images is having a rather good day! As, indeed, we had had.
To close, a peep through a hole in the hoarding, otherwise a view of the long-vacant site between the railway station and the river.
I try Gemini with the prompt 'There is a long vacant site between Hampton Court Railway Station and the river Thames. Have you any idea what used to be there before', and he is a bit vague, but does give a few pointers about where I might get more. While Microsoft's Copilot gets well carried away with lots of trivia including important information about a Stone Age era dugout canoe, found in the nearby River Mole, now on display in the museum at Henley-on-Thames.
Next stop the Elmbridge Council planning website, where from the helpful map provided I find that the site used to be the Jolly Boatman public house and/or restaurant, closed for 40 years or more. From where it is a short step to an appeal being allowed in 2022, as per the snap above.
I then go back to Gemini with 'I now find that a proposal to develop this site, part of which used to be the Jolly Boatman public house and/or restaurant, was allowed on appeal in 2022. Ref APP/K3605/W/22/3291461. Do you know what the current status of this proposal is' and while he was not specific, the hints he gave got me fairly quickly to the consultation snapped above, with the consultation period coming to an end in a few weeks time. I think the Secretary of State got involved because railway land is involved.
So while Gemini was not able to provide a simple answer, he was able to provide me with enough to get to one in reasonably short order. Together with some useful general background on the planning process. All that is missing now is a picture of the Jolly Boatman - with the fact that this seems to be a very common name for a public house not helping.
All in all, a decision which has been a long time coming. And while one can, one should, take one's time about a decision of this sort when there is no consensus about the right thing to do, thirty or forty years is rather a long time; a long time for a prime site to be derelict. Not a good advertisement for the way we manage such things here in England. But I dare say the various professional services involved have done OK out of it.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/09/to-palace.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/04/white-bread-with-gail.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-last-outing.html.
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