A Baptist

A couple of weeks ago back to the Scarlett of reference 1.

Despite having been there in the recent past, I managed to get slightly lost on the way, coming to the pub from the south, rather than from the north. Maybe adding five minutes to the journey. A journey otherwise enlivened by a Fire & Rescue Service flatbed carrying one of those small four wheeled cranes or access platforms. Presumably a bit of special kit for a special fire, but I don't recall seeing a Fire & Rescue Service flatbed before. We also passed various candidate Wellingtonia, but I was not, on this occasion, inclined to stop to check them up.

There also Ockley Village Hall, a rather larger building than might appear from the snap above, and certainly rather grand for a village hall. Sadly, I have not been able to find out much about it, except that the Ockley Dramatic Society were offering a week of entertainment when the Street View van went by.

For what did not appear to be a very large village, an impressive record, going back to the year before I was born. Something, pretty much every year.

Opened proceedings at Walliswood with lunch, in my case humus and stuff followed by chicken on a skewer with skinnies. Rather a lot of flavouring on the chicken, but it was all perfectly adequate, substantial grub, reminding me a bit of the offering at the Estrela.

From there we were directed to the church in the woods, at least if not exactly in the woods, on the edge of the woods, although we walked through the woods to get it to. There had been some discussion in the pub about whether we had the right sort of shoes on, but in the event it was not that muddy, although it probably could be after rain.

Most of the land on either side of the path was private and we thought that the trees, while often tall, were not very old, so maybe a plantation from the first half of the last century.

After a while, not completely convinced we were on the right path, we came across some curious gullies, and after that the church came into view. With the churchyard being attended to a group of pleasant, but rather tough looking young men, one of whom took summer holidays in Sandown on the Isle of Wight, which we know well.

He told me that this one was a mulberry, complete with rather curious fruit. Google Images goes for Morus abla, the common or white mulberry, which is fair enough - but none of its images have the green fluff around the ripening fruit - seemingly a bit like blackberries when they are ripe. Clearly a return visit is called for a bit later in the year. See reference 3.

The view east. A small, old church, much altered and restored at various times. But looking very clean, spruce and used. No smell of neglect and damp. All this despite being out in the country.

The view west. Small organ east, but no piano that I could find.

It seems that the considerable endowment of this chapel was stripped away during the Reformation, but made good, at least to some extent, by bequests in the eighteenth century, with the income in 1743 amounting to £104 6/8. If that all went to the parson, perhaps a fair income in those days, but I have not checked.

There were some very large conifers in the yard and I had at first thought that this one might be a Wellingtonia. However, as I got a bit closer it clearly was not.

More not Wellingtonias. Oddly, no close ups of the leaves/needles for identification - by Google Images or otherwise - now.

A view of the church. In demand for weddings round about? I was told that there were some ash trees on the periphery, either infected or threatened by ash dieback, for which see reference 4.

From which I took the striking but unlabelled image above. Natural regeneration of a dead ash tree? The chap in the churchyard was talking of sanitary felling and replacement by resistant varieties, but I do not see anything of that at reference 4. Perhaps I need to dig deeper.

The start of the walk back.

Another gully.

A serious den. Presumably Boy Scouts or some such have access to at least some of these woods.

Hopefully we will be back before too long to visit the nearby sculpture garden of reference 5. Not to mention the bluebells in the woods and the primroses around the church.

PS 1: no proper close up, but I tried Google Images with the snap above. Not enough for it to get a grip on. I then tried the various sites which list the tallest trees in the UK and decided that it was not a Douglas fir, but maybe a Norway spruce, a big tree widely planted as an ornamental in the UK and widely used at Christmas trees. See reference 6.

I tried Google Images again with a zoomed version, in which some cones are visible, and while Norway spruce makes it to the hit list, still not conclusive. It all points to a second visit. Or Chessington Garden Centre, which has trees and is a good bit nearer, but which might require me to work out about ULEZ.

PS 2: is it in or is it out? Not terribly clear from the map above, with the Centre being somewhere near the tip of the peninsular called Hook. The place for which Epsom's Hook Road is named and from which I obtained my first ever COVID testing kit. More specifically from a volunteer manned table outside the library, which I used to pass on the Jubilee Way run.

A bit of nonsense left over from the invention of the GLC back in 1965.

Gmaps turns up the sign above, our side of the garden centre, that is to say a little to the south. But is it the right sign? Probably quicker at this point to consult BH who tends to know all about these things. A source of much chattering among the chattering classes of Epsom, with ability to pay the charges in question not seeming to have much correlation with the view taken of the matter.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/scarlett.html.

Reference 2: Main | Friends of St John the Baptist Okewood (friendsofokewoodchurch.org).

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morus_alba.

Reference 4: https://www.theashproject.org.uk/ash-dieback/.

Reference 5: https://www.hannahpescharsculpture.com/.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picea_abies.

Reference 7: https://lruc.content.tfl.gov.uk/ulezdetailedmap.pdf.