Around Epsom

The other day, I took my usual Screwfix circuit, with the first item of interest being the road maintenance work on the southern end of Manor Green Road, snapped above from the street plan offered by the Ordnance Survey. With Manor Green Road starting just above the pond and with my one-time allotments at the very top left, just below the fence around the school field.

The Google version is rather more detailed, but not so detailed that I can work out whether the fruit trees I left (about where the orange spot is) are still there, near twenty years later. Seems a but unlikely. The strong yellow path is on the school side, unnoticed by the Ordnance Survey, with the boundary hedge running just to the left of the white square.

Back with Manor Green Road, the water flows from the pond at the bottom, up towards Longmead Road, well off snap. But it also comes down West Hill Avenue, from right to left, tending make large puddles and to block the drains on the western side of its junction with Manor Green Road, the subject of some annoyance to pedestrian users of that stretch.

For some road maintenance reason, this maintenance consisted of attending to that part of the drives which ran across the pavement, past the grass verges and up to the road. Some kerbs were reset, but the balance of the pavements was left, giving the whole a rather striped appearance. While above, more or less opposite the junction with West Hill Avenue, maintenance stopped at the concrete strips, which I had never noticed before, running along parts of the verge side of the pavement.

I carried on over the hill and through town, to be brought up by this infestation of public art at the Hook Road exit to the path under the railway embankment running behind this stretch of the High Street. Executed with spray paint and running a good way back along the path, to the left in the snap above. Very ugly to my mind, and I don't suppose it will wear very well. Nothing like the verve of the invited panels of graffiti which once decorated the surfaces across the rails from the Epsom platform at Vauxhall - now faded to the point of oblivion. It was also the case that the invited graffiti was not as good as the best of the real thing.

What is it about the managers of public spaces that they feel the need for this sort of thing? That they fall for the blandishments of the long-hairs? The art college does bring in a lot of business to our many hospitality outlets, but is hardly likely to pack up and move just because they were not allowed to decorate the town.

Decorations which are not much of an advertisement for their wares to my mind.

A fine showing by the sumac suckers outside the old telephone exchange on East street. I was impressed by the amount of growth put on in just a few months. 

Google Images seems very clear that it is indeed staghorn sumac, although I have still to notice the autumnal horns. See references 2 and 3.

One flower from a fine showing on the way to the Screwfix passage. Google Images says common hibiscus, and there do seem to be plenty of varieties with this general appearance. I would not care to say which one; perhaps a serious gardener would be less coy.

Back at home, just the one flower on the water hawthorn, badly infested with duckweed and silkweed. I don't remember it being infested in the wild, when we first came across it at Newbridge on the Dart - but the snap from Street View at reference 3 suggests that it might have to take its turn too.

Google Image gets into a complete muddle when I give it the whole of the image above, focussing on the middle third of the flower, but gets it right when I crop it down. Aponogeton distachyos - or water hawthorn. Interestingly, several of the shots it offers are infested with duckweed, one badly.

Seen from a bit further off, after an attempt to clear away some of the duckweed and silkweed. Oddly, the telephone picks all kinds of details in the reflection of the oak tree above which were unnoticed by the naked eye. Flower more or less right in the middle.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/06/paused.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhus_typhina.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/batch-no719.html.