Harefield

[Denham Grove and Harefield both being a little to the north of Denham proper]

Last weekend saw another trip to Harefield Hospital for something echo and heart flavoured. A procedure which only took half an hour or so, but we decided to make a mini-break out it, staying over at the Denham Grove, rather than doing the M25 twice in one day. There was also the matter of the Wellingtonias, already noticed at references 1 and 2. There is also the fake at reference 3.

No much bother on the outward run along the M25, just a couple of honks. One of them being my fault as I had got into the wrong lane, but I was to find over the hours following that Buckinghamshire people are a bit quick with their horns.

It was also a day for aeroplanes landing at Heathrow to come in from the west, which would have made it a bad day for aeroplane spotting from south London railway stations.

Spotted more kites, more or less immediately after we left Langley Park. And more, quite close, a little after that. They clearly like Buckinghamshire - as I have not seen on in Epsom for quite a while now.

We missed the turning to old Denham so proceeded direct to the hotel for a siesta instead, taking an early evening dinner. Good stuff, starting with samosas, nicely presented.

Followed in my case by Rogan Josh (probably), taken with a couple of plain naan. More or less hot meat sandwiches: spot on. Taken with a little beer. We were amused by my bread coming nicely wrapped in a cloth napkin, one napkin to the naan, while paper was thought good enough for my fingers.

The desserts all had names which meant nothing to us, so I had to resort to my telephone to find out what they were. And having settled on what looked like a sort of pale green ice cream, proceedings slightly marred by it never turning up. I suppose I should have reminded the waitress a bit quicker than I did - by which time the moment had passed.

A new to me variety of drain cover outside our bedroom window the following morning.

And a number attached to the wall outside our room which irritated me by the number of fixings required for the attachment. They looked well enough from a distance, but I thought a poor bit of detailing in an otherwise nicely done up hotel.

After all this we still had time to have another go at Denham village, before we were due at Harefield, succeeding on this occasion. It turned out to be a very old world place indeed, full of interesting old buildings and very little in the way of houses for regular people.

The snap above taking in a corner of the churchyard and an unusual bit of wall painting. 

A churchyard which included a fine yew tree and some fine standard roses, even though the church itself was firmly shut.

Heritage included heritage stands for bicycles, complete with little steel hoops to link one's padlock into. Presumably necessary in the olden days even in villages of this class.

And so into the kilometre or so of avenue which led from the church to the Buckinghamshire Golf Club. Altogether better class of jogger and dog walker than is to be found, for example, at Horton Country Park.

Some fine trees on arrival at the club house precincts.

The terrace, with a putting green beyond that and the one and one half  Wellingtonias of reference 1 beyond that.

One of a number of immaculate bunkers that we came across. With the water being part of the extensive River Colne/Grand Union Canal complex, here running roughly north-south. Presumably once very busy with stuff headed for London. 

On the way back to our car, this interesting post. Possibly something to do with dogs? Not that real golfers are supposed to take dogs along with them on their rounds.

At the hospital with time for a sit in their front garden. Very pleasant it was too.

Not a particularly busy day inside. 

And while the echo machine involved a lot more computer than I had remembered, the thing they press into your side involved a lot less pressure than I remembered - which was good. Perhaps both machines and machine minders are getting better. Three years training I was told, more on how hearts work than on how the machines work - although the manufacturers did offer training courses on more their exotic nooks and crannies.

Not a particularly busy day in the canteen either, but contrary to my usual custom of not eating much before driving, we took a couple of very decent lunches, very reasonably priced.

On leaving, I managed to leave both stick and telephone, but luckily I remembered before we had set off in the car, which would have been tiresome, and I returned to find them where I had left them.

And so home to Epsom and another round of trolleys. Finding which is left as an exercise for the reader.

PS 1: I was not able to turn up a decent map of the HS2 covering the Denham area this afternoon. The best I could do being the map snapped above from the Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society. The HS2 clips the top right hand bit of the map at the head of this post. Moorhall Road being the road to Harefield.

PS 2: Harefield was once the property of the sister of Edward the Confessor. She married out, to Frenchmen, but this does not seem to have stopped Harefield falling as a reward to one of the companions of the Conqueror, after Hastings. Very odd. Denham, as least in Wikipedia, does not boast anything so complicated.

PS 3: annoyed to discover the other day that btopenworld.com has started to treaty the address of my blog, which is included in my emails by default, as spam - which means that that email to one of their customers is returned to sender. To think that I probably still have an email address with them. I clearly need to write them a stiff letter.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/wellingtonia-122.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/wellingtonias-123-thru-127.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/fake-190.html.

Reference 3: https://www.denhamgrove.com/.