Last Sunday, we headed to Kent to enjoy the beautiful weather and countryside. After several buses and some cancelled trains, we made it to Westerham, our chosen destination. This blog entry will be more of a “photo essay” but we will do our best to sprinkle it with some witty narrative!
We started our guided tour (tour guide Jon with downloaded copy of a walk from the city’s web site) at the town square. There were two statues there:
(1) General Wolfe
General Wolfe lived in Westerham in what is now called Quebec House. The statue is to commemorate his most famous victory – the capturing of Quebec from the French which then made Canada a part of the British Empire.
(2) Winston Churchill
Winston lived in the nearby city, Chartwell, and is thus commemorated here in the square. Note in the background of the following video, a child crying because he didn’t want to stop climbing on Winston. His parents had other ideas…
We then walked to the 12th Century parish of St. Mary’s to see its beautiful daffodils and impressive headstones in the cemetery. Side note: daffodils grow like weeds here; the prettiest weeds ever.
Continuing on down a steep path, we crossed the River Darent and watched the ducks for a bit.
Then there was this:
Anybody?
Next, our tour guide Jon, following every detail, brought us back toward the center of town where we located the beautiful Domesday Mosaic. It illustrates the entry for Oisterham (Westerham) in the Domesday Book, published in 1086.
The Domesday book is the assessment of who owned land in England and how much land they owned to determine how much tax William the Conqueror could levy. This was indisputable. We also snapped a picture of our tour guide posing as an Evil Tax Collector:
Meandering down pre-determined paths, we saw quaint cottages with, yes, more flowers and ivy-covered walls.
One such “cottage” was called Redwoods, with a large garden and pond
This next photo is specifically for Joey (a Three Amigos reference):
Lastly, at the end of our walk, outside the pub St. George and the Dragon, we stopped for a quick timer shot before enjoying a post-walk pint:
Oh, and in case you are interested, we have located our new summer home. Here is a photo of the side entrance:
And here is the actual Robinson Summer Home:
Now if we only had William the Conqueror’s tax money to buy it!
Cheers!
Posting a picture of a road sign saying "Adverse Camber" is like waving a red flag, thus let me be the first to rise to the bait! I would suggest that a road that goes around a hill with the same slope as the hill would be adversely cambered in that while expecting your car to stick to the road you are rudely surprised that the damn car has actually slid off the road. This is why roads that have curves are usually banked a little to keep the car on the road. I'm betting your negatively cambered road is a leftover from Roman legion times when major earth moving equipment was not always available so you just follow the cow path a lot until it gets worn into a road. I could be wrong about all this though, not being an actual brit. Is there a prize?
ReplyDeleteLove, Jim