Posts under ‘daytrips’

Last Saturday the Shabby Seaside Appreciation Society went to Canvey. This man-made island at the end of the Thames estuary in Essex was the subject of a recent documentary (which I've not seen yet, but which you can read about in a recent post on Fantastic Journal). It was quite a grim day to visit [...]

(Working off a backlog of blogposts that are knocking around my hard drive — apologies in advance for the flurry of posts you'll get today.) A couple of weekends ago a group of us went to visit Chislehurst Caves for Jodi's birthday, and it was great! I found it sort of amazing that there's this [...]

Last Saturday I spent the day at the seaside in Margate with the Shabby Seaside Appreciation Society. The day didn't start off at its best — our excitement at getting one of the new fast-track Javelin trains at St. Pancras soon dwindled when we found ourselves an hour behind schedule due to "a death on [...]

Welcome to Walton-on-the-Naze (it's quicker by rail). If you come by car please park tidily. Enjoy the award-winning beaches (but not from this spot) Eat some delicious ice-cream desserts (or not) Venture into the wilderness climb the tower and enjoy the view (and a nice cream tea). Pretend for a moment that you're in the [...]

Sometimes it does a soul good to get away from the built-up spaces of a city — even a city with a wide and sweeping, ever-changing tidal river like the Thames — and head out to the coast and walk on a beach for a few hours. Such was the reasoning behind last week's visit [...]

When we last left Painshill Park, we were standing in the Gothick Temple, taking in the view across the lake. In the middle of the lake is a funny little grotto. It's rather remarkable, although a very difficult structure to photograph. It sits on a tiny island in the middle of the lake — or [...]

As I mentioned in my previous post on the subject, Painshill Park is quite a large estate, and there is a lot to see in it — our visit was about five hours long. Our first stop was the walled garden, which is full of pretty colours from the wonderful flowers. Charles Hamilton was a [...]

One of my favourite books is Headley & Meulenkamp's Directory of UK Follies, Grottoes and Garden Buildings1. It's a delightful book that has provided me with many hours of fun, reading about funny and obscure buildings in all sorts of unlikely corners of the country, built by all sorts of wonderfully eccentric people. I could [...]

On Saturday I made another trip to NotLondon, in Kent this time, where I discovered many things, to wit: On the train, I discovered that "Britain's best architecture was inspired by beer"1, and also that there is a random and unexpected obelisk sitting next to the railway near Swanley station. (Later googling turns up the [...]

After our Chocolate Wine Slush, we were invited to try the cheese board, to which some of us hesitantly said "yes", and "perhaps", but Nikki just came out and firmly said, "today is not a day for saying no" and went ahead and ordered. Spurred on by her enthusiasm, I decided to have one too. [...]