Posts under ‘notlondon’

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 [...]

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 [...]

For those of you (if there are any of you) waiting for the next instalment of my Painshill Park posts, I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit longer. What with spending last weekend at Caption, where I took a lot of photos that needed going through, having other things I needed to get done [...]

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 [...]

Whilst in Oxford, I also took quite a lot of photos of various grotesques that lurk on the buildings (no gargoyles, though, 'cos I didn't see any I liked the look of as much — it seems as though the artistic endeavour was most often ploughed into the grotesques rather than the gargoyles). Of course, [...]

Last week, I managed not only to forget to mention any of Alternative Press Fair events that were on, I also managed to entirely miss all of them due to feeling a bit under the weather and really not wanting to end up ill and having to miss Jeremy and Tim's wedding on Sunday. Did [...]

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. [...]

It's time for pudding! I love pudding. The dessert section of the menu was rather good, as you'd expect. My favourite dessert was the first one, which was actually two on the same plate; a Bavarois of Lychee and Mango, and a Blackcurrant Sorbet topped with a wafer. The bavarois was deliciously sweet and fruity, [...]