Thursday, 11 March 2010
Monday, 1 March 2010
Chesham
If you ever get the chance to go to Chesham, take it from me, pass it by.
Eddie Gosney, he of the long cider-fuelled afternoon in Amersham, picked me up at the station. And the first thing he did was get the hell out. Which, happily, meant lunch in a country pub. That hosted Morris Dancing! This is the closest I've ever come to this peculiar British pastime.
New cultural experience though. I had Toad in the Hole for the first time. How I made it this long without this dish, I do not know. think my next project needs to be about British dishes I like.
The two things I did find interesting about Chesham are 1) Chesham has a long history of religous dissent. You gotta respect that. And 2) Many of those dissenting Chesham residents f*&ked off to the American Colonies, and went on to have considerable political and economic influence in the colony of Massachusetts. One Salmon P. Chase, went on to be the US Treasury Secretary and a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I wonder what he would think of our current fiscal crisis.
Chesham sits in the Chess Valley, and there is evidence of settlements here dating back to 8000 BC.
My visit here threw up a flaw in the rules I follow for this project. On the grounds that I didn't want to have an itinerary for any place I went, lest I miss something aberrant rambling would throw up, I don't do any research until I get back. Shame, as I apparently, missed out on seeing some nice examples of Tudor buildings. I'm a geek, I know.
Chesham Tube Station, has a number of fun factoids about it. It's bay platform has been turned into an award-winning garden (I'd wondered what that was); it is the least used station on the entire Tube system (429,000 passengers a year); and it is the furthest station in the system from an adjacent station, being 3.89 miles from Chalfont & Latimer station. I also have confirmation tha it is the furthest out you can go on the Tube. This honour was held by Ongar on the Central Line, until it closed in 1994. I've never even heard of it.
Map.
Eddie Gosney, he of the long cider-fuelled afternoon in Amersham, picked me up at the station. And the first thing he did was get the hell out. Which, happily, meant lunch in a country pub. That hosted Morris Dancing! This is the closest I've ever come to this peculiar British pastime.
New cultural experience though. I had Toad in the Hole for the first time. How I made it this long without this dish, I do not know. think my next project needs to be about British dishes I like.
The two things I did find interesting about Chesham are 1) Chesham has a long history of religous dissent. You gotta respect that. And 2) Many of those dissenting Chesham residents f*&ked off to the American Colonies, and went on to have considerable political and economic influence in the colony of Massachusetts. One Salmon P. Chase, went on to be the US Treasury Secretary and a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I wonder what he would think of our current fiscal crisis.
Chesham sits in the Chess Valley, and there is evidence of settlements here dating back to 8000 BC.
My visit here threw up a flaw in the rules I follow for this project. On the grounds that I didn't want to have an itinerary for any place I went, lest I miss something aberrant rambling would throw up, I don't do any research until I get back. Shame, as I apparently, missed out on seeing some nice examples of Tudor buildings. I'm a geek, I know.
Chesham Tube Station, has a number of fun factoids about it. It's bay platform has been turned into an award-winning garden (I'd wondered what that was); it is the least used station on the entire Tube system (429,000 passengers a year); and it is the furthest station in the system from an adjacent station, being 3.89 miles from Chalfont & Latimer station. I also have confirmation tha it is the furthest out you can go on the Tube. This honour was held by Ongar on the Central Line, until it closed in 1994. I've never even heard of it.
Map.
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