Anke: Royal Tunbridge Wells

Drunkards of Trinity?

Drunkards singing, belching and shouting in Trinity Church gardens after dark. I was there with my wife and about fifty others but we were silent. Hmmmm what was going on? Well it was actually a fantastic performance by the Tunbridge Wells Theatre Company of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. The lovely setting under the shadow of Trinity Church which was beautifully lit after dark under the cover of the huge tree in the grounds was a delight. I must be honest and say that this was my very first Shakespearean experience, and even though probably 50% of the dialogue sailed over my head the actors made it very enjoyable. Sir Toby Belch (Peter Emanuel) and his cronies, particularly Andrew Aguecheek (Humphrey Skett), injected some great comedy into the proceedings and the balmy evening made it a really pleasant evening. Its still on until Saturday so get on down there and enjoy the fun, before the rain spoils it.

Tunbridgesaurus Rex

In this prehistoric weather we're having take some shelter in the museum and check out the latest exhibition, The Ballad of Big Al. Who's Big Al? Well he's a famous dinosaur, made famous by the BBC and he's inside our museum. One of his friends from Tunbridge Wells is in there too, well a bit of him anyway. You see, 75 years ago a workman digging in the brick pits of High Brooms struck the leg of a 135 million year old Iguanodon leg with his shovel.
George Latter's discovery that day is now on display in the museum and George is £1 richer, that being the rather paltry amount he sold it to the museum for.
Its a wonderful exhibition and its really fascinating to think of how our local area looked in the Lower Cretaceous period with our Iggy stomping around the marshy watery landscape chomping all the trees and plants. In fact looking out of the window, the landscape is becoming that way today.

Cultural Milkshake

Where better to soak up some local culture after a long holiday away than a shopping jaunt around town. Our aim was to walk the length of the once-neglected Camden Road which is now beginning to shine with new specialist stores and thankfully none of the usual High Street fare.
I really suggest a walk down Camden Road if you have some spare time and especially with the upcoming Camden Road in Camera exhibition that starts this weekend. The exhibition is designed to show the road through history by displaying old photographs of shops and buildings in, or close to, the actual buildings in the photographs. There will also be a huge display of all the submitted images which will look fabulous.
As a bit of a challenge to coincide with the exhibition we thought we would try and find some of the old Camden Road amongst all the new shops and frontages. We succeeded, as you can see from the pictures, can you find where the old signs we photographed are?
To polish off a long walk we took some advice from the new SO Tunbridge Wells magazine and stopped into Bean for a refreshing milkshake, and heavens are we glad we did! I recommend the Cadbury's Caramel one, mmmmmmmmmmm.
We're really looking forward to another walk down this great road next week, and another milkshake, I hope you will too.

All Aboard!

There we were at the supermarket at the bottom of the Pantiles. It was late, the car park was empty, it was quiet. Until we poured our bottles and cans into the recycling bins and created a racket that is. We tried to do it as quietly as mice for the neighbours benefit honestly. But then it struck me, looking around the desolate car park. This place hasn't always been this quiet.
Until 20-odd years ago, this part of town would've been noisy, smelly and thriving with activity. You see this car park used to be home a bustling railway station, Tunbridge Wells West.
Opened in 1866 by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, this station was built in competition with the main Central station which was owned by the South Eastern Railway company. The station ran lines to the coast at Brighton and Eastbourne and also into the capital at London Victoria. You could catch a train along the Cuckoo Line to Polegate, along the Wealden Line to Lewes, or along the Three Bridges line to Three Bridges and East Grinstead. All of these lines were eventually connected in 1876 to the main Tunbridge Wells Central station via a tunnel under the town and then through a link in the Grove Tunnel, allowing both companies to run down the lines. The rivalry between the two companies had cooled off by this point.
You can still see part of the line and tunnel that went to the Central station from the bridge across Montacute Road and also in Warwick Park. Go have a look.
The Grade II listed main station building itself was built on a lavish scale, complete with clocktower with louvred spirelet and weathervane, gas-lit booking hall and elaborate ornamental ceilings. And seeing as though they had plenty of room they also built stable sidings, carriage sheds and a locomotive depot.
The station wasn't always called Tunbridge Wells West. It obtained its suffix following the Railways Act of 1921, also known as the Grouping Act, which the Government passed to move the railways away from internal competition and the stations fell into the single ownership of the Southern Railway.
The station proved to be very popular over the next 40 years, frequently handling 100 trains a day, that was until certain routes from the station began to close. It seems the train just couldn't compete with the motor car. First of the lines to close was the East Grinstead to Lewes line in 1958, then the Three Bridges to Groombridge line fell in 1967, followed by the Cuckoo Line in 1968 and finally the Wealden Line in 1969. Services were cut back drastically and following years of neglect and a lack of investment in the few remaining lines, British Rail decided that the cost of keeping the station was unjustifiable. The station closed on 6 July 1985.
You can still visit the station, as the main building has become a restaurant/pub and the engine sheds still occasionally smell of steam with the preservation of a small line to Groombridge (hopefully eventually Eridge) providing much pleasure to thousands of tourists every year aboard the Spa Valley Railway.
This is certainly an interesting part of the town's history and one I shall revisit very soon.

Photo Walk

I'd borrowed a friends 50mm f/1.8 lens for the weekend, a lens that produces a very shallow depth of field. So to play with it we decided to take a walk in the beautiful sunshine to find some bokeh. Instead of words, follow me in pictures, can you guess where we walked?

You can click for larger versions and some clues/answers if you want, but that's not half the fun is it?

Sign to somewhere.

Bees play in the gorse.

Low down with a poppy.

Buttercup, buttercup.

Another sign, but we won't follow this one.

Better go slow, this is a narrow country road.

Looking back along the road for the odd car.

A walk in the woods with some saplings.

A well-deserved cup of coffee before the walk home.

Where did we go?

Follow that Arrow

Its amazing where a random choice can take you. On the way home from a circular walk to Pembury a small sign advertising a cup of tea took our eye. It was just a small arrow pointing down a country lane, so we took a diversion and followed the mysterious arrows direction.
A hundred yards down the lane some small signs appeared in the flower-filled verges, "Craft Store", hmmm we like crafty things. Further still, "Coffee Shop" turned into "Bedding Plants for Sale", which further on then turned into "Donkeys and Small Animals"!! Now our interest really was pricked.
Finally turning another corner we were greeted by a small farm in the grounds of what we discovered was a residential home for people with learning disabilities called Pepenbury. We wandered into the coffee shop for a well earned cuppa and was really warmly greeted. We purchased our tea, coffee, water and some biccies, paid the grand total of £2.50 and sat outside to relax. Yes you read that right, two pounds fifty!!
From the comfy seats with a great view we followed some more arrows around their advertised Bluebell Walk.
The walk began with rabbits, guinea pigs and lots of birds in pens and then ventured off into the woods. We met lots of the residents of the home on the walk, they seemed to be really enjoying the fresh air and were certainly pleased to see us.
The small circular walk was a real joy, beautiful bluebells and woodland flowers meandering through the forest with lots of carved wooden sculptures to ponder over.
The best thing of all when nearing the end of the walk is the Donkey Field, with five friendly donkeys for you to pet and awww over.
This really was a hidden gem that we lucked over just by following a small arrow, I really suggest you do the same and enjoy the tea and donkeys. I think we'll follow more arrows in future, you never know where you'll end up.

Flower Power

With life springing up everywhere in our town's green spaces, my wife and I decided to undertake a bit of a challenge. With such nice weather we attempted to see how many species of flowering plant we could find on the Common in one hour. With so much new growth happening on the Common it seemed an easy challenge, on paper that is. We rambled in zig-zags across all the paths, wandered off the beaten track into the undergrowth, trying to find the sunny un-trodden patches where flowers might dare to poke their heads out. The common is beginning to look really lovely now and this is a great way to explore parts of it you might not normally venture near. After a pleasurably frantic hour peering into all the nooks and crannies we could muster we finally managed a grand total of thirteen, which are listed below.

Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratens)
Elder (Sambucus)
Buttercup (Ranunculus)
Dog Violet (Viola riviniana)
Common Gorse (Ulex europaeus)
Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Daisy (Bellis perennis)
Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
White Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta alba)
Common Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella)
Purple Dead Nettle (Lamium purpureum)
Green Alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens)
Primrose (Primula vulgaris)

How many can you find? Can you find any we didn't? Perhaps its something you could try in your lunch break this week, it's a great way to relax and get away from the hustle and bustle of work.

It's just not Cricket

Click image above for a larger version of this panoramic view looking out from the new pavillion.
With the local cricket season now upon us, it's a good time to celebrate the marvellous new pavillion we have had built on the Higher Cricket Ground on the Common.
Cricket has been played on the Common for over 230 years, the first game being played in 1782 between Groombridge and Tunbridge Wells. In 1876 Lewis Luck formed a club known as Tunbridge Wells Juniors near the Nevill Ground. In 1806, following the opening of the Linden Park estate the club moved to the Lower Ground on the Common and changed their name to Linden Park Cricket Club. In 1898 the club moved to the present location on the Higher Ground, where it remains today and has been described as one of the best proportioned and picturesque in England. In the early years the Higher ground pitch was infamous for its terrible playing condition and in a match between the England XI, captained by W G Grace, and Australia in 1882, in which the visiting side were bowled out for 49 runs, it was reported "that fencing is required to keep the cows out”.
The Ground has seen many good sides including the Australians, West Indies, North and South of England, and Kent County - and many famous players including W G Grace, Frank Woolley, Leslie Ames, and the Nawab of Patavai who played for the Club as a young schoolboy. Colin Cowdrey CBE was a Vice-President.
Most local residents will know that we sadly lost the original 130-year-old pavillion a couple of years ago to a fire, but how many of you know that it’s not the first time that one of our cricket pavillions has been raized to the ground? Back in 1913, to be precise April the 11th, the Nevill Ground's pavillion was burned to the ground by suffragettes. Or so the media of the time would tell us. For even though firemen found a photograph of Emmeline Pankhurst accompanied by a copy of a suffragette newspaper and an electric lamp lying on the turf in front of the burnt out building, and during that same year several substantial attacks were carried out on buildings and organisations that were seen to discriminate against women, the Police never actually found sufficient evidence to prosecute the movement. 1913 was the same year Emily Davidson threw herself under the King's horse during the Derby.
Indeed the attack had an effect on the town but not the one the suffragettes had intended. Local people reacted angrily and the National League for Opposing Women's Suffrage reported a boom in membership after the fire. Local resident Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called the perpetrators "female hooligans" and said the action was like "blowing up a blind man and his dog". Times, it seems, haven't really changed.
Lets all hope that this great new addition to the Common lasts for hundreds of years and watches over many summer afternoons of local people sitting on the grass watching and listening to the crack of leather on willow.
I think we'll revisit the subject of Cricket soon with a visit to the Nevill Ground and also maybe a look into the story of the cricket ball and its connection with the local area. Stay tuned for that.

Common Friends

This pretty image of the common looking over towards Wellington Rocks is for Jenny Blackburn, who after six years is resigning as chairman of the Friends of the Commons.
The Friends are also now looking for an editor to edit the Friends newsletter, Common Ground. Also, if you are as big a fan as my wife an I of the Common please consider donating to help its upkeep by becoming a Friend of the Common.
Come on, today looks like being a beautiful day, grab your lunch and have it on the Common with your work colleagues, then when you get back to the office fill out the application form to be a Friend, think how good you'll feel.

Oyez, Oyez, Oyez

Hear ye, hear ye! Tunbridge Wells town crier John Scholey has won the title of best dressed town crier at the Ancient and Honourable Guild of Town Criers Championship.
You've all no doubt seen John dressed in his trademark local purple and gold jacket with tricorne hat proudly swinging his bell around town. How many of you knew that John's wife is one of the lovely dippers who hands you your water at the Chalybeate Spring on the Pantiles?
Since medieval times, although John has only been doing it since 2006, town criers were the chief means of news communication with the people of the town since many could not read or write. Time and literacy rates have changed though and our crier was re-instated for our 400th anniversary celebrations for our pleasure and John has been crying ever since.
Interestingly, town criers are protected under old English law that they are not to be hindered or heckled while performing their duties and to injure or harm a town crier is seen as an act of treason against the ruling monarchy. So John is quite well protected. Another interesting point that I didn't know about town criers is they hold the position until they either want to retire or they are defeated in a cry-off, which sounds like great fun. Hmmm, anyone out there care to take John on? Get yourself down to the Spring for a few glugs of the local water and get those pipes warmed up. OYEZ! OYEZ!