Sightseeing sprint photos coming soon

Thanks for all the interest in our sponsored sightseeing sprint... we all had a great time even though we all came back really tired... Well Bob and myself did...

The photos of the sights are appearing on our Scout group photo web album, but Bob has the unenviable task of sifting the 115+ photos to come up with the definitive list of unique places. It is looking to br over the 70+ mark....

......... update Bob has now counted an he says that we have 74 sights to see them all and a few extra photos of the day. 

please follow this link to see for yourselves...

http://picasaweb.google.com/1stBeddington/SightseeingSprint#

James

All set to go at Waddon Marsh

Horse Guards

Buckingham Palace

Downing Street

Trafalgar Square

Leicester Square

China Town

Covent Gardens

London Eye

Hi tea on the hi seas (lunch on a boat)

HMS Belfast

St Pauls

Waiting for a boat

Waiting for a tram

Home (sunset at Waddon Marsh)

London skyline

A view of london from the south.

Local History

As part of our Community Challenge we decided it would be good to know a little bit about where we live.  We often refer to the place we live as 'our home' but with a few questions asked and a little research it soon becomes apparent that 'our home' has been witness to many events and other peoples lives both great and small.  We are lucky in our locality in that we have uncovered some great stories from the past.  Some you may find interesting other are just local curiosities so read on and enjoy.

St Mary's

This church stands next to the Carew manor. A flint and stone church, it was built in 1387 through a legacy of Sir Nicholas Carew and the tower, porch, and chancel are from then. The Carew chapel was added in the mid 15th. A stained glass window by Clayton and Bell was given by Canon Bridges, along with the Organ Gallery by Morris & Co. There is a table-tomb to Sir Richard Carew, governor of Calais, and his wife and an alabaster monument to Sir ‘Francis Carew 1611.

The Dovecote

The Dovecote dates from the early 18th century. It originally contained about 1360 nesting boxes built into the inner face of the wall, giving it a complex honeycomb-like structure. The birds came and went through the wooden turret at the top of the roof. The large rotating ladder or potence was used by the keepers who raided the nesting boxes to provide the Carews with eggs and meat. The first floor, which is not original, was probably inserted to reduce the capacity of the building as the nesting boxes below it have been bricked up. It is not known when this was done or when the dovecote went out of use, although this had almost certainly happened before the mid-19th century.  There is a Roman Coffin on the ground floor with was found in the 1930s. It is made of non-local limestone and dates from the 3rd or 4th century.

The Plough

In 1899 the Plough was rebuilt, according to a design by architect J. T. Barker, for £5,516. However, the former coach house still exists in the stable yard. It has a blocked-up window in the northeast end through which hay would have been hauled from carts in the yard below. Unusually, the pub has large balconies (including one on the second floor), but today these can hardly be considered a useful feature: who would want to sit and view the scene along the Croydon Road for long.  The yard was described as having double entrance gates and coach house, stabling for nine horses, three loose boxes and saddle room, all brick-built and tiled, plus a granary and skittle alley. The pub's landlords are known to have leased the land directly to the west where there were some caves and two entrances in the bank of sand directly opposite. This is where the landlords are said to have stored casks of liquor, and where smugglers were reputed to have gathered.

  The Plough is a Youngs Pub and would therefore received it's beer from the "Ram" brewery said to be the longest running brewery in Briton at the other end of the River Wandle.

Bandon Hill Cemetary

Although there was a Roman cemetery on the site, as evidenced by the discovery in the 1970s of cinerary urns from the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the Bandon Hill Cemetery is only 100 years old. Elizabeth Annie Luck, who died on 7 March 1900 (L379), was its first resident.

Not many years later, the black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor died of acute pneumonia aged only 37. Born in Holborn in 1875 to an English mother and a doctor from Sierra Leone, he achieved fame when only 22-23 with his composition 'Hiawatha's Wedding Feast' based on Longfellow's poem. This music was described by the Royal College of Music as 'one of the most remarkable events in English musical history'. At the time, it was said to be as popular as Handel's 'Messiah'.

 

But, while Coleridge-Taylor has been largely forgotten as a composer, he is still remembered with reverence for his championing of black people and music, and particularly his love of black folk music. He went to the United States, where he was one of the few black people to be received by President Roosevelt.