Barnes to Fulham

Who would have thought it, a sunny if windy Bank Holiday? Clearly a day for an expedition. Ok not exactly talking Polar exploration, but the well-trodden path from Barnes to Fulham. This is a very desirable end of London, big houses and leafy lanes.

Starting off at Barnes Railway Bridge overlooking a rather nice stretch of the Thames, at very low tide.

The brick house on the right below was once lived in by the composer Gustav Holst when he was music teacher. A very nice location, although the wisteria covered house down the road is even nicer.

I had an excellent lunch at the Sun Inn, overlooking the Village Green. Wonderful place this - you do get a better quality pub lunch out here. Indeed, star-spotting, so also thought ex-England footballer and pundit Garth Crooks who was similarly basking in the beer garden. Felt very at one with the world, a condition often brought about by a sunny day and a pint of cider.

Barnes does feel like a village, the Green. the pond and also St Mary's church with its lychgate, yews and well-kept, but not over-tidied graveyard. I like graveyards.

I spent the middle of the afternoon wandering around the Wetlands Centre. Now you have heard of intensive agriculture - this is intensive wildlife. On a comparatively small site there is a range of wetland habitats and ponds, with a large reservoir in the middle. The various ponds house (if that's the right word) various groups of  bird life from Tropical to Siberian. You don't really notice how many people there are in the place because of the neat way it is all compartmentalised with lots of winding paths and screening willow trees. So its a nice enough way of spending a couple of hours if you have a passing interest in wildlife, or some small children to tire out. There are also a fair few blokes with huge lenses about, and several hides to house them, lenses trained in the hope of finding something unusual. Mostly its ducks. So if your pulse races at the thought of spotting a White-Faced Whistling Duck or a sign pointing to the South West Asian Reed-swamp, this is the place for you.

Carolina Duck

Pass

Pair of Bewick swans

Red-breasted Geese

Tough one, but I think a Scaup

Ok, I give up on this one despite its distinctive blue shovel-like beak. I would never make a birdwatcher

Red-crested Pochard

Mallard with  two marbled teals behind

No, can't identify these two either

Pair of Cosocroba swans

Muscovy Duck

European Eider 

Black Swan

Yellow flag

Following that you can then walk up one of the quieter stretches of the Thames (although not on match-day with Craven Cottage football ground just across the river). 

 Putney Embankment leads to Putney Bridge, across which is Fulham. The church here is All Saints, which backs onto Bishops Park and Fulham Palace, the summer residence of London Bishops until the 1970s, when finally perhaps it dawned on them that summer palaces were generally associated with indolent aristocrats. Which might well be a perfectly good comparator, but bad PR in the modern age. So now it is used for wedding receptions, has a very sweet tea-room, a wonderful lawn for running around on (if under 10) or lounging around on (if older), and a beautiful walled-garden. And lots of wisteria at its best just now.

A really picturesque row of almshouses

The moated entrance to Fulham Palace. The moat supposedly dates back at least a thousand years

Courtyard of the Tudor palace