High and Over, Amersham

“In 1931 all Buckinghamshire was scandalised by the
appearance, high above Amersham, of a concrete house in the
shape of a letter “Y”.

It was built for a young professor, by a young architect, Amyas
Connell . “I am the home of a 20th Century family”, it proclaimed,
“that loves air and sun and open country”
It started a style called moderne”

Sir John Betjeman – Metroland


Entrance Hallway



In his usual wonderful epigrammatic style (in the video at the bottom of this article) the former British Poet Laureate sums up why High and Over is so important, the first and still the greatest English house in the Modern Style pioneered by Le Corbusier, an incredibly confident first commission for its 28 year old New Zealand born architect, Aymas Connell. I had not been down to see the house which is 12 miles from where I live in some years because, frankly, the vandalism of the setting by English planning philistines depresses me. When it was built the client, Bernard Ashmole, had acquired 12 acres from the Drake Estate of a bare hillside on the Station Road between the Metropolitan Railway’s Amersham Station at Amersham-on-the-Hill and the Old Amersham commanding views over the storied old town and the lovely Misbourne Valley. Soon 5 speculative “Sun Houses”, also designed by Aymas Connell, were built on the unpaved approach drive guiding visitors like pilotis to a servants lodge with a massive iron gate leading into the ten acre estate surrounding the house. This area contained a water tower, a fives court and 7 fish ponds connected by cascades.


View from High and Over today showing the circular swimming pool.





During WW11 the entrance gate went and when Bernard Ashmole sold the estate in the early 1960’s it all went wrong. The context was destroyed by no less than 50 houses built in a crescent where the fishponds cascaded and High and Over was divided into two houses to successfully save it from demolition. This was the Britain of 80% tax rates and exchange controls and large houses were not in fashion. In front in the ironically named “First Avenue” more box live semi Ds were built to destroy the view which was the raison d’etre for the house being High and Over.


Entrance Front

High & Over is widely considered to be the first and finest house to be built in the Modern style in Britain. Designed in 1929 by Amyas Connell (who later became part of the pioneering architectural practice Connell, Ward & Lucas), and I visited to renew my acquaintance with it as the Grade II* listed house is being offered for sale in its entirety for the first time since it was divided into two properties in 1962.

Modernism was an attempt by utopian architects to redefine the world after the horrors of WW1, by putting usefulness and social equality first. They used new industrial materials and craft techniques to create stark, functional spaces. Pioneers of the movement from the Bauhaus School in Germany included Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Art deco added a lightness of touch by including echoes of the ocean liner, motor car and aeroplane, and sometimes a dash of the exotic. Think glamour and cocktails.


The main stairwell

"The last great British country house and the first modern house in the English countryside." The House Book, Phaidon, 2001




Today at the entrance to High & Over the original chrome double front doors open into a large, circular, black marble floored hall with a circular balcony overlooking from the first floor. Leading off the entrance hall in one wing is a large triple aspect sitting room with French doors opening out onto a ground floor terrace. A striking dining room, decorated with gold metallic leaf, is in the second wing and in the third wing the kitchen and family room, again with French doors leading out onto one of the ground level terraces.


Dining Room decorated with gold leaf


Living Room

A stunning glass encased spiral staircase leads to the first and second floors where the original aluminium studded door frames and skirting, restored to their former glory, lead to the principal bedrooms. On the top floor a second sitting room leads out onto two spectacular, partially covered roof terraces – these inspired the locals to refer to High & Over as “The Aeroplane House” when it was first constructed – the terraces offer commanding views across to Amersham Old Town and over the Misbourne Valley. Today, High & Over is now set in landscaped grounds of 1.7 acres, principally laid to lawn and bordered with mature trees. To the south-facing rear of the property, steps lead down to the original circular swimming pool. To the east side is a pergola ornate with fragrant jasmine in the summer. To the west side a Garden Playhouse.




Roof Terrace

High & Over has been described by English Heritage, who first listed the house in 1971, as “of outstanding importance as the first truly convincing essay in the international style in England”, further pointing out the fact that is was “one of only two buildings included in the exhibition The International Style held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, under the curatorship of Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson in 1932”. Alan Powers, the architectural historian has also described the house as “the first major house to be built in the style of the European Modern Movement” (‘The Twentieth Century House in Britain’, p.45).




The client - Sir Bernard Ashmole

This stunning house was something of a sensation at the time it was completed in 1931 and it continues to be a widely celebrated example of Modern architecture to this day. Rather surprisingly the house was commissioned by a professor who specialised in archaeology and ancient history, Bernard Ashmole (who later went on to become director of the British Museum). Despite Ashmole’s academic interest in the past, however, the house designed for him by Amyas Connell (1901-1980) looked firmly towards the future. Ashmole met Connell, a New Zealand-born architect, at the British School in Rome, where Ashmole was lecturing. Connell is well known to have been an admirer of the radical ideas of Le Corbusier, and High & Over (Connell’s first house design) shows a great debt to the Swiss architect whilst still offering a more English appearance of eccentricity. It was a fortuitous meeting for when Ashmole and his wife Dorothy returned to London they wanted to build a country house where he could commute to London and the site below Amersham Underground Station allowed that. I suspect the Ashmole’s came into an inheritance for this was a very expensive undertaking on a young professor’s salary. As for the Modern style being a reaction to the horrors of war Bernard Ashmole was both a survivor of the Battle of the Somme and a very brave man, as you must be to be awarded the Military Cross. Indeed he served in the RAF in World War Two and was honoured for bravery by the Greek Government.



Bernard Ashmole, CBE, MC (1894, Ilford, Essex – 1988, Peebles, Scotland) was a British archaeologist and art historian (M.A., B. Litt., Oxford 1924), who specialized in ancient Greek sculpture. He was Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of London, 1929-1948. He was a collateral descendant of Elias Ashmole (1617–92), eponymous benefactor of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, where he was briefly assistant keeper of coins.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/oxfords-ashmolean-museum.html

Amyas Douglas Connell (23 June 1901 - 19 April 1980) was a highly influential British architect of the mid-twentieth century. He achieved early and conspicuous success as a student, winning the Rome Prize in Architecture in 1926. Having been impressed by the work of Le Corbusier at the 1925 Paris Exhibition and that of fellow French Modernists Andre Lurçat and Rob Mallet-Stevens, Connell effectively launched the Modernist architectural style in Great Britain.



The house is situated on a prominent hillside with spectacular views over the old town of Amersham and the Misbourne Valley on land that was originally part of the estate of the Tyrwhitt-Drake Family who lived at the nearby Shardeloes. The house was part of a larger scheme that included a gardener's lodge, water tower and generator house set in a garden that combined Cubist elements with the English landscape tradition. It was later joined by a group of speculative houses in similar style - the "Sun Houses."


Section showing the construction in concrete



A contemporary article

The house has a splayed Y-shaped plan with three wings radiating from a central hexagonal hall. This arrangement gives High & Over a very distinctive shape (so distinctive, in fact, that it is said that German pilots used it as a marker for their flight routes during the Second World War). The construction of the house is reinforced-concrete frame, in-filled with cavity wall construction externally of brick and with concrete block internally. All windows are metal, many in steel plated soffits. The site, on a hill in the Misbourne Valley, afforded the house plenty of light, air and views of the Chilterns. High & Over is built in the shape of a "Y". Whether it is an urban myth or not I'm not sure, but I have been told that High and Over during World War II had to be camouflaged as the distinctive shape of the house gave directions to German bombers on their routes to their targets in Britain.


The Sun Houses

The original house was joined shortly after by similar "Sun Houses". When the houses were built they were in the open with fine views over the Missbourne valley. Since then trees and vegetation have grown around the houses. High and Over has appeared on several TV programmes, and was the centre stage of an LWT produced Poirot.

Sun House One





This is first on your right as you go up Highover Park and is well looked after with its original frontage and roof terrace but it has been extended (in the same style) at the rear. It has a “Mackintosh” style sign saying “First Sun House.”

Sun House Two



This is No. 6 Highover Park and is original condition except for the room added over the garage which has an unfortunate splayed support detracting from the purity of the façade. It does have the original style blue/ green patination on the Crittal windows.

Sun House Three



This is the only one in entirely original condition but unfortunately two large trees in front obscure the elevation. It is rented out by the owner so the interior is pretty scruffy.

Sun House Four



Fourth House on the right which has had several extensions and replacement glazing which is near enough but not quiet right. Exterior is not well maintained.

Sun House Five


This is the only one on the left in the splay created by Highover Park and the public footpath. It is currently undergoing a full restoration by a new owner who is also adding on a low one storey pavillion in the same style.

The Lodge



This was the original Gardner’s Lodge which housed the couple who were the Housekeeper / Cook and Driver / Gardner which is why there were no servant’s accommodations in the main house. Today its appearance is execrable with totally inappropriate uPVC glazing ruining the elevations.

The significance of High & Over in the history of British houses was recognised early on as Country Life magazine devoted a large feature to it in 1931. “Here is architecture pure and unalloyed by sentiment, reminiscence or claptrap” wrote Christopher Hussey, the then editor, who also remarked that the building had unfairly “come in for a good deal of hostile comment”.

Hugh Pearman, the renowned architecture critic, visited High & Over in 2005 and noted in The Sunday Times that “despite the fact that some outbuildings, including a water tower and a fives court, have gone, it is still amazing... Here is a house built by two people [Ashmole and Connell] with immense talent and energy”.

The house has also featured in numerous other publications, a selection of which are listed below:

"One of the first houses in the country to accept the style of Le Corbusier". Sir Nikolaus Pevsner

"[High & Over] looks both seminal and fashionable. Connell not only introduced England to the Corbusian vocabulary of flat, white walls, horizontal windows, roof terraces and glazed staircases, but understood it... The house... exudes health and vitality - like Corbusier's Maison Cook or Maison Guggenbuhl transplanted to Bucks." Peter Wylde, The Twentieth Century Society Journal

"[High & Over] quickly compels interest greater than that elicited for any traditional building, and ultimately pleases by the sheer beauty and simplicity of the synthesis of purpose with construction. Here is architecture pure and unalloyed with sentiment, reminiscence or clap-trap. One goes away with a fresh and fertile mind." Christoper Hussey, Country Life (1931)

"High & Over is regarded as Britain's first Modernist and in important example of the International in the UK" 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die.

In this early and impressive design, Connell utilises his deep understanding of Roman architecture in a complex reworking of Corbusean modernism, attempting a fusion that would connect the classical and modern worlds. While some British critics interpreted this as muddled formalism, it was a beacon to a younger generation of architects including Alison and Peter Smithson. In 1962, it was divided into two separate dwellings in a (successful) effort to save it from demolition.

THE HOUSE OF A DREAM

Click on picture to play the British Pathe video

In 1931 British Pathe produced a short film about High and Over in its recently completed state, entitled "The house of a dream". The film is introduced with "For centuries houses have been built to meet the needs of each age. Today, we dream of houses open to sun and air, embodying everything that modern science can offer." and it features excellent shots of the interior and exterior.


The 1960s housing enveloping High and Over

In the 1960s a large part of the grounds of the house were sold off to developers and the drive was re-used to make an adopted road, Highover Park, serving approximately 50 1960s detached, semi-detached and town houses. This development had no connection to Connell but the houses do share certain allusions to the modernist style, however they have not worn well and today you see cluttered driveways, wheelie bins and weed ridden patches of gardens. They effectively bore into the back of High and Over ruining its privacy and its setting. This development and other in-fill developments around High and Over during the last 40 years have had an impact on the house's immediate environment and aspects, and new developments still generate considerable public attention and protest about their impact on High and Over. In a recent development the route of HS2 – the High Speed Rail Line to Birmingham is due to be built in a tunnel under First Avenue in front of the house.

But the biggest loss has been the garden. There used to be 10 acres of it, complete with a concrete water tower, squash courts and the fish ponds giving the house seclusion with internal and external vistas. Now, the 1960s housing is there instead. A row of concrete posts fanned out from the house, but were chopped down to make way for the garage. So the garden is much reduced with the circular swimming pool in front of the house and the garden pergola. I think High & Over was lived in nicely until the Second World War but afterwards in austerity and high tax Britain of the 1950's became less of a joy.




Front Door

It is not just the gardens which have been altered but also the interior. If restored, the ground floor could be one of the most staggering interiors in England. The chromium-plated front door used to open onto a hexagonal hall. It was a glamorous space to sail through, with a fountain in the middle that reached up to the ceiling. The three main rooms that opened off the hall had doors that could be folded back to turn the ground floor into one large space. When it was subdivided the wing with the service stairs became a separate house so that today there are too many bedrooms (8) and what was the splendid library reaching into the garden has now been subdivided with a modern kitchen. The gilded Art Deco Dining Room which had double doors (as did the Living Room and Library) opening into the Hallway to give a grand entertaining space is now entered from a side corridor.



There is now a unique opportunity for a rich benefactor to acquire and restore this one of a kind property to its original state, the first and greatest Modern house in Britain.

Savills (www.savills.com) and The Modern House (www.themodernhouse.net ) have it on sale with a guide price of £2,350 k which may seem a lot but for say 3 million restored you would get a modern work of art (and public approval) for less than the cost of an OK painting. Any takers – If you are interested there is an “Open House” on 15th May 2010.




For more on Architecture and Design see ArchiBlogs in the Blog sidebar.

A Night at the Museum

Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman

Covent Garden Piazza is always a lively and dynamic part of London with a permanent throng of natives and visitors drawn to the spectacle of street entertainers, the wonderfully restored produce market and the glitz of the Royal Opera House, all under the imperturbable gaze of Inigo Jones St. Paul's Church, commonly known as the Actors' Church. For all around you is the Theatre land of London from Richard D'Oyly Carte’s Savoy Theatre with a small hotel attached to the Lyceum, The Strand , The Garrick and the Adelphi to name a few. Tonight I was going to a performance which would bring together three of my favourite things; London’s Underground which is the lifeblood of the City, The Transport Museum which gives a fascinating insight into the growth of London and the unique and indomitable figure of the Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman, who died in 1984 but who is still remembered with great affection, having championed Victorian Architecture and Railways but not in a tedious way but as in his poetry and writing with an impish wit which belied the depths of his undoubted insight. Oh, and there is the slight complicating factor that I actually live and commute in Metroland in a part which is still rural!


Entrance to the Museum

John Betjeman described himself as a "poet and a hack", a sentiment typical of the wry self-deprecating wit that has earned him an indelible place in the affections of the British public. By his death in 1984, he was probably the 20th century's most popular Poet Laureate.

Born in 1906, Betjeman grew up in the suburbs of north London. At school his German name marked him out for the attention of bullies. He arrived at Oxford University with a teddy bear which gave his contemporary Evelyn Waugh the idea for Aloysius, Sebastian's teddy, in Brideshead Revisited. Betjeman was more concerned with his social life and writing for university magazines than his academic studies and failed to complete his degree.





Betjeman spent the Second World War working for the Ministry of Information and as a cultural attaché in Ireland (but by all accounts as a spy), where the IRA considered his assassination but decided against it as "a man who could give so much pleasure with his pen couldn't be much of a secret agent". Work for the Architectural Review fuelled a lifelong passion for unloved Victorian buildings, which Betjeman campaigned tirelessly to save, in later life becoming known as much for his architectural programmes; recognisable by his large waist and avuncular style. A statue of Betjeman stands at London's St Pancras station, which he fought to save. He developed an affection for the Irish people and the country which is reflected in his poetry;

“Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place,
Little fields with boulders dotted,
Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted,
Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe's Stone Age race,"

IRELAND WITH EMILY

Betjeman campaigned strongly against the architectural vandalism of the 1960’s where disastrous architectural, town planning and transport mistakes were made, none more so than the destruction of the Euston Arch. Its demolition, with the rest of Euston Station was regarded as one of the greatest acts of Post-War architectural vandalism in Britain, the campaign to save it lead to the foundation of the Victorian Society and involved the indomitable Sir John Betjeman.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/09/euston-arch.html

Whilst that battle was lost up the road the campaign to save St. Pancras Station was a turning point. The greatest threat to the station came in 1966 with plans to amalgamate King's Cross and St Pancras. However public opinion had been sharpened by the appalling demolition of Euston in 1962. John Betjeman took up the cause to protect the station and in 1967 the Government listed the station and hotel as Grade 1.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/st-pancras-reborn.html




Tonight we are going to a presentation in my favourite London Museum, The Transport Museum at Covent Garden (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/londons-transport-museum.html ) on Betjeman and Metro-Land co hosted by the Museum and the Betjeman Society in the Cubic Theatre under the Museum whose construction was somewhat delayed when they discovered a Saxon graveyard during the excavations. These are the perils of digging in this ancient city!


Map of Metroland

The talk is part of the Museum’s Suburbia exhibition and season which explores how public transport helped to create the myths and identity of suburbia and how it has featured in the cultural fabric of London and Britain over the last 100 years. The exhibition looks at how transport has shaped the suburbs and celebrates suburban lifestyle, architecture, design and popular culture through a series of unique displays. Mixing fun, fact and a little bit of fantasy to rejoice in a place that we collectively continue to love and hate.




Metroland Magazine for the 1924 Empire Exhibition at Wembley

The talk on Betjeman and Metro-land was co-hosted by David Bownes, Head Curator of the London Transport Museum John Heald, Vice-Chairman of the Betjeman Society. It was trailed as an exploration of the suburban ideal, through the words of Britain's best loved poet, including rare archival footage, poetry readings and vintage promotional material celebrating Betjeman's beloved Metro-land.



Of all the works of Sir John Betjeman none has caught the public imagination more than Metro-Land, the BBC documentary which he made in 1973. It was Sir John's gift to romanticise the mundane: in this case a tube ride from Baker Street to Amersham, celebrating the north-west London suburbs created by the Metropolitan Railway between 1910 and 1933.


Metroland DVD

"Metro-Land" was the advertising slogan developed to entice workers from cramped homes in Central London out into the rural paradise of Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It was invented in 1915 by the Metropolitan Railway's in-house copywriter James Garland, who according to legend was ill with influenza and sprang out of bed when he thought of the term. In the company's advertising material, Metro-Land was certainly not a place where you were expected to go down with flu: posters and a magazine which carried the name Metro-Land depicted a sylvan landscape where ladies in hats picked flowers and drifted through sun-speckled meadows.


Baker Street


Harrow on the Hill

It was, of course, largely a con. The creation of Metro-Land destroyed the very thing - open countryside - which was used to advertise it. The speculative homes thrown up around the new stations bore few resemblances to the Tudor cottages depicted in the advertising materials: most were dreary semis, constructed at great haste and sold for as little as £400 each. Modern first-time buyers can only dream: that is equivalent to just £20,000 in today's money.



No developer would be allowed such free rein today. Indeed, the suburban sprawl created by the Metropolitan Railway did much to influence the creation of the post-war town and country planning system. A dozen years after the railway was subsumed into the newly-formed London Transport in 1933, the growth of Metro-Land was finally halted by the instigation of London's green belt.

See; http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/01/northern-heights.html

Metro-land may have lost its official standing only eighteen years after its invention, but the name had already entered the language as an almost generic expression of suburban life. A popular song called My Little Metro-land Home had been published in 1920. The word had even, through Evelyn Waugh's fictional character Margot Metro-land, appeared for the first time in the pages of a novel (Decline and Fall, published in 1928). Metro-land's characteristics were later to be affectionately evoked in the poems of John Betjeman such as The Metropolitan Railway (1954) and in his nostalgic BBC television programme Metro-land, made in 1973. Yet another perspective appears in Julian Barnes' first novel, Metroland (1980) where the writer draws on memories of his own suburban upbringing in the area in the 1960s. For Barnes 'Metro-land is a country with elastic borders which every visitor can draw for himself, as Stevenson drew his map of Treasure Island'.



In little more than half a century, Metro-land grew from being an ad man's creative invention into a more prosaic reality in the 1920s and 30s, a wistful post-war recollection from the 1950s onwards and finally a new land of personal imagination by 1980.

Metroland

The Song!


The houses

David Bownes and John Heald explored Betjeman’s fascination with Metro-Land with authority and affection and it is indicative of the respect with which Betjeman is held to this day, 25 years after his death, that there was not a spare seat in the Cubic Theatre. John Heald recited from Betjeman’s works with charm and affection at times looking and sounding uncannily like his hero. He also made a pitch for people to join the Society as it is “great fun” and indeed watching rare archive footage of Betjeman none present doubted the statement.

As for the late, great and much loved Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman, he loved wild Cornwall and was buried there; he loved suburban Harrow. The two come together in his poem "Harrow-on-the-Hill", when dusk over the Metropolitan Line makes suburbs look like Cornish seas:

"There's a storm cloud to the westward over Kenton, / There's a line of harbour lights at Perivale."

For the story of the world’s first Underground Railway and a Great Railway Journey see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html


Live in Metroland - The door catches on Metropolitan Railway carriages

Ride on Sarah!

Sarah Siddons

Sarah Siddons (5 July 1755 – 8 June 1831) was the most famous female actress in Georgian Britain and was the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. She was most famous for her portrayal of the Shakespearean character: Lady Macbeth, a character she made her own. In private life Siddons enjoyed the friendship and respect of many of the most eminent persons of her time. Horace Walpole at first refused to join the fashionable chorus of her praise, but he was ultimately won over. Samuel Johnson wrote his name on the hem of her garment in the famous picture of the actress as the Tragic Muse by Reynolds (now in the Dulwich Gallery). "I would not lose", he said, "the honour this opportunity afforded to me for my name going down to posterity on the hem of your garment." Siddons died in London on the 8th of June 1831, and was buried in Paddington churchyard. This is now Paddington Green and located on the south side, facing the Marylebone flyover is the statue of Sarah Siddons, by Chevaliand, which was erected in 1897, as she lived in the neighbourhood when Paddington was still rural.


Paddington Green

Her house, where she gave private readings, once stood on what is now the top of Baker Street in London at the side of the Metropolitan Line’s Baker Street Station and was in fact demolished by the railway in 1928 when Baker Street was extended as far as the Outer Circle of Regents Park. The railway must have felt guilty about this act of vandalism because they erected a plaque on the site and named the electric locomotive after her which is today the last operating electric locomotive of this series. ( http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html )

Sarah Siddons, the oldest working main line electric locomotive in Britain will make special trips between Harrow-on-the-Hill, via Rickmansworth to Amersham on Sunday 17 May as part of the Rickmansworth Festival. Engine no. 12, Sarah Siddons, was built in 1922 and is the last operational Metropolitan Railway electric locomotive; the only surviving working engine out of 20 built by Metropolitan Vickers and mostly named after people associated with the area served by the Metropolitan Railway. The engines had a top speed of 65 miles per hour.



Sarah will pull carriages dating back to the 1950s and is making four special trips. Adult tickets cost £20.00 and they're only £3.00 for children. However, the first journey is £25.00 as it travels via Watford and the north curve.

A vintage bus service including the Museum's prototype Routemaster bus RM1 will run from Rickmansworth station to the Rickmansworth Festival site at Batchworth Lock.

You can book tickets on this link;

https://ticket.ltmuseum.co.uk/peo/auto_choose_ga.asp?area=65

or by phone on 020 7565 7298.

Rickmansworth is known as the “Gateway to the Chilterns” and is the lynch pin of “Metroland” – the land developed by the Metropolitan Railway to finance its expansion into Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. One notable claim to fame is its inclusion on the opening page of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Colloquially Rickmansworth is often shortened to "Ricky" as used in the town's annual "Ricky Week" celebrations. The town's canal history (It is on the Grand Union Canal) is remembered every year at the end of Ricky Week with the Rickmansworth Festival.

Rickmansworth also has a famous frost hollow caused by the Metropolitan Railway. This is caused by the local geography, notably the railway embankment which prevents the natural drainage of cold air from a specific part of the valley. Rickmansworth recorded the largest daily temperature range in England when, on 29th August 1936, the temperature climbed from 1.1°C at dawn to 24.9°C within 9 hours due to this unique geographic feature.

The Rickmansworth Festival takes place on the third weekend of May every year and celebrates canals, the community and the environment. Now going for over fifteen years, it is the highlight of the town’s annual calendar and finale of Rickmansworth Week.



The top attraction for many is the wonderful array of canal boats from across the country - a unique spectacle moored along the towpath up to four deep. The Rickmansworth Festival started as purely a canal based festival in 1993, initially as part of the British Waterways "Canals 200" celebration that year. The first event used Rickmansworth Aquadrome as the main location for land activities, although in following years a much smaller festival centred upon Batchworth Lock.

An Environment Fair organised by Three Rivers District Council, held separately in the Aquadrome, was incorporated about six years ago. The festival then outgrew Batchworth Lock, once again moving into the Aquadrome to provide extra space and a wider community focus. Entertainment also increased to offer three live music stages at the Aquadrome, Batchworth Lock and in the on-site beer tent (acoustic only), which are dedicated particularly to allowing young musicians to perform.



There will be a flypast from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Spitfire on the Saturday afternoon, weather permitting. There will also be a Metropolitan Line Heritage Train running between Harrow, Rickmansworth and Amersham on Sunday with vintage bus service from Rickmansworth station to Batchworth lock.

http://www.rwt.org.uk/festival.html

One of the permanent exhibits on the canal is Roger who was once a working narrow boat on the Grand Union Canal between London and the Midlands, delivering mainly coal to factories along the route. The eventual demise of commercial trade led to Roger unloved and in poor repair. Liable to sink at any moment, he was rescued and lovingly restored to his former glory by the Rickmansworth Waterways Trust. Now Roger is back and part of activities to educate a new generation in canal history.


Batchworth Lock

Roger had a long and varied career as a working boat on the Grand Union Canal since Bushell Brothers of Tring built him in 1936. He took his cargo whenever it was needed – mainly coal – to many a factory along the route between London and the Midlands.

One of Roger’s jobs was to deliver coal from Coventry to John Dickinson’s paper mill next to the Grand Union at Croxley – at the time the largest in Europe. This work came under the stewardship of canal commerce stalwarts Arthur Bray, his wife Rose and her son Ernie Kendal. Roger carried 20 tons of coal for the 86 hour round trip, his "buddy" (butty) boat Raymond taking a further 30 tons. On arrival at the mill, the Brays unloaded their cargo from both boats hand by hand and earned at most £16 for their efforts.

Both boats later carried coal from Coventry to a jam making factory in Southall, a 240 mile round trip with more than 200 locks to pass through! Loading, travel and unloading took a full seven days. The competition on this trip was fierce and only one boat could load or unload at any one time. So it was important to arrive first and avoid hanging around – because crews were paid only for the tons of coal they were able to deliver.


Roger - First on right

Work gradually declined throughout the 1960's as ownership of Roger changed. He ended his working life when, worn out, he was replaced on the "Jam ‘Ole" run in 1968 by the Nutfield. The factory itself struggled and soon disappeared leading to the eventual demise in 1970 of the company Blue Line that now operated the boats. By the early 1990s, Roger found himself unloved and in poor repair in a pit beside the canal at Maple Cross. Liable to sink at any moment, Rickmansworth Waterways Trust stepped in to save the day.


Sarah Siddons Cab

For the serious anoraks amongst my Blogistas here are the names of the Metropolitan Electric Locomotives of which Sarah is the last working survivor;

No 1 John Lyon - Named after the Founder of Harrow School

No 2 Oliver Cromwell - Original name for No 2 - Lord Protector and Father of today's Parliamentary system

No 2 Thomas Lord - the only Met Loco to be renamed - Founder of Lords Cricket Ground.

No 3 Sir Ralph Verney - Involved in Railways being built and Verney Junction is named after him;

See; http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/claydon-house-buckinghamshire.html

No 4 Lord Byron - Poet was sent to Harrow School

No 5 John Hampden - M.P... for Wendover

See; http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/08/wendover-buckinghamshire.html

No 6 William Penn - Lived near Amersham imprisoned for his Quaker beliefs.

See; http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/06/poems-on-underground.html

No 7 Edmund Burke - M.P. For Wendover.

No 8 Sherlock Holmes - Fictional Detective based at Baker Street near the Mets HQ

No 9 John Milton - Poet lived Chalfont St Giles.

See; http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/08/surly-republican.html

No 10 William Ewart Gladstone - Prime Minister; Took part in the first trip of the Metropolitan railway on the 24th May 1862

No 11 George Romney - Artist specialising in portrait painting.

No 12 Sarah Siddons - Actress sometimes gave private readings at Baker Street



No13 Dick Whittington - Lord Mayor of London

No 14 Benjamin Disraeli - Tory M.P.

No 15 Wembley - Named after the British Empire Exhibition 1924

No 16 Oliver Goldsmith - Well known Novelist

No 17 Florence Nightingale - Nurse during Crimean War whose sister married Lord Verney.

No 18 Michael Faraday - Involved in research that helped develop the electric railway as we know today

No 19 John Wycliffe - A Religious Reformer no link to London or the Met

No 20 Sir Christopher Wren - Involved with the rebuilding of the city of London