Tag: Grade 1 listed

No Snow in Derbyshire – 2010

No Snow in Derbyshire: I’ve just looked at the weather forecast for Christmas this year and found we are expected to have day temperatures of around 13°C, dry and cloudy with a bit of sun. But back in 2010 the last ten days or so of December was considerably more Siberian and a week before Christmas we trudged through a few inches of snow with more still falling in London as we made our way to St Pancras for the trip to Belper in Derbyshire for a brief visit to our younger son and family.

For once there was no snow in Derbyshire, and the thin white sprinkling on open ground was simply frost and the streets were clear. Fortunately there was little wind and wrapped up well we went out for walks on both Sunday 19th December and Monday 20th December. As usual I took a few pictures, both in the town and on the hills around.

I’ll post a few here, but there are rather more on-line.

The daytime temperature didn’t quite reach zero – 0°C (32°F) – during our visit and the frost was building up to an unusual degree for the UK

We walked over the hills to Milford and then I think caught the train back.

Strutt’s North and East Mills on the River Derwent in Belper are a part of the of the Derwent Valley Mills given UNESCO World Heritage Status in 2001.

And the Grade II listed houses on Long Row where my son was then living close to the top of the steeply sloping street were built by the Strutts for their mill workers in a rather odd internally interlocking design.

The last mills in Belper closed in the 1990s. Until 2022 the North Mill, Grade I listed and one of the world’s first fireproof buildings was Strutt’s North Mill Museum, but then lost its funding due to Tory cuts meaning the local authority could no longer fund it. The building was Save Britain’s Heritage ‘Building of the Month‘ in September 2023 and campaigners and local residents hope it can be saved and reused.

There had been unusually low minimum temperatures – a few days earlier it had gone down to -18 C (0 F)

Many more pictures on My London Diary in Derbyshire Walks.

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Harmondsworth – A Middlesex Village

Harmondsworth – A Middlesex Village

Harmondsworth - A Middlesex Village

Going back to Harmondsworth feels very much like going back to my childhood as I grew up only a few miles away and lived for years on a bicycle cycling out from Hounslow and along country lanes through villages like this on the edges of London, before the M25 and M4 chopped up the country around here and the growing airport at Heathrow produced both sprawling new housing estates and a huge increase in traffic in the area.

Harmondsworth - A Middlesex Village

From 2003 to 2009 I took part in the protests against the plans to build another huge runway for Heathrow, which now only uses two though it was built with more on its existing site. The shorter runways were abandoned partly because planes grew larger. I was very pleased when one closed as on the few days a year when there were strong cross-winds it brought planes at low heights over my current home a couple of miles away, sometimes low enough to shake the whole building. I think building Terminal 4 which opened in 1986 put an end to its use.

Harmondsworth - A Middlesex Village
A mural across where the airport would end

We celebrated in 2009 when plans for a third runway were dropped, but the lobbyists for Heathrow expansion didn’t take no for an answer and persuaded the coalition government to set up the Davis Commission to put the plans back on the table again. The protest in Harmondsworth on Sunday 12th April 2015 was before the report came out, but its conclusion was predictable – and the one it had been set up to come to.

John Stewart of HACAN

Since then and the government’s acceptance of the case it made for expanding Heathrow, the world has changed, or at least our understanding of the future has. The case for airport expansion has disappeared and we now know that we have to have rapid decarbonisation of the economy to survive. Instead of looking forward to exponential growth we need to find ways to stabilise and reduce demand and aviation is one of the most climate-damaging sectors.

While Davis took as its basis that expansion is necessary to continue growth, it is now clear that expansion would be a disaster. At last I think that message is beginning to get through to our government, though too often it is still thinking in terms of short-term financial benefits to the pockets of its members and their friends.

Harmondsworth - A Middlesex Village

Harmondsworth is still one of the most interesting of the small villages on the fringes of London, with a fine church in its churchyard, and although its village green is a pocket handkerchief compared to many it still has a couple of pubs and some picturesque cottages along its north side. But the real gem of the village is tucked away immediately to the left, its magnificent Grade 1 listed Great Barn, built in 1426 , the largest surviving example all-timber barn which Sir John Betjeman called ‘the Cathedral of Middlesex’.

Harmondsworth - A Middlesex Village

In agricultural use until the 1980s, it was then allowed to decay until a public campaign strongly supported by the local MP John McDonnell persuaded English Heritage to take it over in 2012. They carried out a substantial restoration leading to it being re-opened to the public free of charge on selected days and it is managed by the Friends of the Great Barn at Harmondsworth. My pictures of the barn are not available for any editorial or commercial use.

On the 12th April 2015, the Datchet Border Morris were dancing inside the barn and around the village green during the day. The campaign to save the village (again!) was launched with a huge mural and speeches from all but one of the candidates standing for the area in the general election the following month. The Lib-Dem candidate also supported the campaign but had been sent the wrong date for the rally. Also present were campaigner John Stewart of HACAN, and five polar bears who had held a protest a few weeks earlier with the banner ‘Any New Runway Is Plane Stupid‘.

Harmondsworth - A Middlesex Village

The weather was fine and it was an interesting day – and warm enough for me to sit outside and eat a quick lunch in the garden of the Five Bells, before rushing to photograph the Morris performing again outside The Crown. And before leaving for home I went to take another look around the interior of the parish church, parts of which date from the 12th century.

More at Heathrow Villages fight for survival.