Vicky Pryce and Polly Toynbee in Omnibus Clapham

The economist Vicky Price and Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee are or were both long-term residents of Clapham, and appeared together last night at Omnibus to discuss their new books: It’s the Economy Stupid by Vicky Pryce, Peter Unwin and Andy Ross and Cameron’s Coup by Polly Toynbee and David Walker. The event was co-hosted by Clapham Books - it’s great to see collaboration of this sort between our local independent bookshop and Omnibus.

Polly started the evening by praising the successful launch of Omnibus in the old Clapham library, and indeed it is great to see this handsome old Victorian public building finding a new public role in the local community. It certainly adds greatly to the mix of amenities around the new Old Town piazza area.

Both speakers were critical of the Coalition government. Polly spoke of the rigidity and stealthy determination of its ideological purposes; Vicky more of the evidence-free economic policy. Although a liberal herself, she was a government economist under both New Labour and Coalition administrations, and had words of praise for New Labour at least attempting to follow the evidence. Far from having “a long herm economic plan”, the coalition choked off reviving growth and flatlined the economy for its first two years, before surreptitiously u-turning and quietly and half-heartedly loosening fiscal policy. Basically, the Tories are ideologically incapable of accepting that government investment can create growth in the wider economy.

Polly seemed more wholeheartedly to support Labour, but I liked the way she always backed up claims with independent  evidence and sources. She strongly feels this is a very important election, and people should vote tactically to keep the tories out.

It was a very interesting evening, and very well attended: practically a full house.

Fireworks over Brixton - Brockwell Park review

I really loved the way Lambeth always provided a free fireworks show for residents every year. Although obviously paid for out of our council taxes, it always felt generous and fun: a real community building experience the entire community could and did enjoy.

However times are tough and cash-strapped councils have to look to their bottom line in these days of endless austerity. So I feel very conflicted by Lambeth’s move this year to a ticketed event in Brockwell Park.

Brockwell is the only park in Lambeth with the potential to ‘hide’ a fireworks display from non-paying watchers - Clapham Common is completely open (The tories over in Wandsworth pioneered this approach in Battersea Park in the early 90s). Clapham Common has the best public transport access in the area as well. The Council claimed traffic was a problem with the Common’s event, which is why it moved to Brockwell originally. Brockwell’s poor public transport access however means a large proportion of the many thousands attending walk all the way from Brixton station on narrow pavements alongside busy roads in the dark.

As one approaches the park, many wardens were there to make repeated requests to ‘stay on the pavement’: but sheer weight of numbers make this completely impossible.

When I heard that the display was no longer free, I did consider boycotting it but in the end decided to go.

Sadly, the whole atmosphere of the event has changed.

Although Lambeth planned for around 50,000 attendees (around half of last year’s 100,000), people were crammed into a relatively small fenced-off area, which meant standing shoulder-to-shoulder in pretty packed conditions - not great for the many parents of small children there. Inadequate signposting in the dark meant getting into and out of the event was quite difficult and indeed frightening for some parents with toddlers. To me it felt like all the security was in aid of excluding non-payers and not on the safety of those attending.

Surprisingly for a commercial event (and in stark contrast to the free events of the past), the show was beset with organisational problems. The display started 30 minutes late, with no indication of why this was so, apart from blaming some people who had strayed into the fireworks fallout zone. Why this happened is unclear - never happened before to my knowledge. Were the security staff too busy checking tickets to keep an eye on the crowd?

When the show began, it unfortunately began with a poorly conceived “human catherine wheel” which must have been entirely invisible to 90%+  of the attendees. There were many disappointed and sarcastic comments around where I was standing - about a third of the way back and directly in line with the wheel. I am 5’11”, there were no trees in the way, and I couldn’t see a thing. People in front were holding up mobile phones - I could see on the screens the phone cams weren’t picking anything up either! Only in the dying moments of the act did we see a dim glow in the distance. Note to organisers: this sort of curtain-raising event needs to be elevated so the crowd can actually see it. A pre-warm-up event - the excellent electricity boys - were slightly elevated and this made all the difference.

The fireworks proper started immediately afterwards and as usual, were magnificent. Excellent choreography and pacing, with terrific variety of types and stupendous climaxes. I also enjoyed the soundtrack and felt the sound system was better than usual: however, as mentioned above I was nearish to the front and I gather those behind found the fairground music clashed with the fireworks soundtrack. I couldn’t hear the fairground at all.

And then a crush in the dark to get out. Following others blindly in the hope they knew where to go (in the absence of any direction from the organisers). Mud everywhere. 

We’ll see what I feel like next year. Although I am sure the fireworks will be as spectacular as always and well worth the £7 charge, I’m not sure I am prepared to put up with all the hassle of actually attending the event.

Weekend

A weekend in London on the hinge of the year - bookended by two photographs -

Taken from the balcony of a stunning 17th-floor apartment in north London on friday evening. Night was falling but the looming clouds are deceptive - they were clearing rather than gathering:

This is Clapham Common late on Sunday afternoon - flaming June finally arrived, if at the last minute.

In beween the two moments was Pride weekend, and I'll cover my Pride activities in forthcoming posts.

A London Weekend

However long you live here, London always throws up something new, surprising and fabulous. It’s diversity doesn’t stop at having the largest number of foreign communities resident - every Londoner’s specific interests are catered to in depth as well, allowing for wonderful crossovers, mashups and discoveries.

So this last weekend was a bit of a London mash-up for me. It started, as all good weekends do, on Friday evening. A friend treated me to a play at the National Theatre: This House by James Graham. This is not the sort of play I am usually interested in - contemporary, and about 70’s politics and House of Parliament procedures. My usual theatrical interests are Classics (deep!) and Stars (shallow!) - I recently took in James McAvoy’s Macbeth, covering both - so This House was completely off my radar until I saw a trailer for it at the cinema. It looked amazing! It turns out that it’s a National Theatre hit and had returned for a second run at the larger Olivier theatre.

We were lucky to get great seats in the auditorium. The staging has a block of parliamentary style benches on stage, and some lucky audience members get to sit on these - the blocks are on two of the Olivier’s revolves and swivel round for scenes set in the House for parliamentary votes. Most of the time they are flat on and the front of the stage becomes the Whips’ offices as they plot and scheme (Tories) or desperately try to keep things afloat (Labour).

The play covers events from the fall of Ted Heath to the rise of Margaret Thatcher, through the eyes of the Whips. The Tories are blasé, urbane, worldly, and have seen it all before. Born to rule. Witty, but prone to bullying their newbies and snobbish. They become increasingly nervous of the top dog as Thatcher entrenches her leadership (initially portrayed as a weird fluke they expected not to last).

The Labour side show mainly working class types and accents (and the only women MPs in the play). The men swear like sailor’s parrots and then apologise to the women, who get annoyed by the apologies. Wilson’s government had a wafer-thin margin and was expected to fall within weeks - however, it lasted 4.5 years, and the play shows the desperate lengths the Labour whips went to to keep it all together (and the lengths the Tories went to to take them down). It’s all very funny and engrossing but one is aware that Thatcher wins in the end and changes everything (the play ends with a recording of her famous victory speech in 1979).

We repaired afterwards for a debrief and cocktail at Skylon’s bar. I’ve not eaten in this restaurant in its current incarnation (I did before when it was run by a celebrity chef) - the room itself is so much more beautiful and glamorous now after the Royal Festival Hall refurb. It also benefits from the fifties revival trend. We quaffed fab cocktails, surrounded by Italians - so many of them around in London at the moment. Our discussions turned on the Parliamentary news of the moment - the spectacular and catastrophic fall from grace of Coalition minister Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce, dubbed “the Clytemnestra of Clapham”. Indeed this is a greek tragedy, with both parties being sentenced to a jail term for perverting the course of justice today (over a speeding ticket in 2003!), but all their family dirty laundry has been fully aired in the press over the last few months. The Huhnes’ marital home was actually quite near to me, I’m familiar with their street in a “would love to live there’ kind of way. I also lived for many years with someone who went back and forth to Europe frequently, and would no doubt have known the stretch of road Huhne was caught speeding in (luckily, my housemate had a driver to ferry her to and from the airport so speeding was never an issue).

So far, so usual for me but Saturday would see me yanked right out of my usual tracks.

My niece is in a women’s eights team (Cantabridgian juniors) and was booked to race in the Womens’ Eights Head of the River Race (WEHORR) on Saturday. I’m vaguely aware of the Oxford/Cambridge boat race at the end of March but it appears that the whole of March is a big racing month on the Thames for rowers. My knowledge of rowing is not extensive (I called them ‘paddles’ and was put firmly right by a rowing mother - they are correctly called “blades”).

I met my brother and sister-in-law at the Battersea Affordable Art Fair where they had just made a purchase, and we taxi’d to the finish line at Putney Bridge just as the first boats arrived.

There were around 330 boats taking part. A ‘head’ race means they aren’t all actually starting at the same time - they are let go in batches in number order, so are racing against the clock. Coxes and teams use “Cox Boxes” to monitor their progress. The race goes downstream from Chiswick to Putney (the Oxford/Cambridge race goes upstream but timed to start on an incoming tide).

There was a great atmosphere amongst the crowds of supporters, and the sight of all the boats on the Thames was magnificent. we were treated to watching them sprint for the finish line in front of us and then double back past us to where they disembarked.

It took hours though for them all to come through, and the temperature noticeably dipped throughout the afternoon. After my niece’s team sailed past (they did well and were rightly proud of their achievement in their first big race, even with a broken cox box), we supporters all repaired to The Duke’s Head pub for a very late lunch.

The Duke’s Head is a quintessential rowers’ pub, and makes the most of its prime position on the start line of the Oxford/Cambridge boat race with a magnificent dining room - soaring ceiling and massive windows on three sides overlooking the river - and racing paraphernalia as decoration. The pub nails its colours firmly to the mast with its walls a Cantabridgian light blue.

Lunch/dinner was a hugely welcome wild boar burger with triple fried chips and a bowl of “allotment vegetables” - chanterey carrots, savoy cabbage and french beans. I toasted my niece’s team’s performance with a glass of sauvignon blanc, even as said team was whisked back to Cambridge thoroughly exhausted from their 4 hours on the icy river.

Spring in Clapham

A brilliant display of crocuses out on the Common this February - last year the early Spring was so hot it killed them off early

Lambeth Council at work pruning the large Plane tree at the entrance to the Common

Very neat work!

Meanwhile, on The Pavement, Boulevard cafe life gets into swing despite Arctic temperatures

The council men cleaning up after themselves

Industrial wood chipper in action!

Clapham's New Library Opens

In these austere times it is pleasing to report some positive news: a new modern library building has just opened on Clapham High Street. I went along today to use the fax machine (they don't have one yet) and take some snaps - please forgive my arty hipstamatics. I reported before about the building itself while under construction - the flats above have helped to fund the new public library facilities. The building itself seems to have taken ages to construct - almost as long as the much higher Shard, if my memory serves correctly. Last June they were expecting to be completed in September last year.

The flats tower above the library and the high street.

Builders are still busy completing the streetscaping at ground level - the paving does not appear at this stage to match the superlative standards of the Venn Street development.

A huge mural above the librarians' station maps out the interior space - two spirals curve out from the entrance and the desk - one upwards and the other downwards - around a central atrium rising the full height of the library space. A spiral staircase and a lift link all the levels. Books and other media line the curving spirals; reading areas, computer stations and meeting rooms lead off the spiral. The atrium houses a play space for children. It's like a mini Clapham version of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in New York

the ramp spiralling upwards

A view across the central atrium, with oculi allowing glimpses of the book stacks on the spiralling ramp

The spiral staircase

It all looks new and shiny, and the books have the feel of just having been arranged on their new shelves. Loads of users are already using the spaces - the reading and computer rooms look like they will be very popular.

Overall, the space feels modern and generous. I have some niggles with the finish, which lets the standard down - the exposed concrete ceilings look like they've been demanded by an accountant late in construction rather than originally envisaged by the architect. The librarians' space will probably need to be redesigned - it's way too small and encourages spiralling gaggles of users to besiege the poor duty librarian from all angles - while I was there fights were erupting amongst library clients (over where the queue was) and the librarians themselves appeared stressed.

Noise levels are quite high - the central atrium and hard surfaces throughout create an echoing acoustic, and the children's play area generates a large amount of noise to echo.

Building The Big Society

Building The Big Society
Originally uploaded by hedgiecc

CallmeDave and Boris helping out in the window of Trinity Hospice Shop, Clapham High Street

Brockwell Park Fireworks

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the financial crisis hits the fireworks displays - fireworks on Clapham Common were cancelled this year, and instead Lambeth Council plans to rotate the displays annually through the borough's parks. Fireworks will return to the Common in 2013 (if there is any money left then). This year they were held in Brockwell Park.

Brockwell has the enchanting Art Deco Lido, with its wonderful cafe, and superb views to the city - a southern version of Hampstead and Primrose Hill. Unfortunately, it does not enjoy easy access to public transport - I wonder if the Council thought of this in its planning?

I left my house at 7:10 and waited 20 minutes for the 37 bus - which arrived full to overflowing. The driver did not open his doors. My bus stop on Long Rd was crowded with people clearly waiting for the 37 only. I decided to bail out on the bus and took the tube to Brixton. No need to follow directions on a map - a vast throng of people were walking from Brixton tube to Brockwell Park.

I finally made it to the Park just as the first fireworks were let off at 8pm. They were impressive as always; quite a lift to the spirit in these chilly November evenings.

Halloween

Halloween has really taken off as an annual event and Claphamites celebrate it with gusto - here is my random selection of creepy ghouls and beasties prowling the clubs and bars of South London.

More Clapham animal history

From British Pathé's wonderful site. A bulldog, a monkey and a duck go shopping on Clapham Park Road in 1951 . . .

THREE PETS

If that's not exciting enough, here is footage of an escaped lion on the loose at Clapham Junction in 1943 . . .

LION (issue title is ON THE SPOT)

Some thoughts on the recent disturbances

Nick Clegg predicted these riots would happen under a minority Tory Government during last year’s election campaign, of course. But going back to 2006 even David Cameron appeared to suggest there was a social context to youth crime, in his “hug a hoodie” phase. But now the riots for him are criminality, “pure and simple”, and he resists calls for public enquiries even as he outlines a programme of hysterical populist authoritarianism going forward. So far so depressing.

A pinko liberal like me will point to the fact that the riots overwhelmingly happened in poorer areas and the rioters tended to be unemployed, and argue this must mean social deprivation and blighted prospects must be relevant to understanding the causes of these disturbances. However, it will be pointed out (correctly) that the vast majority of poor people do not riot and steal, whatever the provocation.

It is true criminality exists at all levels of society. Criminals selfishly take to enrich themselves at others’ expense, if they calculate they will get away with it. Most violent crime happens at lower levels, but as one rises in the social pecking order there are greater opportunities for non-violent crime, and for immoral acts which just tidily skirt the edges of the law. For instance, I feel there is an exact moral equivalence between MP’s looting public funds for plasma TVs on their expenses and Tottenham rioters looting Curry’s.

Peter Oborne brilliantly expands on this point:

“The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.”

For thirty years and more we have been told that “greed is good” (personal greed being the driver of neo-liberal economics) and we have witnessed decades of consumerist excess. We are what we consume. So now we have “shopping with violence” by those excluded from the system and a “grab what you can while you can” attitude in our politicians, businessmen and bankers.

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, in plain sight, debauched the integrity of our political classes from Thatcher in the 80’s (who broke the rules and allowed News International to take control of The Times and Sunday Times) to just this year, when until the scandal broke the Cameron government gave every indication of breaking every sinew in order to give Murdoch the full ownership of BSkyB without legal examination.

While this trail of political corruption was there for everyone to see - most lefties have been yammering on about it for years - what shocked me was they way in which the Metropolitan Police were corrupted by News International too.

So now Britain has a superstructure of morally bankrupt politicians, police, media and bankers presiding over a rioting underclass. We truly are in dire straits.

But it seems to me the police have been corrupted from another direction too. Before she launched into her vast social engineering programme, Thatcher gave the police massive pay increases, and given the amount of social unrest during the 80s this was clearly an astute Machiavellian ploy. However, Cameron’s crew were more naively neo-liberal than the blessed Margaret and decided the police were a social expense they wanted to cut (by 20%). The strangely tentative police reaction to the start of the rioting (rioters in Clapham were left alone for hours, for example, despite prior knowledge of the intended attacks) suggests a possible intention on their part to put some pressure on the Government over the cuts; certainly the PR war between police and government in the last few days appears to support this interpretation too.

Which is another cause for alarm. Under Blair we saw an huge increase in the political import of the police - and indeed political policing. Now it could be argued the police are holding the government to ransom. I’m not a fan of Cameron at all but it is completely outrageous that the (unelected) police [service] should feel empowered to publicly argue with the elected representatives of State. I’m reading a book about the downfall of the Roman empire at the moment and it struck me we are not a million miles away from the Praetorian Guard deposing the Emperor because their pay rise wasn’t big enough.

Riots have a long history in Britain, and our beloved tv period dramas have occluded the extent of rioting in the vastly unequal Victorian and Edwardian eras. The 1886 Riot (Damages) Act allows for victims to claim compensation from the police if they were insufficiently protected. It is interesting that lawmakers of the time came up with this idea. They were clearly responding to a perceived need.

Back in those days, police and rioters were probably evenly matched in terms of technology. The 20th Century saw the police attain total dominance in technology, organization, tactics and training over potential rioters, culminating in the controversial kettling tactics of the last couple of decades.

However, we should remember the Black bloc anarchists who infiltrated the Anti-Cuts March back in March this year successfully trumped the police kettling tactics. The black bloc people ran amock in small groups throughout the city, popping up all over to cause havoc, then melting away only to reappear elsewhere. No black blocs were arrested, despite them being the major perpetrators of political violence that day. Instead, the police chose to arrest around 300 entirely peaceful UK Uncut protestors staging a sit-in in Fortnum & Masons (highlighting Fortnum’s non-payment of UK tax). These arrests were massive headline news at the time. Subsequently, all charges against everyone arrested there were dropped.

Clearly, those arrests formed a PR mask for police failure, and the current riots demonstrate anarchist black bloc tactics have by osmosis been absorbed by criminal elements intent on looting, with similar expectations of success. The only successful police response to this was an eventual massive increase in manpower on the streets - 16,000 on the streets of London this week, more than ever in history and three times more than usual. This is not sustainable long-term and police will be thinking of new tactics to contain rioters.

But until new, successful and cost-effective tactics are developed, and underlying social injustices are addressed, I expect to see more events of this kind. The initial riots were copied very quickly and very widely. Until then we will have to suffer populism of the “ban twitter and facebook” kind, even though it could be argued tv news coverage poured more petrol on the flames than social media ever did.

Clapham History: Murder and Fashion

Feels a bit odd discovering a sensational murder took place virtually on my doorstep almost 60 years ago, one which propelled a youth phenomenon into the national consciousness to boot.

In the early 50s Londoners were still overcoming the legacy of World War II, with austerity still casting a baleful pall. Gangs of youths in South London started to adopt a flamboyant style of dress in rebellion against the depressing drabness. Apparently, they were inspired by upscale west end gay fashionistas. The look was flash and expensive.

On the evening of the 2nd July 1953 a fracas started near Clapham Common bandstand and spilled over to North Side, where two lads were dragged off the 137 bus and one of them, John Beckley, was fatally stabbed. The gang wore the cutting-edge fashionable teenage costume which referenced Edwardian style - newspapers found the word too long for headlines so shortened it to "Teddy" and the Teddy Boys were born.

Read Another Nickel in the Machine's great post on this incident.

New in Clapham

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The new Library Building on Clapham High Street is shooting up and is due for completion in September this year. Very exciting, as we'll have a brand new library and swimming pool here in SW4. The developers get 136 new apartments to flog, to help pay for the public amenities.

You won't find any information on the website about the new civic facilities, just a rather crass commercial hard sell. However, the relentless, hysterical grip on its target demographic is rather amusing:

[Edit: video now removed as too annoying!}

No grannies need apply!

I suppose the target punters will be shocked to find such an archaic insitution as a library in the basement. They may enjoy the swimming pool, however. It will be interesting to see how public and private interact as the building comes to life.


'The New" is actually so old - such a watered-down, pale pastiche of Frank Gehry's oeurvre, an architect whose style, so amazing in the 90s, is already slipping into the past. Do we deserve better public buildings? I suppose the rather magnificent Battersea Library extension was also architecturally retrogressive when it was built in the 1920s. It was however proud to be a library.

An Ancient Roman Altar in Clapham

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According to records, this inscribed Roman altar stone was discovered during building operations at Clapham Common South Side in 1912. It was erected by Vitus Ticinius Ascanius, probably in the first century AD. Clapham High Street and Abbeyville Road were Roman Roads (heading towards Chichester) so the Romans were active in these parts but it is nce to have hard physical proof that they were in the neighbourhood almost 2,000 years ago.

It has now been re-erected outside Clapham Old Town public library. I've been going here for years but not noticed it before! (However, in my defence it is behind a heavy iron railing and almost hidden under a hedge and shrub). The inscription is very faint.

By complete coincidence I came across the English Heritage records last night, and as today was voting day in the Alternatve Vote referendum I kept a look out for it when I went to vote :)

I was the only one there at lunch time! - voter apathy rules supreme. As I write this, there is still some time to get to the polling station and vote if you haven't already. Despite all the cycnicism engendered by the behaviour our current crop of politicians, this is actually an opportinity to change our democracy for the better. :)

Graham Greene lived here!

Graham Greene lived here!
Originally uploaded by hedgiecc

No. 14 Clapham Common North Side

The novelist received an official blue plaque from English Heritage last week.

"Graham Greene (1904-1991) lived at 14 Clapham Common North Side from 1935 until he was forced to leave the house due to war damage in 1940. His novel The End of the Affair is set in Clapham in 1945-6. The narrator lives in a bedsit 'at the wrong side of the Common' (South Side), drinks in the 'Pontefract Arms' (The Windmill) and visits 'the dark church at the corner of Park Road - a Roman Catholic church full of plaster statues' (St Mary's).
Writing to his mother, Greene describes Clapham thus: 'the whole appearance of Clapham Common is lovely, like a wide green plateau on a hilltop above Battersea with the Common stretching out in one direction and on three sides surrounded by little country-like shops and Queen Anne houses."

- from Clapham Past by Gillian Clegg

Greene lived here with his family from August 1935 to October 1940, when the house was bombed.

"The English Heritage blue plaque will be installed at 14 Clapham Common North Side, where Greene lived with his family from August 1935; at that time he described it as “a most beautiful Queen Anne house … done up absolutely like a museum piece”. It remained his home until October 1940 when it was hit in a bombing raid and became uninhabitable; the house was empty that night as Vivien and the children had been evacuated to Sussex and Graham was staying in Bloomsbury with his lover, Dorothy Glover. This devastating event later inspired the pivotal point in his novel, The End of the Affair. Despite the damage, the outer walls of the house remained intact, allowing the interior to be rebuilt after the war. The house is Grade II* listed and forms part of a terrace built by the architect John Hutt in 1714-20.

Greene’s daughter, Caroline Bourget, said of the house: ".... my father evacuated us to his parents' home in Sussex in August 1939 when I was only 5 yrs old......but I do remember the magnificent staircase. Some well-known writers and publishers visited the house such as John Betjeman and Evelyn Waugh. When I met them later, they recalled seeing me at the age of 3 or 4."

English Heritage blue plaque historian Dr Susan Skedd said: “Graham Greene is indisputably one of the great British writers of the twentieth century. He achieved the rare distinction of enjoying both critical and popular admiration throughout his career. Since the centenary of his birth in 2004 his literary reputation has been increasing and we hope this plaque will act as a focus for old and new fans of his work alike.”

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy love-fest to all you loved-up couples out there! Some photos of the Valentine's celebrations in Clapham and London: a veritable orgy of balloons, hearts, cake and pink.

Birksen Florists in Clapham Old Town always have the most ravishing seasonal windows.


Love is a four letter word: cakes from Konditor and Cook in Borough Market

Ceramic Valentines from North Street Potters, Clapham

You know you want me: cards from Scribbler, branches all over London

A cucumber grows in Clapham

..................................A tomato too . . .


..................................Farmer Ed for the win!

Adventures in Wonderland

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Alice arrived in a Clapham wonderland earlier this month as Trinity Hospice welcomed Londoners to its garden open day in aid of the NGS.


The afternoon was themed as an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ family fun-day with entertainers, including magicians and costumed stilt walkers for children, stalls to browse and drinks and light refreshments. All in the setting of the magical and beautiful English country style gardens.