Sunday, September 14, 2008

Fair (or Fayre) Does

The local park had a "country fayre" today. In the middle of a London borough! I did get some bottles of Kent apple juice made from named varieties.

I also went to the Art Deco Fair at Eltham Palace. I've written about this glorious building before, with its art deco mansion built on to a medieval great hall. There are Tudor ruins in the grounds. Henry VIII and Elizabeth both stayed here.

These walls in the garden are Tudor brick on medieval stone.


This 14th century stone bridge is topped by Tudor brick parapets.


The arches are also lined with Tudor brick.


The Great Hall is - well - er - great!


There are three Tudor houses outside the gate, in the street known as the Tilt Yard, where jousting would have taken place. When one came up for sale some years ago I was gutted that I couldn't afford to buy it.


Today was a gloriously sunny, warm day, and people turned out in force. Not only was the car park full, so were the overflow, 2 x overflow and 3 x overflow car parks. There were also cars on the verges and in the wider parts of the drive.
I was in the 3 x overflow car park, and in the field next door there were four ponies - probably two mothers and two foals. These two came over to me hoping for a treat.






9 comments:

  1. So glad you had a wonderful time, thank you for sharing these great pix. The buildings seem amazing, hopefully I'll get to England next Spring. And the ponies are soooo adorable.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have such wonderful architecture over there. Thanks for sharing all those photos! Love those ponies, too. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. As Blogger/Tiscali hated me all weekend I've been playing catch-up this morning...thank you for the tour of your area of London..it doesn't look a bad place to live :-)

    Thank you for the pics from your day out too...I can understand why you would have been slightly annoyed at not being able to afford one of those houses!!! Funny how we can live amongst so much history and take it all for granted sometimes.

    You really do need to come and visit Oxford one day...as long as you can cope with all the students :-D

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous12:44 pm

    Eliza, I think Blogger hated everyone over the weekend! It was a royal pain in the butt.

    Glad the weather has improved enough for you to enjoy some days out.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Beautiful!!!! You are so lucky to have such a rich history that you can actually still see and touch.

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a beautiful place! Hello little ponies :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ooh! Medieval stone! Were there any dragons?
    Love the pictures, by the way.

    ReplyDelete
  8. What?!? I love dragons...

    ReplyDelete
  9. When I was a wee lad, I often daydreamed of riding my own pony. Now that I am older ... much, much older ... I dream of riding Vincent. Isn't it interesting how our tastes "change" as we get older?

    ReplyDelete