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What’s the best thing about Christmas in Cheltenham? Not the lights, not the shops. For me it’s this:

The Promenade on Christmas Day, blissfully deserted right the way up to the Queen’s Hotel.

It’s not just because I’m a reclusive curmudgeon that I like Cheltenham best when it’s deserted. It’s actually a very magical experience to hear the natural sounds of the town which are normally drowned out by traffic and bustle. Stand by a manhole cover in the Promenade in the empty stillness and hear the muffled rushing of the River Chelt passing unseen beneath the pavement.

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The municipal offices, or rather the terrace of 1822-3 known as Harward’s Buildings, photographed on Christmas Day and almost unrecognisable in the absence of parked cars!

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The High Street with not a soul in sight.

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Deflated Santa, Lower High Street

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Balls. Imperial Square

Following recent consultations across the Town Centre cluster a number of issues have been repeatedly mentioned as priorities for residents.

Eastcott

In the Eastcott area of the Cluster most concerns expressed by local people are around the following issues:

• Residents parking 
• Double yellow lines and parking issues
• The number of shared houses and houses of multiple occupation
• Cleanliness and appearance of the neighbourhood
•  Places for young people to play

Queens Park

In the Queens Park area most concerns raised were around the following issues:

• Anti social behaviour in Queens Park
• Cleanliness of the local neighbourhood
• Speeding on Groundwell road and Drove road
• Anti social behaviour in the rear alleys

Broad Green

In the Broad Green area concerns were raised about the following issues:

• Lack of Community facilities
• Parking and Double yellow lines
• Cleanliness of the local neighbourhood
• Anti Social behaviour

In other parts of central ward concerns were raised about the following issues:

• Future use of Central Community Centre
• Places for young people to play
• Anti social behaviour in Farringdon road park
• Cleanliness of the local neighbourhood
• Parking issues
• Anti social behaviour at The Parade

Others issues have also been identified ranging from not enough street lights through to the number of empty buildings in the town centre.

We would like to ask all residents living in the town centre cluster to share their views about their neighbourhood and think about how these might be resolved working together to provide a sustainable solution.

If you would like to be involved or make suggestions please follow the link below to add your comments.

The main port of entry into the Solomon Islands is at Henderson International Airport on the island of Guadalcanal. Situated approximately 15 minutes drive from the airport is the capital, Honiara. The town is on the northern coastline and incorporates a small picturesque sea port at Point Cruz. Visitors will enjoy the hustle and bustle of Honiara and there are many things to do and see.

Made easy with public buses that run along the main road, Mendana Avenue. A destination card is displayed on the front window and fares are modest. Taxi cabs are not metered but can be booked or flagged down in the street.

A good selection of restaurants offers a variety of cuisine. Some hotel restaurants feature cultural nights with local musicians and groups performing traditional song and dance. There are a number of Chinese restaurants and others that specialise in fresh local seafood such as Coconut Crab and Lobster. Japanese, Thai and Italian dishes can also be found on the menus in Honiara. An excellent recommendation with the fresh seafood or the international cuisines is the Solomon Islands beer, Sol brew.

Honiara town centre is level, shady and interesting, with a bustling air and interesting shops, some specialising in local handicrafts, others in duty free goods. The range of products however is limited. Here also is the centre of commerce, banks, postal service, Telecom, restaurants, tourist information centre and local tour operators. The outdoor markets around town are a wonderful opportunity to mix with the locals. Here you will find an interesting array of local goods and produce, from fresh fish and vegetables, fruit, peanuts and betel nuts, to carvings, basket ware, calico lava-lavas and shells. Solomon Islands has some of the finely handcrafted Art and Craft, from the brown streaked carvings with its inlaid mother of pearls to pandanus baskets, bays and trays with amazingly minute patterns.

The Point Cruz Yacht Club and Honiara Golf Club, situated in Honiara, welcome overseas guests for drinks and light or main meals. For those looking for something more upbeat, there are several nightclubs in Honiara, the Warehouse, Club Marimba, Paradise Club, and VIP Club featuring DJs and local and overseas bands.

Other activities include regular dances, film nights, sailing, boating, fishing and golf tournaments. Several casinos in Honiara cater for both the casual and serious punters who enjoy Baccarat, Blackjack, Roulette and the famous Pacific Poker.

The National Parliament building, opened in 1993, is a distinctive conical building overlooking the main town centre. A tour of the entire building can be arranged with the Sergeant at Arms.

The National Museum, also located in the town centre, is open daily with displays of dance and body ornamentation, traditional currencies, weaponry, and archaeology. The Central Bank of Solomon Islands is a large modern building containing some interesting displays of red feather money, shell money, other local currencies and very fine wood carvings.

Botanical Gardens and herbarium with a display of local orchids, and a selection of bush plants and trees, mostly typical of rainforests in the country.

Its reported today that Kettering Borough Council are attempting to find another way to settle its dispute with HMV over a performace at its store by Faryl Smith.

Common sense finally gets a look in at KBC - miracles do happen sometimes. 50 comments on the evening Telegraph website and letters tonight condemning action. Sentinel noticed that members of Barton Seagraves own little Mafia, the Barton Action Group were some of the writers, Mr Power and Mr Lashmar. Just be careful how many things you take on lads, plenty of fights in this village without picking head to heads with the council leadership.

So now that the Council have finished making this town look a complete wombat on the national scene maybe they can get back to ruining our lives on a daily basis.

I was appointed Cluster lead for the town centre cluster for the Connecting People, Connecting places programme in May this I was delighted. I realised that this would be a huge challenge, but welcomed the opportunity to help improve our town.

One of the first things that I had to do was to speak with all the elected members for the cluster, which is central and eastcott wards. Part of the process was for the elected members to appoint a cluster chair. Cllr. David Wood was nominated and appointed as the town centre cluster chair.

In July we held a meeting at the Civic Offices and invited parents of young people to talk about and discuss issues around access and provision to local schools. Despite a relatively small number of people attending, the meeting was a success and from these discussions the policy for siblings in a school was given greater priority. This will help parents with two children have greater opportunity to their second child attend the same school as the first child.

We also saw the Street Athletics take place in Broad Street on a very wet day, but there was a really good turnout and many young people participating in the 60 yard races, which saw a number of participants going onto the national finals in Manchester later in the year. This was a really good event and Darren Campbell and former Olympic champion Linford Christie confirmed that they would like to come back to Swindon next year to continue with the games next year.

In August we attended the summer fayre of Queens Park Community Council at Queens park. At this we spoke with numerous local residents who shared their views about local issues and what they perceived as local priorities. From this issues such as litter, anti social behaviour, loud music / noise, lack of youth play facilities, parking, houses of multiple occupation, etc were all raised as issues affecting local people.

Throughout September I visited a number of local community groups and met with local people to discuss local issues, this included Eastcott Community Council, Queens Park Community Council, Broad Green Community Council, Great Western Residents Association, hearing about local concerns and local priorities .

In October we organised a drop in event in the town centre at Wharf Green and The Parade. Really good event with lots of residents telling all the officers present from the Council, Wiltshire Fire and Rescue service and Wiltshire Constabulary with ward members. The feedback from this event was again around issues relating to the local environment, policing and issues around anti social behaviour, parking issues, town centre regeneration.

I also attended the launch of the community strategy for the Broad Green area, this was the culmination of the past couple of years of discussing local priorities with local people and compiling these priorities into a strategy for the neighbourhood for the next three years. This was a retally well attended event and was also an acknowledgement for the young people who participated in the Street Athletics games earlier in the summer.

I met a number of people at this meeting who wished to discuss issues relating to their faiths and religious beliefs and some difficulties that they have been experiencing, one comment I have received a number times is that they do not know who to speak with or where to go. This is a comment I have taken back with me and an issue we clearly need to try and make this more

Last week we started local engagements events with an engagement event on Eastcott Road, comments received back was in keeping with feedback we had already received around litter, fly tipping, play facilities, parking and local policing.

We will be continuing this form of local engagement over the next couple of weeks in the Eastcott area with an event at Groundwell Rd on Tuesday 10th November and in the central ward area later in the evening in the Manchester Road area followed by an event on Farringdon Road on Friday 13th November in the afternoon.

This one is a little bit out of the village but it sums up everything that is wrong with our Council and the people in charge.

So it appears the Kettering Borough Council have decided to prosecute a town centre record shop for helping a talented young singer, who has received more awards than I can mention, promote her album and so put Kettering on the music map.
According to the Northants Evening Telegraph
an action is being brought against HMV for allowing Kettering singer Faryl Smith to perform in their shop without a public Entertainment license.

OK so it may be they didn’t have the right bit of paper or it may also be that this sort of thing is actually exempt from the 2003/4 Licensing Act, we shall have to wait and see. But you have to really ask whether our leaders at Kettering Borough council are serious about regenerating the town centre or are they just interested in the money?

This is the most idiotic thing to happen to our town centre in the last couple of years. Last year we had a council leader telling everyone that the redevelopment was akin to the story of the Hare and Tortoise and now it appears we are pushing yet another retailer out of the town…I’d pack up and leave if it were my shop.

A quick look at the ET website and the dear leader -Kim Jong Hakewill – has become deafeningly silent on this issue. Maybe he is drafting his resignation letter again. We must get rid of this man and his cronies as soon as possible, its time for a full on campaign for a directly elected mayor to stop things like this happening again.

I hope KBC loose this and are made to look very stupid. I hope that heads roll and apologies are made

Insp Bob Hassall

Nantwich Police have issued a warning to town centre revellers after a series of arrests over the weekend, including one assault on an officer.

Fourteen people were detained in the town on Friday and Saturday night for offences ranging from theft, public order and assault.

Nantwich Insp Bob Hassall said a number of people have been charged and to appear in court, while others received fixed penalty notices for disorder.

Insp Hassall said: “When door staff refuse you entry to a premises move on and try a different venue.

“They are entitled to do so without having to discuss the finer points with you and getting yourself arrested for disorder is not a good end to the night.

“My officers are there to ensure the majority have a good night out. If they have to detain an individual then others should not get involved in stopping them from executing their duty.

“We have a very good working relationship with all the licensees and Nantwich remains a very safe place to visit. People should not confuse busy with being unsafe because that is not the case.”

St George’s Place. This is one of Cheltenham’s oldest railing finials, probably made around 1795. It’s tall and ornate, patterned with beading and leaves and topped with a small pineapple (the detail is slightly worn on this example). It belongs to Athelney House, which is one of a terrace of four built in this street in the late 18th century. One of the other houses in the terrace was occupied by Dr Jenner, the smallpox vaccination pioneer. His house was demolished in the 1960s and rebuilt in 1994 with replica railings.

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St George’s Place. Another in the same terrace, also dating from around 1795. At first glance it looks similar to the one above, but it’s actually quite a different design.

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Royal Crescent. Another early urn, from about 1810. Its beautiful condition belies its age. The railings in Royal Crescent are know to have been supplied by a Worcester ironmonger called John Bradley. It’s unlikely that he made the urns himself though, as he didn’t set up his own foundry until several years later.

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Crescent Place. This patterned urn was made some time before 1820.

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Crescent Place. As was this plain one, on the house next door.

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Montpellier Terrace. Most of the houses in this street were built in the 1820s, although some are slightly earlier. There are several different urn designs to be found along this stretch of road, and this is probably one of the older ones.

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Montpellier Terrace. This is an unusual urn design for Cheltenham, accompanied here by some nice fleur de lys rail heads.

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Lansdown Parade. This, on the other hand, is a design you will find in many places in Cheltenham. It’s a Marshall urn, cast locally by the firm R.E. & C. Marshall and appearing on many sets of railings from the 1810s onwards – this one was probably made as late as 1838. These urns are easy to spot because they are ‘badged’ – they feature the name ‘Marshall’ around one side and ‘Cheltenham’ on the other.

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Oxford Parade. Here’s another Marshall urn, showing the ‘Cheltenham’ badge on the other side. This one was made in about 1817.

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Bath Road. Another ‘badged’ urn, this time bearing the name of W. Wheeler and dating from some time in the 1820s. There are quite a lot of Wheeler urns in Cheltenham from around this period, and ironwork expert Amina Chatwin has identified three different designs, although they are superfically quite similar. But next to nothing is known about W. Wheeler, or how his urns came to be so widely used in Cheltenham.

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As always, “Cheltenham’s Ornamental Ironwork” by Amina Chatwin has been an invaluable source for this post.

The second instalment in an occasional series documenting Cheltenham’s ephemeral street daubings.

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Malvern Road. This well preserved set of antique scratchings can be found in the passageway leading off Malvern Road into Lansdown Terrace Lane. They were hidden behind a metal plate for some years, which has helped to preserve them from subsequent layers of rendering. Here on the cornerstone of one of Cheltenham’s most precious architectural landmarks, two centuries’ worth of bored socialites made use of the carvable properties of Cotswold stone before they invented Twitter.

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Clarence Street. A somewhat more modern interpretation of vernacular art, on the window of the former C&G offices in Clarence Street.

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Oxford Passage. A shark looks rather surprised to find itself on the door of a Victorian workshop.

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Gloucester Road. Continuing the fish theme, this little beauty is inexplicably pasted onto a BT junction box outside Travis Perkins’ yard on the busy Gloucester Road (thanks to Anna for spotting it).

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Gloucester Road. And lo and behold, further up the street I was pleased to find a companion piece by the same artist, hereafter known as the “Gloucester Road fish dauber”. This one is gracing the boarded-up doorway of a derelict public toilet.

At a first glance you probably wouldn’t notice anything unusual on this rather lovely 1830s terrace of four houses in Priory Street on the corner of Hewlett Place. Look closely at some of the details though, and it obviously wasn’t finished off in quite the way it was intended. Whether it’s the result of different builders and owners applying their own tastes and style decisions, or whether it’s simply a case of the development running out of money, remains a mystery – it could of course be a bit of both.

These are the first two houses in the terrace. The obvious difference is in the windows. The first house has three bays in the upper storey while its neighbour only has two, and the two tall thin windows on the ground floor are substituted next door for an altogether more ostentatious single one, although they are similar in style. More subtly, the second house has fewer glazing bars in the window over the door, and its front railings, although matching those of the first house, are lacking in the delicate curvaceous scrolls in between the rails. Otherwise the houses are designed to match. They both have panelled giant pilasters (i.e. decorative fake columns which span both storeys) topped with capitals, each decorated with a very pretty anthemion motif. Except – whoopsies – the capital on the left hand side is missing. Maybe it was always absent, but it’s probably more likely that it fell off at some point. Above each of the capitals is another panel with a wreath design … except that the one in the middle is blank – not sure whether or not it was meant to be like that.

If you look at the top of the houses they have a carved ornamental bit on top of the parapet. Not easy to see the detail in the photo above, so here is an enlargement (zoomed in from the same photo).

On the first house we have a panelled tablet and a beautifully delicate scroll carved with acanthus leaves. But …

On the second house – erm … no carving. The basic scroll shape is there, but it’s blank and still waiting to be carved. The cornice underneath is also simplified.

An even more striking example of the unfinished carving on the second house is right there on the ground floor window. You can’t see it too well in the main photo above, but when you zoom in …

The main part of the window is beautifully finished off with carved wreaths and a pair of scroll console brackets … lovingly detailed with acanthus leaves. But the scroll ornament on the top is blank – still in its “ready-to-carve” stage.

This kind of unfinished detail is usually a matter of running out of money, and that’s certainly the impression here when you move on to the other half of the terrace …

Although the design is the same across the whole terrace, there is a very obvious move to economise on these third and fourth houses. The panelled pilasters are gone – replaced with a very plain, narrow and simple pilaster with no capitals and no decorative panels. They also have the same ‘unfinished’ roof ornament seen on house two … blank scroll outlines with no carving. The railings are simpler too, and lack the ornamental finials seen on the first two houses. Not everything is compromised though … they still have the ornate ground floor windows, and a variation in the front door, which is inside an arched recess.

These four houses were most likely built in the late 1830s. Their site is shown on the 1834 map as a mere plot of grass, but interestingly the map shows the rest of Priory Street laid out for the building of another longer terrace which was never completed. Only the central and end pairs of houses were built by 1834, and the rest of the plot remained vacant until well into the 20th century.

Just as an aside, the pilaster capitals with the anthemion design appear to be absolutely identical to the ones that occur on Thatcher’s Tea Room at the bottom of Montpellier Street, way over on the other side of the town centre.

Priory Street, left and Thatcher’s Tea Room, right.

I assume they were both pre-cast, from a commercial pattern. It’s not just the anthemion design that’s the same either … the giant panelled pilasters are also exactly the same.

Hello there,

Having just played a really enjoyable set in wonderful Dartford town centre (Bar Mondo), I feel an update coming on…

First of all there was some kind of carnival going on in the high street. Just thought i’d mention that.

The gig went really well for our first venture into Kent. A few old faces turned up from my old school (which was but a mile down the road) as well as some of my closest friends, and some new faces. Thanks guys, even the ones who turned up after our set! It was a shame we couldn’t play later (last trains an’ all) as it started to get well sardine after our set- but it was still busy and sweaty when we got to the stage, making for a great gig. Thanks to the guitarist from Standing On Giants for letting me borrow (indefinitely) one of his guitar strings; I owe you one!

I ended up staying until the bitter end and watched a brilliant fight unfold, involving toilet queues and incontinence, and drinking copious amounts of diet coke, as I somehow became the designated driver for all the purple-lipped red wine drinkers.

Just heard that our E.P artwork and limited edition C.Ds are being printed as I type, so I can’t wait to actually hold one in my hand as soon as I can!

That’s about it really-Go and have a butchers at our website too for gig listings, and don’t forget to sign up to the mailing list to recieve your free track…

Tonight I had a wonderful Roast and then watched the Grand Prix. Nice one Jenson!

goodbye

Gaolers x

The one thing that I really enjoy about where I live, is that to get into the centre of the town centre is merely a 5 minute walk.

Just the previous summer I had the unfortunate experience of discovering why I am really so lucky. My sister is staying across the pond, and whilst I was there I literally had nothing to do.

She was off at school, having adventures. My mother was off in New York meeting friends. My Grandmother was running the household. And I had nothing except a laptop with the worst internet connection ever.

Colorado in the summer is horrible. I was stuck in a ‘gated community’, in a place where everything is 2km away from all other things. I walked to the Walgreens, and to find a post-box so that I could send off for my Star Trek Tee. The roads are busy and noisy, there were no trees along the pavements for much needed shelter and it was naturally closer to the blistering sun. After that I vowed never to leave the blissfully cool basement.

Anyways, I went to do some shopping today …

It’s so busy! I guess it’s to be expected, everything’s on sale now that the shops are stocking up with the winter wardrobes.

I prefer to go in on a Sunday for that exact reason, you can never tell how busy it’ll be.

I go by myself. I hate having to agree with others about what shops to go into, and I don’t have to feel self conscious about how little or how much time I’ve spent in each shop. I also have a habit of continuously going into shops multiple times as I make a list in my mind about what I plan on buying. Anyone else the same?

The great thing about my hometown is the buskers. There’s always some performers. It’s a wonderful feeling I get when I have my iPod on a low volume, so that I can let my music wash over me, whilst listening to the bustle of people, the shouts of ‘BIG ISSUE!’ and the intertwining sounds of various buskers. Of course, nice weather doesn’t go a miss.

There was a woman and man though, shouting on microphones. All I saw was a sign saying ‘Free Bibles’, and I just heard the guy say ‘And those are two reasons why evolution is wrong’.

Fair enough, spread the word of God and all by the Cathedral. If you’re hanging out there, you’ve got to accept your on religious grounds, but in the middle of town? I didn’t even know people like that really existed outside the US, let alone in Farmerville.

I’ve also just bought the audio book of the new Star Trek film. It’s read by Zachary Quinto so I’ve basically got 8 and a half hours of his amazing voice reading out one of my favourite shows. I’ve started listening to it, and he reads it perfectly, he’s such a great actor!

Photos taken September 2009

Corpus Street is a quiet cul-de-sac off the busy A40 London Road and although only one side survives in its original form it’s a lovely example of a Regency-era artisan street.

The origins of Corpus Street – and its name – go back to a time when large areas of land in Cheltenham were held and administered by Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The area of land to the south of London Road was known as Kinsham Close, which later morphed into Keynsham, a name which is still prevalent in that part of Cheltenham today. It was part of the charity estate bequeathed by Richard Pate, whose beneficence is still apparent in the town some 400 years after his death. Pate left substantial land holdings in the care of Corpus Christi College, from which he had graduated, and they were responsible for its administration for several centuries.

Some time around 1818, the Corpus Christi College records note that “3 houses are begun at the front of Keynsham Close and the lessee proposes to have a street down the centre with small houses on each side and 3 on the east side to correspond with the 3 on the west side”.

These ‘3 houses’ are Oxford Villas, a beautiful Regency mini-terrace which fronts onto London Road and remains one of the special attractions in this part of Cheltenham. Their frontages have been distinctive in recent years for having been painted a dark grey-green and their ironwork a contrasting white – you can see a bit of them in the photo above. Each house has an exquisitely lacy and delicate wrought iron veranda with a tented hood. The houses are set back from the road with long front gardens bounded by wrought iron railings. The railing finials bear the name of Marshall, made by the local foundry R.E.& C. Marshall … perhaps Marshall’s made the verandas too.

The proposed second group of three on the east side were never built, their intended plot being taken up by a large villa instead. But the “street down the centre” is what became Corpus Street. The 1820 map shows the newly built Oxford Villas … Corpus Street didn’t yet exist but its line is visible as a strip along the left hand side of the terrace.

1820 map. Two confusing things about this map – one, it’s upside down and has south at the top. Secondly, the main road shown here was originally part of the High Street, but is now part of London Road instead (the point at which the High Street ends and London Road begins was changed in 1954). I’ve added a label to show where Oxford Villas are, newly built in the field known as Keynsham Close. The whole area was still very lightly developed at this time, but familar names already present include Oxford Parade (then only part built), Oxford Street (also part built and not yet meeting up with the main road) and Keynsham Bank (a group of houses now demolished but the name survives). Just opposite Oxford Villas and to the right is the large detached house known as The Priory, as yet unencumbered by any adjoining houses or streets.

The top section of Corpus Street is entirely taken up with the sides and backs of the houses fronting onto London Road. Because Oxford Villas have such long front gardens, and also fairly generous rear gardens, they dominate a large chunk and the houses of Corpus Street itself don’t begin until some way down the street.

The rear of Oxford Villas viewed from Corpus Street; walled gardens and a very attractive lunette window with a fanlight (rems of).

The layout and building of Corpus Street is thought to have begun in 1820 or thereabouts, continuing through until at least 1826, and comprised two terraces of ’small houses’. In the early stages of development it was called Corpus Christi Street, but was soon settled in its shorter form. It’s possible that the bricks used to build the houses were dug and fired on site, as there is a reference in the Corpus Christi records to Keynsham Close being used as a brickfield in 1818. They are typical of Georgian artisan houses; compact and solid and sturdy with the six-paned sash windows typical of the period (some of which have been replaced with bigger panes over the years) and a cellar underneath. They would have been home to skilled tradespeople, whose lives would have been very different from those who lived in the villas along London Road. In the 1841 census, for example, Corpus Street was inhabited by a range of dressmakers, tanners, smiths, builders, laundresses, hairdressers and cooks, while the end house of Oxford Villas was the home of a surgeon who kept two servants.

Decades later, the second house from the left in the picture below was the home of Arthur Phillips, an employee of the Cheltenham Original Brewery who joined up to fight in the First World War and was killed in the 3rd Battle of Ypres in 1917. His neighbour across the street, George Organ, met the same fate a year later in 1918; he had been a pony-carriage owner in the years before the war, running a ‘taxi’ type service in the town with his two carriages.

I’m curious about the dips in the pavement in front of each door … you normally only see this where there is a vehicle access, so I’m not sure why it was done here, but it seems to follow the line of the original pavement which still shows through the tarmac in places. There are also some slight differences in detail between the houses, which suggests that they may not have all been built by the same builder, but parcelled up into lots which were sold off separately (a common practice at the time). An overall design was adhered to but small details varied. For example most, but not all, have a lunette panel above the front door, some of which are glazed and others left blank. This one has a beautifully ornate fanlight.

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At one time there was a beerhouse at 5 Corpus Street called the Oxford Arms, belonging to the Cheltenham Original Brewery. It is known to have been there in the 1870s and was still there in 1926, but was demolished along with the rest of the western side of the street shortly afterwards.

In its original form, Corpus Street had terraces on both sides. The western one was slightly longer and also, if the 1834 map is any indication, had some houses which were bigger. There was a detached house in its own grounds at the far end, leading through into market gardens and fields. The 1841 census seems to show this house (assuming the ordering of the properties is consecutive, which is a bit of an assumption with the 1841 census) as Sandford Lodge, where a governess presided over four pupils. Most of the houses on both sides originally backed onto fields behind their rear gardens, but this changed as the surrounding area got more built up.

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1834 map. If you look at this one in conjunction with the 1820 map (which is the opposite way up) you can see that the development of this area was still proceeding quite slowly. Apart from Corpus Street, and the completion of Oxford Parade across the road, there wasn’t a lot of difference. The line running down the left hand side is the River Chelt, and the large field beyond it is what is now Sandford Park.

By the early 1920s the field behind the west side of the street was occupied by a large Drug Manufactory extending right down to the River Chelt, and some time after this the entire western side of Corpus Street was demolished to make way for light industrial buildings, which is a very great shame. These buildings have since been swept away and replaced with modern housing, including a new cul-de-sac, which is reasonably sympathetic with the style of the street even if it’s no substitute for what is lost. The east side remains intact and beautifully kept … but then these former working class houses are now expensive and desirable!

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The far end of the terrace on the east side. The cream coloured house was originally the end of the terrace and the land next to it remained a field well into the 20th century. It’s now built up with more recent housing set back from the rest of the terrace, just visible here on the right.

An easily overlooked footpath between Sandford Park and the town centre, Vernon Place is among Cheltenham’s oldest lanes – one of the few predating the Regency development of the town. It served as a path to the town’s principle mill which has occupied the same site on the River Chelt since Domesday and probably earlier, and although the mill is disused and the lane half-forgotten, it still serves the same function today. It doesn’t have a lot of features in it these days; there were residential dwellings there at one time but very few are left, and much of it is too narrow for cars. So it just serves as a pedestrian walkway from Sandford Park to the top end of Bath Road, following closely along the outline of the ancient millpond which can be heard tumbling over the weir below.

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1921 map. The area shown here as ‘Recreation Ground’ is what we now know as Sandford Park, which was laid out in 1927. The River Chelt runs parallel with the High Street (top right) and then does a bit of wild meandering before disappearing into a culvert under Bath Road, which is the wide road with the tramway on the left. Notice how the tramway doesn’t connect up with the High Street, but veers off to the left into Bath Street. This is a clue to a historic change in the road layout, because originally the top section of Bath Road didn’t exist. Imagine a T-junction formed by Bath Street and Vernon Place, with no direct connection to the High Street! Difficult to get your head round that idea today, but that’s how it was from the time the Bath Road was created in 1813 up until 1854 when a link was finally bashed through into the High Street, enabling the delightful 90° bend in the inner ring road that we know and love today.

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This is the pretty end of Vernon Place, viewed from the footpath in Sandford Park – though actually Vernon Place proper starts on the other side of the white house on the right. Straight ahead is the historic building known as Barrett’s Mill – undergoing renovation work when this picture was taken. To the right of the green railings, just out of view, is the River Chelt sliding along beside the path and under a bridge (where the brick balustrade is) to come out into the millpond and weir on the other side. For years I wondered why Cheltenham Borough Council always paint municipal railings in a lurid shade of green; however I’ve since learned that, whatever the reason, there’s a historic authenticity to it. Much of the town’s fancy ironwork was painted green during the Regency period, as well as the classic black that everybody these days assumes is authentic. Notice also the fine old cast iron bollard, currently sporting a new black and white paint job.

Barrett’s Mill is a topic worthy of its own article (coming soon). There have been several mills in Cheltenham but this one has always been the most important, as indicated by its naming on early maps (1806, 1820) as Cheltenham Mill. In earlier times it was known as Cambray Mill. No doubt it has been rebuilt many times, and the current building appears to date from the early 19th century. The current name refers to one of its owners, William Humphris Barrett, who was the miller there in the early decades of the 19th century and whose family had held the mill since at least 1763. Barrett was an influential figure in the town during the early Regency years and so his name has stuck, not only to the mill itself but in the tiny lane leading to it from the High Street, preserved in misspelled form as Barratt’s Mill Lane.

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1806 map, with a few extra annotations, showing Cheltenham Mill (Barrett’s Mill) and Vernon Place, the curvy lane running past Vernon House. The orientation is roughly the opposite way up from the 1921 map above, so it’s a bit confusing. But it does show how the Bath Road once didn’t connect up to the High Street at all – and how Vernon Place and Bath Street (where ‘Mr King MC’ is written) were once part of the same street. The only development in Vernon Place was Vernon House and its adjoining Vernon Cottage, plus a house called Cambray Lodge on the corner facing onto Bath Road.

In days of yore the mill served a function not only for grinding corn but also for municipal street cleaning. It was ‘the custom which hath ever been used beyond the memory of man’ for the River Chelt to flow straight down the High Street, which could only be crossed by means of stepping stones in a few strategic places. The river was channelled from the millpond in controlled amounts down the street where it served as the town’s main communal laundry facility. Then on certain days of the week the miller would open a sluice to give the whole High Street a good flushing. If this wasn’t done, the street soon became stinky and clogged up with mud and worse. The reluctance of successive generations of millers to fulfil this obligation is evidenced in repeated court orders from the Middle Ages onward, presumably because the loss of water left them short of milling whoomph. For example, in 1560 the miller Richard Pate (now there’s a name familiar in the town even today) was ordered to “allow the water to flow at his mill through a board with three holes continually and once in the week the whole stream, so that the common stream may be used according to the ancient custom’ (Hart, p.64).  Shortly afterwards, in 1567, the tenant miller Edward Barthiam was threatened with a fine of 100 shillings and subjected to weekly inspections by the bailiff in an attempt to force him to keep the millpond sufficiently topped up to serve the town’s water needs. These legal conflicts continued with successive millers right up until the time the Chelt was diverted away from the High Street in about 1787, and then flared up all over again in the early years of the 19th century when the Town Commissioners attempted, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to force the recalcitrant Mr Barrett to resume the practice of street flushing.

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The millpond viewed through a gap in the trees in Vernon Place

Although the river no longer runs into the streets the millpond itself has remained pretty much unchanged over successive centuries. Vernon Place echoes with the sound of rushing water between the trees, as it must have done for centuries, as it curves its way along the River Chelt and around the edge of the millpond. Its sound in the narrow walled lane is very atmospheric.

The name Vernon Place is most likely borrowed from Vernon House and its neighbour Vernon Cottage, which are both shown on the 1806 map above. They were built at right angles to one another forming an L-shape, with Vernon House sideways on to the lane. Vernon House still survives today, and this is it.

This fine old house must have been built before 1806, possibly even in the late 18th century. It still has a very pretty fanlight above the front door, which is round the side away from the lane. Initially, as you can see on the 1806 map above, Vernon House and its adjoining companion were the only buildings in the street, and the sideways orientation would have provided an idyllic view across the fields back then. Vernon Cottage has apparently not survived, as its site is occupied by late Victorian housing. If you stand in front of the Victorian houses you can see where their roofline cuts across a window on the back of Vernon House. Where the name Vernon came from is not clear, but they may have been named after an early resident or visitor. The 1841 census shows Vernon House in use as some kind of lodging house for servants. It lists ten female servants living there, as young as 15 years old, presided over by a matron.

By 1820 a few more houses had been built in Vernon Place and by 1834 there was a row of five tiny cottages – or perhaps they were workshops – right up against the river bank. The 1921 map above shows these still in situ, though they are now gone and the site occupied by a newer (but sensitively designed) building. A group of three Victorian cottages fronted onto the lane on the north side with a tiny alleyway leading onto a courtyard at the back with more small dwellings and workshops. Some of these still survive, but only one of the cottages fronting onto the lane is still there, now a rather bizarrely proportioned specimen in the absence of its neighbours.

The one surviving Victorian cottage on the north side. The garage is most likely built into the ground floor remnant of the adjoining cottage. This is the very narrow part of the lane at its top end. Here also are two more bollards … but of the somewhat less attractive plain-metal-tube-filled-with-concrete-and-painted-yellow type. The wall on the left is where the frontages of the five cottages or workshops used to be – so it would have been very cosy along here.

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And here we have the less salubrious end of Vernon Place, where it comes out onto the Bath Road (where the red car is). On the opposite side (where the blue car is waiting) is Bath Street.  This view shows the original streetscape quite nicely, because Bath Street and Vernon Place once flowed from one to the other, and their houses were all numbered as part of the same street. Up until 1854 the Bath Road ended here and there was no link with the High Street, so Bath Street was then the main road, enabling genteel persons to access the fashionable area of Cambray without being bothered by the riff-raff in the High Street. Most of the buildings visible in Bath Street are quite old, surviving from the early 1800s.

There are a few historic bits and bobs to see at this end of Vernon Place … on one side there is a set of original railings while on the other side the antique kerbstones remain. Unfortunately the building on the left has for many years been a lively nightclub, and so chucking out time often becomes chucking up time in Vernon Place. But as hedonism and excess is part of what Regency Cheltenham was built for, maybe ’twas ever thus.

Newly restored Jenner Gardens (Cheltenham Chapel’s former burial ground) with Jenner Walk in the background. Photographed September 2009

The Cheltenham town coat of arms bears the motto Salubritas et Eruditio – “health and education”. Not necessarily the first two things that spring to mind about the town today, but for the first half of the 19th century this little parcel of land just off the High Street in the town centre was an important epicentre of both. The tiny street now called Jenner Walk was packed with private academies for young ladies and named after the man who rid the world of smallpox.

Dr Edward Jenner (1749-1823) is well documented elsewhere, so there is no need for me to go into a detailed biography. A native of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, he was an early pioneer of vaccination whose most spectacular achievement was to eradicate smallpox, which had until that time been a widespread and seriously devastating disease. He has a museum dedicated to him at his former home in Berkeley, and their website has lots of interesting information about his life and work. Although his birthplace was always where his heart was, and his pioneering work also led him to establish medical practices in London, he spent some 25 years living during the summer season in Cheltenham, where he owned a house (later two houses and a garden) in St George’s Place. It was from this house that the smallpox vaccine was sent out around the world – and such was Jenner’s humanitarian spirit he administered it free of charge to the poor. The narrow street was frequently crowded with up to 300 people a day clamouring for his services.

Jenner House, sadly, was demolished along with its immediate neighbour in 1970 after several years’ tussle with the council and despite a high-profile campaign which found its way into the national newspapers. The house had fallen into poor condition, but the moronic decision not to save it has been so lamented ever since that in 1994 a replica was constructed on its site. This has a special personal significance for me, because in the early 1990s I was living in St George’s Place (in a Regency house built in Dr Jenner’s garden) right opposite the site of Jenner House. My top-floor flat overlooked the yawning gap where the house had been, which was then occupied by an ugly scrubby overgrown car park where only the tatty remains of a brick wall survived from this historic property. Although the rebuilt houses only match the originals in their facades, they look pretty close – and whoever lives in my flat now has a much nicer view.

The original terrace of St George’s Place, which gave its name to the rest of the street. The rebuilt Jenner House is on the right, bearing a blue commemorative plaque beside the door. The two houses on the left are the surviving originals from c.1790; the others are replicas built in 1994. Not an exact replica – Jenner’s original house had its door on the opposite side!

The house Jenner lived in was one of a terrace of four built by Thomas Burges in the early 1790s, at a time when St George’s Place was simply a coach road across the fields and in fact was known by its earlier name of Stills Lane. Dr Jenner moved into the end-of-terrace house in 1795 and was probably the first occupant of the house, although he didn’t own it initially – he rented it from property speculator Joseph Pitt, who was later to conceive and build Pittville. It was this terrace which originally bore the name St George’s Place, but by 1800 the name had been applied to the entire street. A prospectus of the time describes it as “That handsome row of houses known as St George’s Place consisting of four capital messuages which are occupied by families of the first distinction … and all commanding the most beautiful prospects of the country.” They each had two parlours, a drawing-room, five bedrooms and a selection of outbuildings such as stables and coach houses. They kind of blend in now with the classic Cheltenham style, but in their day they would have really stood out – they pre-date much of the rest of the town and were among the finest townhouses available at that time. As this was the heyday of the spa and Cheltenham’s status as a medicinal centre, all of the houses were occupied by eminent doctors, including royal physicians. Athelney House, the grey one in the photo above and one of the surviving originals, was the home of another distinguished vaccination pioneer, Dr Fowler, who was a friend and colleague of Jenner’s and helped him in his crusade to immunise the poor. This house originally had a strange outbuilding in the back garden which was rumoured to be a secret dissection vault. With so many distinguished doctors living in the street, this corner of Cheltenham became a centre for the pioneers of vaccination. At that time vaccination was a new and controversial treatment, regarded with scepticism and contempt by much of the medical profession.

As one of the most respected people in the community it’s perhaps not surpring that Jenner served as one of the Town Commissioners, an early form of local government. However in all the records of the Commissioners’ meetings, Jenner’s only recorded contribution, in 1806, was a request to be allowed to have a drain built from his house to the sewer running underneath St George’s Place, which at that time was the only public sewer in the whole town. In 1808 he became actively supportive of a proposal that public sewers be introduced for the whole town, but no progress seems to have been made on this scheme until about thirty years later. Jenner was also a patron of the arts, and founder of a local Literary Society, as well as being friends with a number of prominent poets.

Dr Jenner has gone down in history as a medical philanthropist who saved millions of lives, but what is slightly less well known about him is that he was a keen gardener. His end-of-terrace house had a small garden at the back, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy him, and although he had a very fine garden at his other home in Berkeley he was only resident there for four or five months in the winter, and missed the best of it. The solution came in 1804, when recognition of his talents brought him a Parliamentary Grant of £10,000. With his new wealth he was able to buy a large portion of land opposite his house, which was then still a field, and made it into a private garden. His passion included both the kitchen garden and ornamental garden, and he was very keen on trialling new varieties. He cultivated gooseberries, raspberries and figs and imported vegetable seeds from Italy and Spain.

At the same time he also bought his house which he had been renting up until then, plus the one next door to it. He also had the road widened in front of the terrace in a semicircular pattern to provide enough space for his carriage to turn round in the narrow thoroughfare.

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1806 map (with annotations, and turned sideways to correct its eccentric orientation)

This is an extract of the 1806 map showing the High Street (at the top) with St George’s Place leading down from it. It shows the area at the time Dr Jenner lived there, only a year or two after he had acquired his new garden, which included most of the land on the opposite side of the road from his house. The semicircle of Dr Jenner’s carriage-turning area is clearly shown. The terrace of four houses, set back very slightly from the rest of the street, sits opposite. On the west side of the garden is a terrace of houses in what is now Ambrose Street, though most of these disappeared many years ago. Note that the small lane leading to the churchyard is not present day Clarence Street as you might expect – it’s actually the tiny but much older Chester Walk, now hidden behind the library. Towards the bottom of the map is the Great House, which was the focus of Cheltenham’s aristocratic social life for some 100 years, its site now occupied by St Matthew’s church.

Jenner didn’t keep all of the garden to himself, however. In 1809 the Rev. Rowland Hill, a close friend of Jenner’s, built the Cheltenham Chapel on land adjoining the edge of the garden. Built to relieve the overcrowding of the parish church and other local chapels during the town’s rapid expansion years, the new chapel was non-denominational and hosted services of pretty much any kind – only the Unitarians were banned. Designed by Edward Smith, it was described at the time as “plain, neat and commodious” and contained 1000 seats. A year later the chapel’s trustees bought the bottom end of Dr Jenner’s garden for £450 for use as a burial ground, and an access lane was made across the garden to link the chapel with St George’s Place directly opposite Jenner House. Jenner and Hill took a close interest in each other’s work, and a vaccination clinic was held in the chapel every Sunday after the religious service.

Cheltenham Chapel viewed from Jenner Gardens, amid a swathe of late summer California poppies.

By the late 19th century the chapel’s congregation had declined and its graveyard was full, and the last burial took place in 1889. It was closed by order of the home secretary in 1894. Many years of neglect followed, and the burial ground became a locked up and forgotten corner of the town centre and a haunt for tramps and vandals, its graves drowning in an overgrown mess of ivy and litter. Julian Rawes, a stout-hearted volunteer who took on the task of transcribing all the monumental inscriptions in 1986 when the graveyard was at its most neglected, described it at the time as “sadly spoiled and dilapidated owing to demolition, and lack of care” and explained the difficulty of his task “owing to trees, ivy and people’s nasty habits with waste disposal on property other than their own.” Most of the tombstones were laid flat on the ground, a common practice in Cheltenham’s urban churchyards, so before any inscriptions could be recorded “it was a matter of prodding with a marling fork every foot or so, followed by the time consuming removal of up to 1ft of ivy, roots and rubbish.” Despite subsequent efforts to keep the graveyard clear it remained a magnet for litter and anti-social behaviour until the council closed it to the public altogether in 2004. Through the efforts of local volunteers and funding from businesses, it has now been comprehensively restored and planted with shrubs and flowers. In June 2009, exactly 200 years after the chapel first opened, the burial ground was reopened as a public open space and named Jenner Gardens. There is more information about the restoration project on the Friends of Jenner Gardens website, including Rawes’s painstakingly noted transcriptions – very useful if you are researching ancestors who may be buried here.

The Victorians liked to go overboard with their poetic epitaphs, and the headstone of 40-year-old John Ross bears this little gem:

Forgive blest shade the tributary tear
that mourns thy exit from a world like this.
Forgive the wish that would have kept thee here
and stayed thy progress to the realms of bliss.
No more confined to growing scenes of night
no more a tenant pent in mortal clay.
Now should we rather hail thy glorious flight
and trace thy journey to the realms of day.

Some are quite heartwarming. Mr and Mrs James Basem were so attached to their servant Martha Rice that when she died in 1864, aged 66 and after 23 years’ service to them, they had a “simple tablet” put up in “acknowledgement of her merits”.

Other burials include “Henry John, son of Thomas and Jane Plant, who was unfortunately drowned whilst bathing in the river Severn, 30th of July 1856 in the 17th year of his age”. And there is also the unfortunately named Bastard family.

Tomb of William and Susannah Bastard

There is another surviving building in Cheltenham associated with Dr Jenner: Alpha House in St George’s Road, known in its time by the slightly more colloquial name of the Pest House. The building survives as business premises, and bears a misleading plaque claiming that Dr Jenner once lived there. He didn’t – but it was one of the sites where he held his vaccination clinics in his crusade to immunise the local poor.

Ironically, although Dr Jenner cleansed mankind of smallpox, he was powerless to do much about the other common killer disease of the time – consumption. It claimed the life of his eldest son in 1810, and in 1815 his wife Catherine also succumbed. Theirs was a very close marriage and her death plunged him into the bleakest depression from which he never really emerged, spending several years as a recluse before leaving Cheltenham to spend the last few years of his life at his other home in Berkeley. The two Cheltenham houses remained in his ownership and he bequeathed them to his surviving children, and they remained in the Jenner family until 1860.

Rapid changes were afoot during Jenner’s time and the years immediately after his death which moulded the character of St George’s Place into what we know today. By 1820 the street and its environs had been significantly built up, so it was no longer the edge-of-town setting he had originally settled in. More drastically, his garden began to be built on. The Post Office map of 1820 shows both sides of St George’s Place now mostly filled up with housing right up to the edges of what is now Jenner Walk. The semicircular carriage turning area is no longer visible and in its place the line of Jenner Walk is shown as a pathway leading from St George’s Place to the chapel, still bounded by a small area of garden with no houses as yet. Within the few years following Jenner’s death, the southern side of this path was built up with a terrace, and the garden all but vanished.

The view down to Jenner House (the blue door) from the gate of Jenner Gardens. You can see how the lane was placed to give Jenner an attractive vista to the chapel as well as a convenient footpath to reach it. The houses on the right were built c.1820s on part of his garden. On the left, some old railings and mature trees are a legacy of the formal gardens which survived here until relatively recent times. Notice the attractive lamppost – one of three in the area.

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1834 map

The difference between the 1806 and 1834 maps is always stark, because it illustrates how massive and rapid Cheltenham’s building boom was in those years. By this time St George’s Square is clearly shown and the large black rectangle marked ‘F’ is the Cheltenham Chapel. The faint line of Jenner Walk is just visible leading from the chapel grounds through to St George’s Place, with its row of houses already built on the south side. The north side is still mostly gardens, but parcelled up into plots.

1921 map. For the sake of clarity, the houses of Jenner Walk are marked in red, as are the two houses in St George’s Place owned by Dr Jenner. Present day Jenner Gardens is shown in green.

The 1921 map shows Jenner Walk and its environs pretty much unchanged from 1834, and it provides a lot more detail. The south side of the street is still the only part which is built up, with the north side still occupied by formal gardens, a small relic of Dr Jenner’s endeavours. By this time the chapel had fallen to secular use and its burial ground closed up, so Jenner Walk was just a cul-de-sac. At a first glance St George’s Square also looks unchanged from the 1834 map, but notice the absence of an entire row of houses on its west side – the site of the present day bowling green. Notice also the name Manchester Street for what is now the western end of Clarence Street.

The little cul-de-sac of Jenner Walk has only been named in the last couple of decades. Prior to that its houses were numbered as part of St George’s Place. Even after Dr Jenner had left Cheltenham, the area continued to be packed with medical establishments and the homes of eminent doctors, but at this time it also became a centre for ladies’ education. During the 1840s all the houses in Jenner Walk were being run as private academies, with more in St George’s Place itself.

Jenner Walk from St George’s Place. Although it’s a beautiful street the most striking features are in the entrance; a rare example of an original and beautifully preserved Georgian shopfront on one corner, and a magnificant mature horse chestnut tree on the other. Photos of the street in the late 1960s show the original flagstone paving still intact, but sadly it seems to have since been replaced with mass-produced concrete block paving. At the far end of the street the Cheltenham Chapel is visible.

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View of the end of Jenner Walk from Jenner Gardens. The tall house just visible here was known as St George’s House and was run by Miss Price and her sisters as an Academy for Young Ladies from 1851 to 1880. The Price family were involved in women’s education in Cheltenham for more than 60 years. The smaller house at the end is Hurlock Cottage, which in 1841 was occupied by Miss Harriet Bowller’s Ladies’ School. By the late 1970s it was derelict and occupied by squatters, but its current well looked after condition is indicative of the upturn in fortunes this whole area has been through in recent years.

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Until recent years this 1820s house – known as Laurel House – was the only building on the north side of Jenner Walk. This is actually the side of it and it’s no.17 St George’s Place, but it looks out over the walk. The cottage at the back is now separate and numbered as part of Jenner Walk. I’m not sure whether there was always a separate front door here or whether it was originally all part of the same house. Most likely it was a staff cottage belonging to the main house. In 1840 Laurel House became Miss Jenkins’ School for Young Ladies and was probably the earliest of the many academies in the vicinity. Its gardens once stretched all the way down the walk as far as the chapel grounds, and were a lingering relic of Jenner’s horticultural efforts. The house itself is built on part of Jenner’s garden and carriage semicircle.

Bibliography for this article: Saint George’s Place by the Cheltenham Spa Campaign (1978); Cheltenham Churches and Chapels by Steven Blake (1979); monumental inscriptions compiled by Julian Rawes and George Cryer of Gloucestershire Family History Society (1986)

The Surbiton Neighbourhood Officer has sent us this advice about events and timings associated with this very important consultation on the future shape of Surbiton town centre.

Exhibition venues, dates and times:

Thurs. 24th and Fri. 25th September 11 a.m.to 7 p.m.

Outside Zizzi Restaurant, 38 Victoria Road, Surbiton

YMCA, 49 Victoria Road, Surbiton

Sat. 26th September 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Surbiton Station Forecourt (at Surbiton Festival)

Mon. 28th September – Sat. 31st October

(during library opening times)

Surbiton Library, Ewell Road, Surbiton

You can also access information on line at

www.kingston.gov.uk/surbiton_town_consultation

between Thursday 24th September and Sat. 31st October

The closing date for views is the 31^st October 2009.  The draft Improvement Strategy for Surbiton Town Centre, taking into account the results of this consultation, will be presented to the Surbiton Neighbourhood Committee for consideration and approval on 9^th December 2009.

Today the Mitchell’s Plain Town Centre traders have reached a boiling point. City officials are still continuing to have meetings with an unconstitutional body in the Town Centre.

Traders are still not certain when they will be evicted. We work each day with the possibility that our livelihoods will be stolen from us by the mere people who claim they provide us with freedoms. The traders have sent emails to Mayor Dan Plato and Premier Hellen Zille regarding a collaborative meeting, but still to this day there has been no response. If provincial and local governments are meant to assist communities then this requires Dan Plato and Hellen Zille to also do their jobs.

Town Centre Traders are in the dark about the future of their own workplace. We have been told briefly that the management of the Town Centre will be given to formal business, but this does not make sense. The bays to which the management is imposing to move the traders have already been numbered with metal plaques. The umbrella body of the traders is aware of this, but the traders whom they claim to represent are not aware. The traders have made multiple objections to the opaque renovation process, the fact that the move only allows space for half of the +/-1000 current Town Centre traders, the move of the city to proceed with the process full knowing the objections of the traders and the city’s agenda of upgrading the Town Centre as an area for private investors instead of for its own people. Amongst these objections and many others, city official Richard Hollstock is telling the traders that if they are unhappy with the process they can fight the issue in the Cape High Court.

That’s a slap in our faces!

We will not stand for this mistreatment and will continue to fight this just cause for the traders and our freedoms.

For further information, please contact Mischka Cassiem at 0731286657

Yesterday the ESN (Erasmus Student Network) organised a BBQ for the exchange students – which was nice, except for two things; it rained the entire time, and the sausages were extremely bland and cheap tasting! I find the quality of meat here in general to be not very good at all, a big change from Australia, we really are spoiled with the quality and range of fruit, veg and meat that we have, and for so much cheaper, too. The BBQ was good, though – every chance to socialise and meet new people is a good thing.

Before the BBQ, I wanted to avoid studying for my upcoming Swedish exam, so I went for a 1.5hour bike ride on the campus and to the south of the campus in the suburbs down there, just for exercise and to explore the town I’m living in.

This is on the Linkoping Uni campus - very green, and to the left out of the photo is a lake, and there's some ducks and geese around there.

After the BBQ I did end up doing a little bit of studying at home, and getting an early night (I’m a very wild exchange student, I know). Sunday morning I went for another bike ride early in the morning to do some more exploring – around the shops near Ikea. The ride there isn’t too bad, about 15 minutes, 3kms, and quite flat. The ride is also quite scenic, you ride through the forest and through some suburban areas.

A suburban street in Linköping. There are so many houses made from that red wood on the left.

There are heaps of huge stores located in the Ikea area. I already knew Maxi was a cheapish supermarket, but this time I also went to Willy’s and Co-Op Forum, which are also very cheap. Unfortunately none of these cheap supermarkets are located where I’m staying in Ryd (there is a more expensive Hemköp there).

The rest of my Sunday was spent quite lazily, doing the washing, watching some Swedish tv, doing a bit of studying, chatting to housemates. I do hope to fit in some travel on the weekends while I’m here – because everything is so close (relatively!) in Europe, but it’s only the second week, plenty of time for travel.. I just hope I don’t get too lax..