A Walk to Havering-Atte-Bower

How can I stay at home this afternoon with so much Spring in the air and the temperature hitting 64f. While Alan is busy mowing the lawn (his contribution to the gardening) I'm off for a walk. I enjoy the history and senery from my, around the world blogging friends, and from the comments I get, you all seem to enjoy the senery from my locality so here we go again. I invite you to come with me. In living on the edge of the The London Borough of Havering we are fortunate to be able to enjoy the nearness to the City but also have the countryside on our doorstep.
We will take a walk up the hill to Havering-atte-Bower. The village is a 30 minute walk from my home and all up hill but returning home is all downhill so that only takes 20 minutes.
We are now about half way up the hill.

We pass a local manor house on the way. This is now used by an International Christian Ministry.
I am being my usual nosy self here, peering through the gate into a tiny part of a lovely garden of one of the larger houses on the hill. Far grander than my street in case you are wondering!

We reach the top of the hill but before turning into the village we must not miss this beautiful Spring scene.

Here we are in the village, looking across the green. Close to this green King Harold had a hunting lodge many centuries ago and I understand the name Havering came about because the King presented the village with a ring. "Have a ring."

We look to the left and see the beautiful 11th century church (St. John's) with the beautiful May Blossom in the foreground.


Then there are the village stocks and whipping post, used a couple of centuries ago to deter vagabonds and criminals. You can see the holes that held the feet in place while the local folk came out and threw rotten eggs and whatever else came to hand that was not very nice. I wonder what would happen if we did that today?



Just out the other side of the village and here we meet a lone horse. The others are all out at the riding school.


Not a long walk but a very pretty one at this time of year. It was nice to sit a while with my bottle of water just taking in the air.


I have been thinking the same as Nel, this blogging could become really addictive. Maybe we should start a 'blog annonymous'!!. There was an article in the newspaper today referring to bloggers as "anonymous ego trips" - maybe but still fun and for myself I have always enjoyed knowing about other people's lives and countries. No different to the old days of pen-pals, now it's electronic cyber pen-pals.