Claverton Street – derrickjknight

Memories Are Made Of This

Giles Darvill, who Jackie and I first knew more than fifty years ago, is my oldest still living friend. Having once worked in Kingston Social Services together we have now been near neighbours in two villages on the verge of Hampshire’s New Forest for more than a decade.

This morning I visited him at his home in Milford on Sea where we enjoyed congenial reminiscences.

A Knight’s Tale (61: Soil And Heating From Battersea)

In particular we derived much enjoyment from recounting memories of the time featured in the above earlier post. Incidentally I was later to work in Westminster Social Services with my late friend Maggie Kindred (then Cook) who lived in one of the Dolphin Square flats pictured in that episode of the story of my era.

One of our pastimes during this period was playing chess on a glass table marked out as a board. This was my camera’s view of my opponent on the opposite side.

Ten years later we were to visit Covent Garden Market with Giles and his son Ben; Becky and Matthew, Sam and Louisa

I have a number of stained glass artefacts made for me over the years by my friend, including the chessboard which was a 50th Birthday Present.

In May 1983 Jessica, Sam, Louisa, Matthew, Becky and I visited Giles and his family at their home in the village of Penn Street near Amersham. The children experienced great glee in a cherry blossom

snow storm manufactured by Matthew who had stealthily sneaked up into the tree and given it a good shaking. Giles still has a framed copy of one of these images.

It was a little less than two years ago that we took

Coming Clean

our last walk together, as detailed in this post.

This evening we dined on well cooked baked Gammon; creamy cauliflower and broccoli cheese; crunchy carrots; and soft spinach, with which I drank more of the Appassimento.

A Knight’s Tale (61: Soil And Heating From Battersea)

A period of stability was to follow when, for a little more than a year from early 1973, I shared Giles’s flat in Claverton Street, S.W.1.

This was a rented basement in a Pimlico terrace. The enclosed back yard was a small area of concrete. There was no real sunlight. Nothing grew there. The elderly woman next door, however, enjoyed a wonderful ferny garden in what appeared to be rich soil. One day I asked her how she had soil when we had concrete. “Oh, I’ve got concrete underneath,” she said. “I put the earth on top”. “Where did you get it?”, I responded. “From Battersea Park”. She replied. “How did you get it here?” was my next question. “In my handbag”, was the answer.

This wonderful woman had trekked backwards and forwards – it must have been for years – carting bags of soil trowelled up from this London Park situated on the other side of the River Thames. The journey across Battersea Bridge would have been about a mile and a half each way.

Opposite our flat stands Dolphin Square, ‘a block of private flats with some ground floor business units ….. built between 1935 and 1937. Until the building of Highbury Square, it was the most developed garden square in London built as private housing. At one time, it was home to more than 70 MPs and at least 10 Lords.^[1]

At the time of its construction, its 1,250 upmarket flats were billed by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as the “largest self-contained block of flats in Europe”. To an extent, their design has been a model for later municipal developments.^[2]‘ (Wikipedia )

Across the river from this block stands

Battersea Power Station. (Pinterest)

‘It was one of many power stations built beside the Thames. Essentially, there were two reasons for siting them beside the river. Firstly, they were initially coal-powered and the coal could be transported by sea and then up the Thames for easy delivery. Secondly, the power stations were built beside the river to provide them with a plentiful source of water cooling. Instead of just dissipating the heat from Battersea Power Station into the Thames, from 1950, the hot water from the power station was piped under the Thames to provide hot water and heating for the flats at Dolphin Square. All that came to an end in 1975 when the power station was decommissioned.’ (https://knowyourlondon.wordpress.com/2021/02/24/dolphin-square/)

Earthworks

In her latest post, which I read this morning, my blogging friend, Pauline King, https://paulinekingblog.wordpress.com/ reminded me of my flat-share with my friend Giles in Claverton Street i 1973.

This was a basement flat in a Pimlico terrace. The enclosed back yard was a small area of concrete. There was no real sunlight. Nothing grew there. The elderly woman next door, however, enjoyed a wonderful ferny garden in what appeared to be rich soil. One day I asked her how she had soil when we had concrete. ‘Oh, I’ve got concrete underneath,’ she said. ‘I put the earth on top’. ‘Where did you get it?’, I responded. ‘From Battersea Park’. She replied. ‘How did you get it here?’ was my next question. ‘In my handbag’, was the answer.

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This wonderful woman had trekked backwards and forwards – it must have been for years – carting bags of soil trowelled up from this London Park situated on the other side of the River Thames. The times superimposed onto Google’s map probably relate to trains from Waterloo. This heroine walked across Battersea Bridge.

Our own efforts at shifting soil today paled into insignificance when compared with that neighbour’s feat. Nevertheless I can offer those up for consideration.

Jackie continued her work on opening up the Weeping Birch Bed; revealing some hidden plants; resetting others; and infilling soil from the excess on the borders of the back drive.

I dug out the soil from the area worked over yesterday; moved that round to the front of the house; collected several barrow loads of gravel from the pile on the back drive; and spread it over the revealed surface, thus widening the path. The transported earth needs spreading, and the left hand side of the path needs edging with stone. Maybe tomorrow.

On this glorious day the diaphonous wings of small furry bees glinted from many flowers, such as

verbena bonarensis

and cosmos;

and Small White butterflies, fluttered, flashing, everywhere.

When we sat drinking fizzy water we looked across the other side of the bed Jackie is renovating. Can you see the Small White in this photograph? (As always, clicking on the image will enlarge)

Mr Pink’s fish and chips had the honour of providing our dinner this evening. We added gherkins, cornichons, or wallies, and pickled onions. I drank more of the Chianti and Jackie drank more fizzy water.