pumpkinstrokemarrow

The arboretum itself more or less the vision of one man, a Dr Fox, who bought the place in 1937 and gave it to the Trust a mere 15 years later. Presumably a lot of the now mature trees were already there when he bought the place. An artful wood rather than a natural one, but none the worse for that. Lots of interesting trees at a colourful time of year, including some very large beeches and lot of once coppiced sweet chestnuts. These last now tall, slender and very handsome clumps of four or five trunks apiece. Quite a lot of Scots pine. Lots of small trees with red leaves. Lots of varieties of holly - including one specimen with a trunk a foot or more in diameter although, sadly, it did not have the height to match. Some trees with very large leaves, maybe nine inches long and four wide. One tree very properly described as a cypress oak being tall and thin in shape but with oaken leaves. There were also some odd smells about the place which neither we nor anyone else were able to run down. In particular, a strong and very localised smell of candyfloss. Did not seem likely that it was from something dropped or buried, but we failed to find the source despite sniffing lots of leaves, dead and alive. All in all, an excellent place. Lot more to it as far as I was concerned than Polesdon Lacy.

Lunched on very un-trusty beefburgers from the overflow caravan parked up next to the place where you can buy very trusty veggie gear.

Started off on the way home wondering about corporate management. Does every NT site have a full time, paid manager? How much local discretion does he have? Can he fire volunteers who persist in not shaving before reporting for duty? Does he get a visitor income related bonus? Can he retain all his earnings for his site or do the successful sites have to subsidise the less successful sites, with the centre creaming off a tithe to pay for their fancy business lunches on the way? Does he have to find the funds for improvements himself or can he go cap in hand to the centre? Who can then busy themselves with his affairs. Is their an NT inspectorate of retired public servants trundling around expecting free (wet) lunches if they are not to start nit-picking about the state of the litter bins? All the stuff in fact that one might find in any regular PLC with a chain store operation.

Next stop was Hydestile Hospitals, which caught the eye as a large establishment tucked away in the country. Was it a lunatic asylum for hard core lunatics? There was a very full moon yesterday as it happened. Using our rather elderly OS map (priced 65p when the current price is more like 650p), we tracked down the road where it should have been and drove up and down it several times. Spotted a few houses that might have been hospital houses but of the hospitals themselves not a flicker. Maybe a new map is indicated - which as well as being better at locating hospitals would probably do a better job on entries and exits to the A3, which seem to have moved on a bit since our map was printed.

Back home, Mr Google (earth) displays not a trace, apart from a tennis court which might have once been for the recreation of nursing staff. Reminded once again of how hard it is to read aerial photographs; the roads we had used and which we knew were there were more or less invisible. See October 21. Mr Google (search) tells us that the site was that of the King George 5 and Saint Thomas hospitals. The first named having been a large and prestigious TB sanatorium and the second having been a nissen-hutted evacuation job from the hospital of the same name in Lambeth. All demolished in the late nineties having been derelict for years and now the site appears to be home to a higher class residential development.