Let us continue this sentimental journey back to Wicksteed Park (Oh Goody! – The Readership), down past the station for the miniature railway to the boating lake. The lake was created by Charles Wicksteed rather high-handedly (by today’s standards) diverting the Ise Brook. It is said that, when the lake was first opened to the public, Wicksteed [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Kettering’
Wicksteed Park Again : The Boating Lake In Winter
Posted in Birds, Nature, This England, Trains, tagged Boats, Kettering, Lakes, Trains, Wicksteed Park, Winter on January 12, 2012 | 2 Comments »
In Memoriam : The Memorial Garden at Wicksteed Park, Kettering
Posted in Arts, Memory, Nature, Sculpture, This England, Trees, tagged Kettering, Memorials, Northamptonshire, Wicksteed Park on January 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
I don’t know whether you’ve ever visited Wicksteed Park in Kettering? Perhaps you have. If not, it is an amusement park, sometimes claimed to be the oldest in England, which contains the largest free playground in Europe. It was founded by Charles Wicksteed, a wealthy philanthropist, who seems to have been a sort of cross between [...]
A Welcome to the Indian Tourists from Kettering in 1932
Posted in Cricket, Sport, tagged Cricket, Fred Bakewell, Indian Cricket, Joginder Singh, Kettering, Motoring, Northamptonshire County Cricket Club, Reggie Northway, Unfortunate accidents, Vallance Jupp on July 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
As the Indians arrive on our shores for their brief visit, let us glance back to 1932, when the first Indian side to play a Test Match in England (there had been an earlier tour in 1911) dropped in at Kettering to play Northamptonshire from the 4th to the 7th of what appears to have [...]
Facades
Posted in Painting, This England, tagged Illusions, Kettering, Restaurants, Rex Whistler on April 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Here’s one I made earlier (before I lost my camera). Kettering now has a “Restaurant Quarter” (an ambition I quite admire). What it doesn’t have, at the moment, are many restaurants (in fact the admirably ambitious – if pricy - Piccadilly Classics (a cafe) has just closed down). What is does have is a growing number [...]
The Many Faces of Kettering : Northampton House and Station Road in Transition
Posted in Architecture, Arts, History, Painting, Politics, This England, tagged Architecture, Change and Decay, History, Kettering, Northampton House, Northamptonshire, Regeneration, Station Road, Unemployment, Vandalism on March 13, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The longer this blog goes on, the more chances it offers to revisit the recent past and observe the processes of change (and sometimes decay). It was about a year ago that I began taking photographs, and I see that one of the first things I snapped were a pair of buildings at the [...]
News from Where You Aren’t … Sex Fiends of Kettering
Posted in Crime, Media, Newspapers, This England, tagged Crime, Kettering, Newspapers, Sex Fiends on February 12, 2011 | 3 Comments »
A contentious statement here from the Kettering police force – ”Sex Fiend” has a rather old-fashioned ring to it. I thought they had been supplanted in the journalistic bestiary – where they used to take their place alongside their comparatively humble and innocuous cousins the Love Rat and the Sex Pest – by the Sex Beast.
White Buildings Revisited … Rockingham Road, Kettering
Posted in Architecture, Arts, Pubs, This England, tagged Cherry Tree, Housing, Kettering, Northamptonshire, Pubs on January 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Back to Kettering at the weekend for the first time since October, and I’m sorry to report that the saga of the original White Building That Has Seen Better Days has reached its - I suppose inevitable – denouement. Before “construction work” … and after … On a happier note, I was pleased to see that [...]
Three Canopied Niches : J.L. Carr and Kettering Parish Church
Posted in Arts, Church of England, Religion, Sculpture, This England, tagged Church of England, J.L. Carr, Kettering, Northamptonshire, Sculpture on December 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A few days ago (El Salvador, Nerja) we witnessed the despoliation of many Spanish churches during the period of the Civil War. We have, of course, been through a similar process ourselves (albeit for different reasons), during the Reformation and then again during our own Civil War. But here is evidence of a small attempt to [...]
White Buildings That Have Seen Better Days : Rockingham Road, Kettering
Posted in Architecture, Arts, This England, tagged Change and Decay, Housing, Kettering on October 10, 2010 | 4 Comments »
The good Herr Doktor Pevsner gave fairly short shrift to Kettering – “There is remarkably little of architectural note at Kettering, and no perambulation can be made of it.” Quite how he knew there was little of architectural note if he couldn’t be bothered to walk round it I don’t know. I doubt that he [...]
