Now is the time of year for getting
out and about when the sun shines. I love to explore Surrey villages and then
write about what is going on for Surrey Life magazine. It never ceases to amaze me how much activity
is buzzing behind the scenes in what often looks like a sleepy hamlet or
quiet village high street – apart from the traffic!
It’s inspiring to talk to
people who, often quite modestly, lie behind events, clubs, campaigns and so on –
those ‘movers and shakers’ who make things happen. A few weeks ago I visited Stoneleigh Community
Library to meet up with Diana Kay and her creative writing group, and donate
three of my books.
The location of the library is unusual. In the middle of a
vast area of London suburbia, a residential rabbit-warren, you come to
a high street and wonder where is the
traffic? Parked cars, yes, but virtually nothing moving on wheels!
The reason is that it becomes a
cul-de-sac where the railway station lies and right there, opposite the
station, is the library. This gives Stoneleigh a real village feel and is such
a pleasant surprise – in fact it is more peaceful than some country villages
where traffic streams through. I wrote about this solid,
enterprising little library in the February issue if you want to take a look:
Notes from a Small Village, page 47
Within a few days I visited
Watts Gallery in Compton near Guildford to talk to Dr Desna Greenhow in the lovely tea-shop there about Mary
Watts. I also met up with Tristan Greatrex in Shere to
find out more about him and the wonderful website he runs for that picturesque and historic village. Shere draws a host of visitors for which there is a large, free car park!
You can find the Mary Watts article
in the current issue of Surrey Life (May) and the Shere column will be in the
June magazine, out mid-May.
Surrey is a great county for
country walks, as well as villages, and last week my husband and I took our dog to Hindhead to do
the Devil’s Punch Bowl walk. So lovely to see the many shades of green that come
with fresh spring growth - sorry, no blue sky at the time!
Surrey people and those who live
nearby in Sussex will be aware of the story behind Hindhead – the building
of a tunnel that lies 65 metres below the walk pathway. The busy A3 that
stretches from London to Portsmouth used to pass through the village as a
single-carriageway and proved to be a terrible bottleneck for traffic. Since
2011 the road goes underneath an area of land called the Devil’s Punch Bowl and
has transformed the village, as you can imagine.
We remember dicing with death,
years ago, crossing the road half-way through the walk (see photos for how it is now!) and again at the end to get
back to the car park. Now all is calm.
If only all villages could have a by-pass!! How many times do I say
this every year? My family are probably tired of hearing me say it – a pipe-dream. Or is it?
Appley Green does its best to be free of traffic!!
