Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: GeoGuessr

  • GeoGuessr – Great Bentley to Colchester

    This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.

    We got back safely to Great Bentley railway station, and its tall bridge, to journey back to Colchester. I bravely took this photo and didn’t require Nathan’s help, but he pro-actively decided to act as lookout in case I didn’t manage to notice a train was crossing.

    I only discovered later on that this line is known as the “Sunshine Coast Line”, making eastern Essex sound like some Californian or Australian beach destination. Anyway, if it works for them….

    Oh, and although I have no particular interest with train spotting or trains, I do like a good fact or two about railway stations. Although that’s not really any more inspiring perhaps… Anyway, Great Bentley railway station opened in 1866 and was then known as Bentley Green, but it was renamed to its current name in 1877. Well, that’s what Wikipedia says anyway, although it still seems to have been called Bentley Green for some time after 1877 in the media and by some locals.

    One story about this railway station, which is from December 1866. The station master, Samuel Clarbour, was in charge of getting a customer’s dog to Colchester, which isn’t a service that I can imagine the current station staff offering (which is handy as there aren’t any staff at the station now). Anyway, another individual, Herbert Warren, comes along and tried to claim the dog as his. The station master was a sensible man and realised this wasn’t right, and he refused to release the dog. So Herbert Warren hit the station master and there was a scuffle at the station, a case of dognapping and this wasn’t a crime I considered was a problem in Victorian times. For anyone interested, Warren was fined 2s 6d  and also had to paid the costs of 17s (about £65 in total in today’s money).

    And our carriage awaits, on time again, we’d (at this point, but as a spoiler, this didn’t last) been fortunate on today’s adventure with some very punctual trains and buses.

  • GeoGuessr – Sandwich…..

    I’m not claiming that this is the most inspirational content on the Internet, but I would like to thank the nice man who worked in Tesco for patiently stopping what he was doing and reducing the sandwich I wanted in price (he was busy doing the tuna mayo sandwiches, which I didn’t want).

    Although, just a little extra comment, I could have done without Nathan coming over to interfere with my operation of the self-service till because he seemed to think that I was some senile and confused individual who was unable to cope with how to use it. Although, I will say that his help was useful….

    BTW, the sandwich wasn’t like that in the shop, that was the result of being in my wet bag for an hour.

  • GeoGuessr – Plough (Great Bentley)

    This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.

    We couldn’t not visit this pub, it’s just a few minutes walk away from Great Bentley railway station. The previous pub had been quite quiet, but this was a more lively affair and it felt as though it was a fun community pub which didn’t take itself too seriously.

    The Plough is owned by Wellington Pub Company, which I have limited knowledge of, but I’m aware that they’re a large landlord who offer free of tie lease agreements to landlords. It’s a great shame for the entire licensed trade that there aren’t more companies which operate on these terms.

    There were a couple of beer options from the Bishop Nick Brewery in Braintree, Essex. Just as an aside, that’s some really good branding from Bishop Nick Brewery, very on-trend. Slight downside, I thought that the real ale was slightly on the turn, although it was at the appropriate temperature. Nathan, who is our self-appointed beer connoisseur,  felt that it was just about acceptable, so we stuck with it. Actually, he was right (hopefully he won’t read that, although he probably will) and it was tolerable, perhaps it had lost a little flavour, but it still tasted fine.

    There seemed to be some form of entertainment going on later on in the evening, but that was taking place after our train left. So, for the time we were there, we found a table in what I assume was about to become a stage. The service at the pub was efficient and friendly, with a relaxed and informal feel to the surroundings. All perfectly acceptable, I can imagine that this is a reliable local pub.

  • GeoGuessr – Royal Fusilier (Aingers Green)

    This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.

    I’ve had to really ponder what to write about this pub. Nathan, being well, Nathan, carefully writes down every pub he visits and I know that’s he just visited over 100 this year. I don’t keep such assiduous records, but I think I’m at something like 125 (irritatingly, not that many more than him). I mention this just to quantify the number of visits we make and so that our expectations of pubs generally aren’t unnecessarily skewed.

    Anyway, I don’t really ever get bad service anywhere, as I’ve carefully selected pubs that I think I’ll like, that are in the Good Beer Guide or manage to be on-trend and exciting. There’s a bit of a theme on this blog where I keep writing that everywhere is friendly, but that’s not really surprising given how I’m trying to pick decent places to go.

    Normally, if I had a bad experience in a pub, I probably just wouldn’t post about it (although I’m struggling to remember a bad experience this year). It’s important to remember that a publican has a difficult job (I should know…..), they may be having an off-day, they may come across in a way that they didn’t mean or they might have an issue that they’re dealing with in the best way that they know. So, I’d likely just not post anything about an experience which wasn’t friendly.

    But, I’m trying to write here about the day we had whilst on our pointless and irrelevant GeoGuessr adventure, so I can’t really miss much out of the narrative. And, before I write the next paragraph, I’ll say that it’s great this pub is open and it’s clear that someone has spent lots of time and energy trying to make it work. It’s well reviewed, especially for food, and I took some photos of the interior which show-cased some of their work. I tried my very best to like this pub given all of that.

    But, there seems little point in writing too much about that, as it was clear from the off-set that we weren’t welcome. On the grounds that we were just trying to get a quiet drink (of real ale, not Stella mixed with Aftershock) I can’t say I entirely understand what the issue was from the staff, but I’ll assume there were factors involved that I didn’t understand.

    Anyway, we had one more pub left before we left Great Bentley for the bright lights of Colchester (and as a spoiler to cheer things up, we had an exceptionally good experience at a Colchester pub) so we marched off into the dark ready for a short stroll.

  • GeoGuessr – Walk Back to Great Bentley

    This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.

    It had reached that time of the day when we needed to leave St. Osyth, pleased in the knowledge that we had visited the town’s pub, eaten at the Indian restaurant, seen the outside of the church and priory, found the GeoGuessr location that we needed and managed not to upset anyone. It was all going well. All we had now was an hour walk back to the rail station in Great Bentley. Above is the former priory wall on Colchester Road, which was on the way to Great Bentley.

    Nathan was thrilled to spot several deer, although I was less inspired as I had already seen a deer earlier on, since I clearly have better wildlife spotting skills than him.

    And to complete Nathan’s wildlife section, there’s a squirrel on a tree. I should have brought my camera, these photos aren’t very clear.

    This mushroom was the size of a dinner plate, but it doesn’t look that impressive in the photo.

    The walk along the verge of the road. Very exciting…..

    Looking back to St. Osyth, only slightly sad that we never got to go to the notorious settlement that is Jaywick and which is relatively near to St. Osyth.

    One pub we walked by, which is The Creek pub (formerly known as the Flag Inn), which we knew was closed during the day and we couldn’t easily have fitted into our schedule. CAMRA warn that there are no real ales served here, so it seems we didn’t miss much in that regard. However, The Creek prides itself on its food and I’m sure it’s lovely. But it should have real ale and craft beer IMO.

    I can’t claim that the walk back towards the railway station was the most inspiring that I’ve been on in terms of the view, but fortunately there was a pavement or off-road walkway most of the way and that did make things easier. The only thing which slowed us down was having to run past any large puddles to avoid getting splashed by the relatively high level of traffic on the road.

    Although I mentioned this was the walk to the railway station, there was a pub stop around ten minutes before we arrived there. More on which in the next post…..

  • GeoGuessr – St. Osyth (St. Osyth’s Priory)

    This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.

    This is a fascinating building, it’s the gatehouse and, for those with excellent eyesight, a glimpse of the main priory building, all of which was founded in the twelfth century by Augustinian canons and it remained in use until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s. It’s currently all closed off as they’re doing some restoration and rebuilding works, with an aim to open it up as a sensitively managed tourist attraction.

    Since we couldn’t see anything inside, I’ll limit this post to just photos of the exterior.

  • GeoGuessr – St. Osyth (St. Peter and St. Paul Church)

    This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.

    Unfortunately, we weren’t able to enter the town’s main church although it later transpired we visited during the church’s opening times. It’s a shame, it’s one of the most complex buildings that I’ve seen in terms of trying to understand it from its exterior.

    I have a lot of unanswered questions about this church and I have no idea why they’ve locked and blocked off part of the graveyard (I poked my camera through the gate to take this photo).

    That’s the south chapel on the left, the nave in the centre and the chancel on the right. The south chapel is thirteenth century, but something has clearly gone wrong with the structure as there are buttresses propping it up on the left hand side which are from the fourteenth century. I’ll make no comment about civil engineers as Liam will see this.

    I didn’t pay much attention to this at the time, but the chancel isn’t level with the nave, it’s off-centre and located to the northern end of the nave. This is apparently due to the Reformation interfering with the plans of the church, although it’s given it a quirky appearance.

    A better view of the buttresses against the side of the church, as well as a door built into a window (could they really not have put that door anywhere else?).

    I don’t understand this, this is a nineteenth century chimney and it’s out of place and seems a bizarre addition to have made. Or at least the top is a chimney, the middle bit could almost be rood stairs, but they’re in the wrong place as they’re now where the chancel meets the nave (and there are three naves anyway, as well as the brickwork looking too late for rood stairs). Unfortunately, the church’s web-site says that the comprehensive history of the building is “coming soon”, so I can’t glean much from that at the moment.

    I can’t explain what’s going on here.

    I also have no idea why what appears to be a set of stairs to the top of the tower have been added on quite so late in the church’s history.

    The northern side of the north chapel.

    I found one story about this church which I did find amusing. In 1865, a marriage was taking place which was officiated by a vicar from Clacton who was standing in for the local vicar. The marriage ceremony was proceeding all very well and the vicar read out the “to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse” section of the vows. The groom, who must have considered himself something of a wit, said “I’ll take her for better, but not for worse”. The vicar decided this wasn’t in keeping with the standards that he expected, so he slammed his book shut and walked out of the church, leaving a confused bride and groom to be at the altar. Marvellous.

    Anyway, as I’m not a church historian, I can’t shed a great deal of light on this church. It’s a shame I’m not likely to come this way again soon, as I’d have liked to see inside, and also inside the churchyard. I don’t like the way that they’ve locked half of it off, although I’m sure that they must have a reason to have done that. But, it’s a magnificent church and I like that its history hasn’t been whitewashed away.

  • GeoGuessr – St. Osyth (Trevor Osben)

    This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.

    This stone puzzled me slightly, I thought I’d take a photo and then go on-line to discover more about it. There’s not a great deal, although the log of his expedition is available, and I was slightly amazed to discover that it took him four years to complete the voyage in his 20-foot plywood boat which he had built in his front garden. That’s a serious journey and it’s a shame that there are no more details that I’ve been able to find of the sort of adventure that this must have been.

  • GeoGuessr – St. Osyth (The Village Sign)

    This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.

    The St. Osyth village (or town) sign, installed to mark the silver jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. There are four items featured on the sign and I can’t work one of them out.

    TOP-LEFT is St. Osyth herself, also known as St. Osgyth, who was a saint who lived in the seventh century AD. There is a story that when she was beheaded she then picked up her own head before walking to a local convent and then collapsing there in safety. I say safety, but she was already dead, so there was perhaps little need to be safe.

    TOP-RIGHT is a bird. I have no idea why.

    BOTTOM-LEFT is one I had to think about for a while, but the key represents St. Peter and the sword represents St. Paul. This puzzled me until I remembered that the town’s church is dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul.

    BOTTOM-RIGHT is the town’s priory.

    I hope I work out that bird one, or perhaps Nathan knows since he was there, he was probably paying more attention to the clues that there were no doubt there to be solved.

  • GeoGuessr – St. Osyth (The White Hart)

    This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.

    This building looks as though it has been derelict for some time, but the White Hart has only been closed for around four years. Located on Mill Street in the town, this pub had an excellent reputation and it’s a real shame that this is another drinking house lost to the community. It certainly looks now that it’d be nearly impossible to viably return this into being a pub and I imagine that its future lies as a residential property.

    It’s known that the building was used as a pub from at least the 1760s, and likely much earlier. Some elements of the building date back to the 1500s, so there’s a lot of history which has been lost in terms of it being a building used by the community. It is though a listed building, so at least the structure of the property should be secure.

    The former pub is located near to a mill, and it’s also where the coroner’s inquiry into the death of a local man took place. On Monday 24 June 1878, William Codd, the Coroner for East Essex, looked into the death of the 16-year old George Carter, who had drowned in the mill’s pond. The death had taken place the day before and it was witnessed by a local butcher, Henry Carter, who was the deceased’s brother. They were both swimming in the pond, albeit without permission, when George got into difficulty.

    The decision in this case was one of “accidental drowning”, but it’s a reminder of the history that exists in locations such as this. Henry Carter walked into the White Hart to get help and he had to tell the landlord that his brother was dead. It’s hard to imagine what went through the mind of Henry Carter on that day, during the coroner’s inquiry and for the rest of his life.

    The Carter family lived on Colchester Road in St. Osyth, with the parents being Isaac and Harriott, and at the time of the 1871 census, the children were William (then aged 12), Henry (then aged 10), George (then aged 8), Isaac (then aged 6), Arthur (then aged 4) and David (then aged 2). That’s a lot of boys, and very evenly spread out.