The Walled Garden

This is quite a modest sign is terms of size and colour but it is sufficient to its purpose of confirming that the gate next to is indeed that to The Walled Garden at the entrance to Sudbrook Gardens.

Roof works in Sudbrook Gardens

Sudbrook Gardens is one of the few hated (by me) no through roads in Ham which I have to walk in and out of a few times every year just to see if anything has changed, and this time something had.

Square gate

Last year I was bemoaning the loss of an arched gate in Sudbrook Gardens and it seems to have taken me nine months to get back there to check on progress, that is the annoying thing about no-through roads.

What has replaced the cute arch draped with vegetation is a square gate that seems designed for a coach.  I think the side gate has been enlarged too.

Somehow the colour of the gates makes this look like the entrance to an industrial site and the state of the paintwork only reinforces that view.

Pavement repaired in Sudbrook Gardens

The pavement repairs in Sudbrook Gardens have finished and very nice they look to with the two lines of brick flanking the paving stones. I am sure that the very few people who walk along there will appreciate the work while everyone else queries the value of it.

 

Unfortunately the refreshed pavement is impossible to use in some places due to encroaching vegetation. I am surprised that they managed to work on the pavement here and did not insist that the owner cleared the way first.

Lost arch

There is not a great deal to see in this picture, and that is the problem.

I took a photograph of the entrance to this house in Sudbrook Gardens way back in 2010 (and had an odd encounter with the owner while doing so) because there was a delightful arch there and this has been demolished.

I will keep my fingers cross that the new entrance is equally interesting but I am not hopeful.

Pavement repairs in Sudbrook Gardens

Surprisingly, for such a short road, Sudbrook Gardens has featured enough in the blog to warrant its own tag. The latest reason is the work being done to repair the pavements.

This work is something of a surprise itself as in my many years of walking there I cannot recall ever seeing another person walking or using the pavement in any way; it's a short road to nowhere and everyone has several cars.

Fore!

Either this house in Sudbrook Gardens has a military-grade trampoline in the back garden or the net is there to stop stray golf balls from the course next to it.

Sprucing up Orchard Cottage

For a short road with few houses Sudbrook Gardens gets a surprisingly large number of mentions here. That is partially because almost all of those few houses are noteworthy and partially because so many of them have had significant work done to them in recent years. The latest is Orchard Cottage which is having the tiles section in the centre of the house rehung.

I took this picture to remind me which house was being worked on and it is worth posting in its own right. I did post a picture of this sign previously but that was many years and several cameras ago. 

Fixing the roof

When a roof is as large and as prominent as this one this then fixing it is going to get noticed. The house is in Sudbrook Gardens and the roof can be seen from Petersham Road.

 

Four years ago I praised this house and I trust that it will still look good when this work is finished.

Gwynne Cottage

The entrance to Gwynne Cottage in Sudbrook Gardens has a lot to recommend it. Working from the top there is the brick arch, the house name sign, the gate with the view of the neat garden behind it and, finally, the sleeping dog.

Grey gates

I had been waiting for these gates to be installed and they were worth the wait. I like that they are a subtle grey rather then the expected (by me) brash black. They also suit the existing walls and new pillars very well. They are now part of an impressive boundary.

Less impressive is the house behind it. Despite its size and the obvious merits of its design the overall impression of shabbiness, a good house slowly declining. Most of this is down to the windows and so could be easily solved. I hope to see that happen one day.

Autumn colours

I really was not going to post another picture of autumn colours year then I walked into Sudbrook Gardens and was entranced by these leaves.

Close up the colours are even more subtle and varied. 

New gates

The house on the north corner of Sudbrook Gardens and Petersham Road has always interested me because it never looks busy and it often looks empty yet, from time to time, something happens there to catch my attention. The work to add new gates on both roads certainly caught my attention.

The picture at the top is of the Petersham Road entrance and this is Sudbrook Gardens. The steel suggest something large and I hope that it is good looking too. We will find out soon.

A final look at 21 Sudbrook Gardens

Work has finished at 21 Sudbrook Gardens and I think that it looks fine, but no better than that. The blandness of the large rendered sections house rather detract from the neat brickwork in the central section of the house and in the wall in front of it. The gates are good too.

21 Sudbrook Gardens

The rebuilt house at 21 Sudbrook Gardens is now complete. I find it a little bland though at least it has the brick section in the middle to break up the featureless rendering. I suspect that the view will be considerably improved once the new tress grown above the height of the wall.

Finishing off in Sudbrook Gardens

The rebuilding of the house at the end of Sudbrook Gardens is almost complete and it taken it final, rather bland, shape. The central brick section is nice but the rest of the house is too plain and the windows are too small. Spreading the brick across the lower level would have helped.

The roadside appearance looks better as the growing brick wall breaks up the expanse of plain render.

The roof is on

I keep walking into Sudbrook Gardens to see how the rebuilding of number 21 is getting on which has often been frustrating as most of the work has been hidden behind the hoardings. At least the roof is visible and that has now been completed.

The window on the gable looks a little odd but perhaps that will make more sense once the whole house is finished.

Taking shape

Now that the roof is being constructed the size and scale of the rebuild at the end of Sudbrook Gardens is becoming obvious, and it is big. But then it is in a road of big houses. 

Rebuilding 21 Sudbrook Gardens

Most of 21 Sudbrook Gardens was demolished and now the replacement building is taking shape. The hoardings are substantial but enough of the new house sticks up above them for the scale of it to be seen and it is clearly bigger than the house it replaces.

The lock in the gates serves as a handy peephole and is also large enough to push a pocket camera through. So I did, though the large vehicle to the left still blocked the view of part of the house. Perhaps I will have better luck next time.

A house waits its fate

Many of the houses in Sudbrook Gardens have been substantial updated, and extended, in recent years and this is one of the exceptions. It looks quite sad, almost as if it knows that somebody will see this as an opportunity site and the existing house just an obstacle to be got rid of.

Whatever the fate of the house I hope that the quirky blue gates remain.