Demolition of Houses and Diversion of Ellesborough Road, Wendover for HS2

This is the path along Ellesborough Road in Wendover that I have walked many times on the way to Bacombe Hill. The six houses have now been demolished for ACCESS to the HS2 site. The new railway is actually in a tunnel here before entering what will be a green tunnel past Wendover. I think I saw somewhere that houses will be rebuilt after the HS2 works are complete. 

Next time on my walk past the site I will take some of my own photos. The ones below are courtesy of  the Bucks Herald.

Yesterday I took the photos below of the HS2 works from the start of the (now closed) footpath (as shown on the map on the bottom photo) off Ellesborough Road, looking from right to left. The middle photo shows the cricket pavilion that is still standing.

There is nothing much happening at the moment, but the following article from Wendover News describes the future temporary diversion of Ellesborough Road. It is going to cost an absolute fortune.

EKFB – HS2 Construction Update, July 2022

22 June 2022

 Community, Homepage, Transport

Ellesborough Road and Bacombe Lane diversion

HS2 in Wendover
Work for the construction of the temporary diversions of Ellesborough Road and Bacombe Lane is due to commence now that the property demolition has been completed. The purpose of these diversions is to enable us to construct our site access roads, remove as many vehicles from the public road network as possible and to enable us to construct the Green Tunnel.

The Ellesborough Road diversion is being constructed to the rear of the properties at the north-eastern end of the road just before the bridge over the bypass and Chiltern Rail line. The diversion will run from the access track to the former cricket pitch, behind the houses and will re-join Ellesborough Road approximately 350m to the east. The road includes a bridge that will enable our site vehicles to pass underneath without impacting the traffic.

The Bacombe Lane temporary diversion route will connect from Ellesborough Road near the start of the footpaths to Coombe Hill and Bacombe Hill and run across the field to join the original Bacombe Lane.

Ellesborough Road will be open for the duration of the project although we may need short duration closures from time to time. Once these diversion routes are constructed the current roads will be closed and the diversion routes opened. There will be no through route on Bacombe Lane to Wendover and at the end of the project both of these roads will be removed, and their old alignments reinstated albeit with a slight realignment on Bacombe Lane.

When they say "remove as many vehicles from the public road Network", I guess they mean HS2 vehicles. The plan below shows how it will all look after completion, including the reinstatement of Ellesborough Road and the green tunnel past Wendover.

Agapanthus

 

In May last year I bought three Agapanthus Mixed from J Parkers. They started flowering in July.

This year they have gone mad, but they seem to be all blue. I have to support the stems and they do seem to have survived some windy weather. 

Achillea fili pendulina "Cloth of Gold"

 

At the end of the far border stands the yellow Achillea, towering over all the other perennials. As it is nearly two metres  high, it has often blown over. But this year the staking has so far proved adequate and the flowers are doing well.

Weigelia Red Prince - A Major Prune

 

I must have planted the Weigelia over twenty years ago. It has a profusion of red flowers all through spring and into early summer. It still had some flowers left when I attacked it this week. The problem was that there were long bare branches with some leaves and flowers at the far end. It only flowers on new growth. So it was time for some serious pruning. 

The cuttings filled two huge garden rubbish bags that went to the recycling centre. I also exposed a large area soil which has been cleared of weeds etc and that I can now keep under control. There was room for a new rose on the bottom right of the photo above. Although there was a huge root that had first be removed. So I'm not sure how long the rose will last.

On The Cusp by David Kynaston

 

The research that has gone into this book is truly amazing. Even though I read it in very small chunks, there is just too much detail. Mainly a collection of bits and pieces from newspapers and journals. Everything that was happening in those months from June through to October 1962 is there, politically, culturally, everything. I was seventeen years old, about to start my final year at school. Sleeping in my own tiny box room in the house in Braintree in Essex. Going out early in the morning on my paper round six days a week.

All I will do in this review is to mention some of those things I found interesting. For example, I didn't know that David Bowie (or Jones as he was then) played saxophone for The Konrads, a six piece instrumental group, at Bromley Technical Schools PTA fete. See waht I mean about the detail, so much taken from publications of the day. Pieces about the Keep Britain Out (of Europe) campaign and Doctor Beeching decimating the railways. The Pilkington Report into television and the controverst when the BBC was given a second channel.

A mention about "Double Your Money" reminded me that on our visits to our grandmother as children, we watched ITV for the first time as it was banned at home. Tuesday 10th June was "Telstar" day, the first ever hazy picture via satellite of a person in the USA picked up from a giant dish at Goonhilly Downs at The Lizard in Cornwall. The Architect's Journal magazine had a photo of a model for the Gateshead Shopping Centre, later immortalised in Michael Caine's "Get Carter".

There is a lot about agriculture and what was happening in Parliament, especially the fuss about whether to join the EEC. But I preferred the stuff about what was happening at the theatre and the last Gentlemen v Players cricket match at Lords. Then out of the blue: "That afternoon in West Sussex, entries for the Rustington Flower Show were up from 206 to 543". Wow!

When we reach September, The Beatles arrive at Abbey Road Studios on the 4th to record "How do you do it", the intended A side of their first single with "Love Me Do" as the B side. here were then eight pages about what was happening in Wales. Against the serious stuff of mining and industry was set The Beatles playing at Port Sunlight. Cliff and he Shadows appear on The Billy Cotton Bandshow but were poorly received. The Sunday Times colour magazine included a discussion that featured Alun Owen, who wrote the screenplay for "A Hard Day's Night", and who was a neighbour on Napier Road in West Kensington.

Then a large section about race relations, especially in the workplace. Although the Asians brought curry to the metropolis. "We had to sell egg and chips to start with, customers took a long time to start trying curry, even having added milk to make it milder. At first they always had chips with their curry, never rice". I remember the George Wimpey canteen serving curried egg and chips. Delicious.

The programmes on television was interesting unlike notes on a number of public figures. In the last chapter we are in the first week of October. On the 5th, "Love Me Do" was released as the A side and "P S I Love You" on the B. Both were essentially McCartney songs but it was maybe a printing error that it was attributed to Lennon-McCartney instead of the other way around. I know my brother John was impressed. He played a little harmonica (the instrument featured on the record) and declared, before the rest of the world caught up, that this band would be big.

ABC at the Royal Albert Hall

The rail strike did not deter me from travelling to the Royal Albert Hall for my first live concert in London for a very long time. I may not have originally chosen ABC, but I was swayed by the appearance of  Anne Dudley (see below) conducting the Southbank Sinfonia. And what I thought would be a small orchestra turned out to be massive. Nearly fifty musicians with thirty violins ( the nearly all young women seemed to be having a ball), eight cellos, woodwind, brass (including those saxophone solos) timpani and percussion.  The latter augmented the band's drummer and percussionist. So all four on the top row.

At the front, with leader and vocalist Martin Fry, were ABC's two guitars, piano and keyboards. So the music was brilliant. I loved the parts when the singing stopped and we just heard the music. The first half started promptly at the advertised 7.30pm. How often does that happen? The odd familiar track but it was the second half when 1982's "The Lexicon of Love" album is played in order and in it's entirety , that we all had come to see. And in the most perfect venue.

What I had not realised was that conductor Anne Dudley was involved in the recording of the album 40 years ago. She was brought in by producer Trevor Horn because ABC had nobody on keyboards. When Horn insisted on strings rather than synths, Anne (with very little experience of arrangements in her mid twenties) provided the score. So here she is, re-united with Martin Fry, all these 40 years later. She is in the photo above in the dark suit facing the orchestra. Everything else about Anne's work is on my post of 22nd April and there is an extensive list is on IMDB.com. Her work on this album pre-dates anything on that website. There was one moment last night when Martin Fry mentions visiting her house and sees her Oscar. (This was for the music to The Full Monty).  

A note about the journey for future reference. Because of the rail strike, I decided to drive to Amersham, park at the station and take the Metropolitan Line into Baker Street with two changes to Gloucester Road. I left home at 5pm and made the Albert Hall at 7.10pm. Coming home was even longer with a wait at Baker Street of 20 minutes. Two hours and twenty minutes back. But far preferable, these days, than parking in South Kensington. 

MEN (With added Annihilation), Top Gun Maverick and Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

 

The title on the poster is in capitals, but everywhere else it is not. So what is writer/director Alex Garland up to this time? Well, men is already plural so it's not that. The internet is no help at all.  Toilet doors normally say MEN, so it's something to do with men only?  It's just the director up to his old tricks and no-one but me is interested. The Independent called it " a social thriller wrapped in a folk horror story". But it's not really a horror film, more scary on an intellectual level. A feeling of anticipation and dread.

Jessie Buckley is now a fully fledged film star, taking on a challenging role as Harper where she is never out of the picture. Staying in an isolated house, on the run from her demons, they may have followed her here. In any case it is Rory Kinnear in multiple rolls of MEN who is scary. Harper goes downhill, if she was ever on the level. Craziness ensues. Someone said it had a "perplexing climax". I thought it was great. 

Alex Garland's Ex-Machina is one of my favourite films so I sought out his earlier Annihilation on DVD. All his films are unsettling and this was no exception. A proper sci fi movie and an Alien encounter. Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac star and I always remember Jennifer Jason Leigh from eXistenZ. The "music" from Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow adds to tension and unease. But then out of the blue up pops the superb Helplessly Hoping from Crosby, Stills and Nash. Wow!

Who would have thought that a Top Gun movie would have such a great script and a decent story. With Tom Cruise on likeable top form. It was when those opening bars from The Who's Wont get Fooled Again I was sold. A pushover for such songs in movies. Jennifer Connolly added charm, intelligence and maturity to the high jinks going on at Top Gun School. Unlike most critics, I was not overwhelmed by the flight sequences, but the mission was great at only a 2 minutes countdown. And then the post mission sequence was unexpectedly brilliant.

There is one moment in Good Luck To You, Leo Grande where Emma Thomson loses her permanent serious, almost sad expression. She is forced to dance like an 18 year old. She has never been that girl. Ever. Until now. I was completely sold.

Emma Thomson is superb as Nancy and thank goodness Daryl McCormack just about keeps up. This is basically a two hander that is almost like a filmed play. But somehow being up close and personal with these two was actually great on the big screen. The screenplay obviously had to be good and Katy Brand has given it her all. Poignant, sad, funny and desperate, director Sophie Hyde has made something special. But the film exists because of a peerless Thomson, a tour de force, Oscar worthy, her "warmth and intelligence enlivens an understated and masterfully modulated performance". A proper grown up movie.