A ‘virtual tour’ of summer colours and memories in the side streets of Rethymnon

In the shade by the Leo Hotel on Vafe Street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

Summer is gone, autumn has arrived, and we are heading to winter.

According to the way meteorologists measure out the seasons, summer ends on 31 August and autumn begins on 1 September.

For many, this has been a long hot summer. There have been strong summer fires throughout Greece, including fires that have threatened many parts of Athens and Crete that I know.

The Season of Creation, initiated by the Ecumenical Patriarchate 35 years ago, begins on 1 September, which is also the first day in the new church year in the Orthodox Calendar. Those summer fires in Greece this year are a sharp reminder of the consequences of climate change for all of us. and the need not merely for remedial action but for radical decision-making.

But, before summer becomes a distant memory, I am looking back on some memories of Greece this year, happy to have been was back in Crete shortly before summer began, after an absence of over two years.

It was a long absence, forced mainly by the stroke I had early in 2022 and the medical treatment I received for months after.

It was all too short a visit, but I stayed in Rethymnon, which I have known since the mid 1980s, and I visited friends and places I know in Platanias, Tsesmes, Panormos, Iraklion, Piskopianó and Koutouloufári.

Over almost 40 years, Rethymnon has become like a second home to me in Greece. I have grown accustomed to its side streets, its sounds and its smells, the sea and the sand, and the ways of its people.

During the Covid lockdown, I put together a number of thematic ‘virtual tours’ of places I had visited in the past and hoped to return to.

Now, this afternoon, as I look back on memories of that short visit this year, I have selected some of my memories of the colourful narrow streets in Rethymnon and look forward to another visit once winter has passed.

In a narrow street off Plateía Mikrasiaton or Asia Minor Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

In narrow Emmanoil Vernardou street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

A playful but fading overhanging sign (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Night time and shadows on Souliou Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

An archway leads from Tsouderoun Street into Kornarou Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Summer colours on Tsouderoun Street, where I stayed two years in a row (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Colourful steps off Chimaras street, beside the Fortezza (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Summer shading on Xanthoudidou street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

A glimpse of Souliou Street from Arkadiou Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Summer colours in the narrow passageway filled with restaurants facing Eleftheríou Venizélou and the seafront in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Nikiforou Foka is a long and narrow street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Kalliophs Gioulounta beside Myli Restaurant leads to Pavlos Beach at Platanias, east of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

A bend on the street named after Patriarch Gregory who was martyred in Constantinople on Easter Day 1821 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Aghiou Georgíou (Saint George) is a narrow street off Patriarch Gregory street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

A glimpse of the minaret of the Nerantze mosque through narrow Trikoupi street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

The Hotel Byzantine, one of the oldest hotels in Rethymnon, is close to the Porta Guora or old Venetian gate (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Narrow Vosporou street takes its name from the Bosphorus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

A glimpse of Rethymnon Cathedral through Kapsali street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

On the corner of Xanthoudidou street and Radamathios street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

The door closes on another summer in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on images for full screen viewing)

Changing the clocks tonight does not take an hour away from my day or life

The clock at Donegal House and the Guildhall in Lichfield was presented to the Mayor and people of Lichfield by Mrs MA Swinfen-Broun of Swinfen Hall in 1928 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I’ve spent some time this afternoon watching the boat races and I have lost a few hours cheering on the two winning Cambridge teams. This has been the last day in Lent,the last Saturday in March, and the last day in the Winter Time of GMT. The clocks change tonight, going forward an hour at 1 am. Despite the wet and cold weather we have had in recent days, this also marks the beginning of British Summer Time (BST).

The clocks move forward every year early in the morning on the last Sunday of March, which is also Easter Day this year.

The clocks moving forward also means that we lose an hour in bed. But this is also a leap year, so we have gained an extra day and lost an hour in the course of less than a month.

The decision for clocks to go forward for summer came about through a campaign in the early 20th century to change the clocks during the summer months, so that people in the northern hemisphere could make more use of the earlier daylight hours.

Benjamin Franklin first suggested the idea of daylight saving time in a whimsical article in 1784.

William Willett, an early promoter of British Summer Time, published a pamphlet The Waste of Daylight (1907) that proposed changing the clocks in spring and putting them back in autumn. However, his proposal was complicated, involving advancing the clocks by 80 minutes in four separate moves of 20 minutes each.

The House of Commons rejected a Bill in 1908 to advance the clocks by one hour during the spring and summer months.

Willett died in 1915. A year later Parliament passed the Summer Time Act. It was introduced as a temporary efficiency measure for World War I, but established the practice of putting the clocks an hour forward during summer.

The decision to change the clocks on the last Saturday night and Sunday morning in March was made because it would be the least disruptive option for schools and businesses.

Before time became standardised, different areas of Britain and Ireland kept their own local time, and until the late 19th century, each area set its own clocks.

The Time Act 1880 established Greenwich Mean Time for Great Britain and Dublin Mean Time for Ireland. For 36 years, Ireland’s time was set on the longitude of Dunsink Observatory, and was 25 minutes 21 seconds later than Greenwich. This had implications for trade and commerce, as well as communications and travel.

On 1 October 1916, just five months after the Easter Rising, Ireland relinquished its individual time zone and adopted Greenwich Mean Time. With the introduction of daylight saving and the end of summertime that year Dublin’s time was aligned to that of London.

The Time (Ireland) Act 1916, which came into effect on the night of 30 September and 1 October, and all clocks were put back 35 minutes. This streamlined the time zones, and Ireland adopted Western European Time, set on the Greenwich meridian. Many nationalists saw this as a further erosion of Ireland’s autonomy. But the question of the time zone was not revisited after independence, and from 1918 Ireland remained within the standardised time zones that were effective across Europe.

The Standard Time Act 1968 legally established that ‘the time for general purposes in the State (to be known as standard time) shall be one hour in advance of Greenwich Mean Time throughout the year.’ The act was amended by the Standard Time (Amendment) Act 1971, which legally established Greenwich Mean Time as a winter time period.

Double summer time (GMT + 2 hours) was used in the UK during World War II, but was not introduced in Ireland, leaving different time zones on each side of the border until 1947.

Interestingly, the clocks the Royal Observatory Greenwich are not changed during British Summer Time and are always set at Greenwich Mean Time. Visitors to the Observatory during summer are often confused by the apparent delay on the Shepherd Gate Clock, Britain’s first public clock to show GMT.

On the other hand, the Dolphin sundial in the Observatory needs to be adjusted four times a year: at the solstices in June and December, and when the clocks change in March and October.

Mathematical genius is not needed to change the clock tonight

Today, people argue that changing the clocks is good for environmental reasons by reducing energy consumption; gives longer evenings to support leisure and tourism; encourages people to exercise more outdoors; and reduces road accidents.

However, some still argue against daylight saving time – they have concerns about the safety of children going to school in darker mornings, about farm safety and about the effect of changing routines on livestock. Others argue that changing the clocks is now redundant as many people spend time in well-lit homes and workplaces, where the amount of daylight makes little difference to their lives.

About 70 countries have some form of daylight saving time, but this varies from region to region. In the US, the clocks go forward on the second Sunday in March (10 March 2024) and back on the first Sunday in November (3 November 2024), although not all states change their clocks. Arizona does not use Daylight Saving Time, apart from the semi-autonomous Navajo Nation, nor does Hawaii.

The European Parliament backed a proposal In March 2019 to end the practice of changing the clocks in EU member states. Initially the plan was for EU member states to change their clocks for the last time in 2021, but the legislation has stalled in recent years, and seasonal time changes continue.

Many years ago, I knew a student who was a fervent evangelical was vocally opposed to the Lenten practices, including changes in both the college chapel and college kitchen. One year, he strenuously objected that because it was a leap year and 29 February fell in Lent, an extra day had been introduced to Lent.

He suggested it was some high church ‘trap’ to add to the Lenten observances. No amount of logical argument could persuade him that the number of days remained the same whether or not it was a Leap Year. He did not smile when I suggested summer time was reducing Lent by an hour.

Most phones and laptops automatically update themselves, but, it seems, many watches, most clocks and the timers in cars and on kitchen devices do not change automatically and need to be moved forward tonight.

So, it still makes sense to remind myself to put the clocks forward tonight.

Clocks and sundials seen in Norwich this week (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Summer evening walksthrough scenes from ‘Wind in the Willows’

Walking through Tombs Meadow in Stony Stratford on a summer evening (Photograph: Charlotte Hunter, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

During these balmy summer evenings, one of our favourite places to walk is Tombs Meadow, on the northern fringe of Stony Stratford and by the banks of the Great Ouse.

The ‘Tombs Meadow Route’ is a 2.2 km walking route by the meadow-fringed river as it winds lazily through the ‘Wind in the Willows’ scene of the Ouse Valley Country Park.

When I post photographs of these walks, I am sometimes asked about the unusual name of Tombs Meadow. I have been told the name comes from the name of the Tombs family, who once farmed this land between the town and the river.

William Arthur Tombs is one of the many names on the War Memorial in Horsefair Green in Stony Stratford.

He was born in 1898, a son of William Joseph and Ellen Tombs, of 20 Park Road, Stony Stratford. His father was a horseman on a farm, probably in Tombs Meadow.

The Roll of Honour for Buckinghamshire shows that William Arthur Tombs enlisted in Bletchley. He was Private 29008 in ‘B’ Company, 7th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He was 20 when he died in Thessaloniki on 15 October 1918, and is buried in Doiran Military Cemetery, north of Thessaloniki, close to the border of North Macedonia.

Doiran Cemetery, originally known as Colonial Hill Cemetery No 2, was formed at the end of 1916 as a cemetery for the Doiran front.

The graves are almost entirely those of officers and men of the 22nd and 26th Divisions and largely reflect the fighting of April and May 1917 and the attacks on the Petit-Couronne, and 18-19 September 1918 and the attacks on Pip Ridge and the Grand-Couronne.

In October and November 1918, after the final advance, a few burials took place from the 25th Casualty Clearing Station. After the Armistice, graves were brought into the cemetery from the battlefields and from by some small burial grounds, the most important of which was Strumnitza British Military Cemetery, north-west of Doiran, made by the 40th Casualty Clearing Station in October and November 1918.

Doiran Military Cemetery now contains 1,338 Commonwealth burials of World War I, 449 of them unidentified. There are also one French and 45 Greek war graves. The Doiran Memorial, which stands near the cemetery, was designed by Sir Robert Lorimer with sculpture by Walter Gilbert. It serves as both the Battle Memorial of the British Salonika Force and the place of commemoration for more than 2,000 Commonwealth servicemen who died in Macedonia and whose graves are not known.

My attention was drawn to William Arthur Tombs’s war record because my grandfather, Stephen Edward Comerford (1869-1921), also fought on the Macedonian Front, also known as the Salonika Front, during World War I.

My grandfather was with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and was sent home from Thessaloniki on sick leave on 3 May 1916. He received all the appropriate war medals and decorations at the end of World War I, but instead of dying on the Macedonian Front, he had a slow, sad and lonely death, dying in hospital on 21 January 1921 with the after-effects of malaria.

The Salonika Front was formed as a result of an attempt by the Allied Powers to aid Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, against the combined attack of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. The expedition came too late and in insufficient force to prevent the fall of Serbia, and was complicated by the internal political crisis in Greece known as the National Schism.

Eventually, a stable front was established, running from the Adriatic coast of Albania to the Struma River, pitting a multinational Allied force against the Bulgarian Army. The Macedonian front remained quite stable until the great Allied offensive in September 1918, which resulted in the capitulation of Bulgaria and the liberation of Serbia.

William Arthur Tombs from Stony Stratford died on in Thessaloniki on 15 October 1918, just 26 days before the end of World War I.

Walking through Tombs Meadow in Stony Stratford on a summer evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

A summer evening visit to the Roman villa in Bancroft and the excavated site

The Roman Villa at Bancroft was discovered while Milton Keynes was being developed in 1971 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Milton Keynes may be a new city, having achieved that status last month (May 2022). But it is steeped in ancient history, and on a recent balmy summer’s evening, two of us cycled from Stony Stratford to visit the Roman Villa at Bancroft in North Loughton Valley Park.

The Roman villa at Bancroft was discovered while Milton Keynes was being developed by Milton Keynes Development Corporation in 1971 and the new estate of Bancroft was being built.

Clues about the significance of the area had already come after fragments of Roman pottery were noticed in the banks of nearby Loughton Brook in 1967. The villa was partially excavated in the 1970s, and then more fully in 1983-1987.

The area was carefully excavated over the next 15 years to reveal the villa’s underfloor heating system with a limestone open hearth, a bath suite, colonnaded verandas and porch and an ornamental walled garden with a fishpond and a summerhouse.

Bancroft was one of eight large farming estates created in the area 2,000 years ago, each centred around a Roman Villa – in Milton Keynes Village, Stantonbury, Wymbush, Walton, Dovecote Farm at Shenley Brook End, Sherwood Drive in Bletchley and Holne Chase.

The Romans arrived in England in the year 43 CE. Most of the country remained populated by the native Britons who adopted Roman culture and religion and mixed it with their own Iron Age traditions.

One of their early Roman settlements was along the old Roman road, now Watling Street, in Fenny Stratford. This was called Magnavinium and is thought to have included a small fort.

Queen Boudicca, leader of the Inceni tribe, challenged the Romans in the year 60 CE by marching her army through the country, burning towns and slaughtering thousands of people. She met the Romans south of Towcester and after being wounded, fled the scene and turned south down Watling Street towards Magnovinium at Fenny Stratford. But Boudicca died of her injuries near Newton Longville.

The Roman Villa at Bancroft included an ornamental walled garden with a fishpond and a summerhouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The villa at Bancroft is the most extensively excavated Roman settlement in Milton Keynes. The archaeological excavations revealed an underfloor heating system with a limestone open hearth, a bath suite, colonnaded verandas and porch, an ornamental walled garden with a fishpond and a summerhouse.

The villa at Bancroft was originally a winged-corridor house, and the villa eventually became a grand building with mosaics and a formal garden. The principal rooms have been marked out and the fishpond has been reconstructed.

Before the Roman era, the hill top at Blue Bridge had been the main focus of settlement in the Bancroft area. However, things changed and the river valley below became more inviting. The earlier hill top settlement was abandoned and the land was used by the new farmstead for agriculture and as a cremation cemetery.

A large farm was built further downhill towards Bradwell Brook in the late first century. A temple or mausoleum was built on the hilltop in the second century, after the year 150 CE, and the cremation cemetery went out of use. The farmstead flourished for nearly a century, but most of the buildings were destroyed by fire ca 170 CE.

A large Roman-style house or villa was built in the late third century. As there is no evidence of a farm, the people who lived in this villa must have earned a living some other way than by farming.

Major renovations were carried out on the villa and the surrounding grounds in the fouth century, turning it into a grand country estate. On the top of the hill at Blue Bridge, the Temple Mausoleum was demolished and a circular shrine was built nearby.

Geometric mosaics were added to many rooms and the main bath suite was rebuilt and enlarged. A formal garden was laid out In front of the villa, along with an ornamental fishpond. The mausoleum on top of the hill was demolished and a circular shrine was built nearby.

During the excavations, several Roman artefacts were uncovered, including Samian tableware, a board made from decorated limestone for a board game, silver-bronze brooches for fastening a toga, decorated hair combs and around 1,000 coins.

A mosaic floor excavated from the villa was pieced together, mounted on a wall and displayed in Queen’s Court Shopping Centre in Central Milton Keynes in September 1977. With the later redevelopment of Queen’s Court, the mosaic was remounted in the ‘guest services lounge’ of the centre.

The Roman villa at Bancroft has since been reburied to ensure its preservation, and the mosaics have been moved from the site. But the villa and its principal rooms have been marked out on the ground with modern stonework and the fishpond has been rebuilt. It remains one of the most extensively excavated Roman villas in Britain.

The Roman Villa at Bancroft is one of the most extensively excavated Roman villas in Britain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Sculptor Liliane Lijn has chosen to ‘see the world in terms of light and energy’

‘Light Pyramid’ by Liliane Lijn forms part of the view along Midsummer Avenue in Milton Keynes at sunset on Midsummer evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

During my mid-summer visit to Campbell Park in Milton Keynes at the end of last week, I stopped to admire the ‘Light Pyramid,’ a sculpture by Liliane Lijn, that forms part of the view along Midsummer Avenue at sunset on Midsummer evening.

The ‘Light Pyramid’ was commissioned by the Parks Trust in Milton Keynes in 2012 to replace the original basket beacon on the Belvedere that was removed after a lightning strike.

The ‘Light Pyramid’ is made of steel and painted white. It was first illuminated for Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee ten years ago and is still lit to commemorate special local and national events.

The ‘Light Pyramid’ is by Dr Liliane Lijn, an American-born artist who has lived in London since 1966. She is known for her cone-shaped Koan series.

She was the first woman artist to work with kinetic text (‘Poem Machines’), exploring both light and text as early as 1962. She is also said to be the first woman artist to have exhibited a work incorporating an electric motor.

Utilising original combinations of industrial materials and artistic processes, Liliane Lijn is recognised for pioneering the interaction of art, science, technology, eastern philosophy and feminine mythology. In conversation with Fluxus artist and writer Charles Dreyfus, she said she primarily chose to ‘see the world in terms of light and energy.’

Liliane Lijn’s work covers a large spectrum of interests, from Light and its interaction with diverse new materials to the development of a fresh image for the feminine. She has taken inspiration from incidental details both human-made and natural, mythology and poetry, science and technology.

Lijn is interested in the development of language, collaborating across disciplines and making art that is interactive, in which the viewer can actively participate.

She was born in New York in 1939, and studied archaeology at the Sorbonne and art history at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris.

She lived in New York in 1961-1963, when she was the artist in residence at a plastics factory, experimenting with fire and acids. There she worked with light, poetry, movement and liquids, and many international exhibitions established her as a leading kinetic artist.

She returned to Paris to work in 1963-1964, when she exhibited her first kinetic light works and ‘Poem Machines.’ She then lived in Athens (1964-1966), making use of natural forces in her sculpture.

She moved to London in 1966, and in 1974 she staged the performance ‘The Power Game,’ a text-based gambling game and socio-political farce for the Festival for Chilean Liberation at the RCA.

She has been the artist in residence or has received fellowships at Northumberland, the University of Newcastle, and the University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with NASA and the Leonardo Network.

Her work has been displayed or exhibited across the world, from Gwangju in China to Leeds and London, from Paris to San Francisco. Her many awards include a doctorate (DLitt) from the University of Warwick (2005).

She worked with NASA to develop installations using aerogel, and has written a brief libretto, ‘The Descent of Inanna,’ with a score by Morgan Hayes.

Liliane Lijn has been invited to the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Biennale in Venice this year (23 April to 27 November 2022).

Midsummer drinks with panoramic views on Britain’s highest viewpoint

The 30 metre high, LED-lit stainless steel sun design circle on the Hotel La Tour in Milton Keynes was created to align with the sun on the longest day of the year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

After walking through Campbell Park earlier this week to catch a glimpse of the midsummer sunset on Midsummer Boulevard in Milton Keynes, two of us went to Fourteen, the sky bar and restaurant on the top floor of the new Hotel La Tour, with its breath-taking views over Campbell Park and Central Milton Keynes.

As we made our way up to the 43-metre high top floor and the fourteenth-floor sky bar and restaurant, with its panoramic views, the panoramic lift gave us a unique visual experience.

On the top floor, Fourteen is Britain’s highest destination bar and restaurant, offering the highest viewpoint in the whole of the country. Soaring 50 metres above ground level, the 14th floor stylish all-day contemporary British restaurant – it offers 360-degree vistas over Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire.

The statement marble effect central bar, with high and low tables and plush green, grey, and pink seating, offers classic and contemporary cocktails, fine wines, champagnes, and locally sourced brews, as well as sharing plates and delicious bar bites.

Hotel La Tour opened in Milton Keynes in April, next to the Milton Keynes shopping centre, and the hotel stands tall overlooking the sights of the new city. The hotel is a 14-storey, split-tower, 50-metre-high concrete and steel framed building. It has 261 bedrooms, a 12,900 sq ft conference floor with meeting spaces, and an external terrace.

Every one of the 261 bedrooms and suites features expansive floor-to-ceiling windows with views over either Milton Keynes Central or Campbell Park.

The hotel is located at the highest point of the new city. This prominent location led to the building undergoing an extensive stakeholder consultation, with real and significant changes to the design.

Hotel La Tour is a culmination to Midsummer Boulevard and a gateway sign to the city centre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The building form is a simple split tower, minimal in form and detail with mirror cladding, all capturing the classic forms of the city.

With this overall simplicity forming a screen, the east facing façade is dominated by a huge circle that is illuminated at night to form both a culmination to Midsummer Boulevard and a gateway sign to the city centre. This 30 metre high, LED-lit stainless steel sun design circle was created to align with the sun on the longest day of the year.

A large sculpture, ‘Cycloidal Form,’ by the artist Keith McCarter, stands adjacent to the canopy entrance.

The hotel was designed by pHp architects, a service led architectural practice with over five decades of experience in both the public and private sectors. The practice is led by three partners, supported by three directors, each with specialised roles. They are active in a number of sectors, with activity split across logistics, education, leisure, office and Industrial developments.

The project was completed in March 2022 and Hotel La Tour opened in April. The design used 3D design capabilities and this is the first building to meet the ‘Exceptional Developments’ policy in the Central Milton Keynes Alliance Plan (CMKAP).

Hotel La Tour is dedicated to enhancing and supporting the development of Milton Keynes, economically and environmentally, with its modern build emphasising sustainability from the ground-up and the creation of 180 local jobs.

Hotel La Tour’s managing director, Mark Stuart, is quoted as saying: ‘Encapsulating the town’s aspiration to be better by design, we have worked hard to create an aesthetically pleasing and sustainable building that delivers on luxury as well as functionality. We are committed to supporting the growth of Milton Keynes’ economy and this investment demonstrates our confidence in its strength.’

Midsummer drinks in Fourteen, Britain’s highest destination bar and restaurant (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

‘When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out’

Cricket in the early summer sunshine at the Ancell Trust Sports Grounds this weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

One of the joys of summer weekend afternoons in England is spending time watching cricket in the sunshine.

I spent some time this afternoon (28 May 2022) at the Ancell Grounds on Ostlers Lane in Stony Stratford, at the end of Vicarage Road and close to ruined tower of Saint Mary Magdalene.

Over the years, many tennis, bowls, football, cricket and croquet players from around the Milton Keynes area have enjoyed the unique facilities on offer at the Ancell Trust Sports Ground.

Frederick Thomas Shillingford Ancell was a lifelong Baptist and a builder with a social conscience who lived at 33 High Street, Stony Stratford. When he died in 1919, he had no near relatives, and in his will he left over £18,000 to the benefit of the townspeople.

Under the terms of Ancell’s will, the residents of Stony Stratford were offered grants for healthcare, travelling expenses, education, apprenticeships, training and recreation facilities. Ancell also gave £105 for building a bathing place on the banks of River Ouse behind the Barley Mow – now 185 High Street.

A trust was set up and one of the first requests was for the provision of a Sports Ground by the Football and Cricket Clubs who faced being without grounds.

The trust set up a sub-committee in May 1920, and it was agreed to buy land from a Mr Calladine and the Radcliffe Trust. A price was agreed in 1921, a groundsman was employed, fences and walls were built, the footpath was diverted the layout of various sports grounds was planned for cricket, football, croquet, tennis and bowls.

A paddock beside the new sports ground was bought In February 1922, providing extra land for four tennis courts, and by 1930, old railway coaches had bought to use as changing rooms for the tennis and cricket clubs.

Indulging in the pleasure of watching cricket at the Ancell Grounds in the sunshine this afternoon, I was reminded of this humorous explanation of cricket that has been reproduced on tea towels and mugs:

The Rules of Cricket

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.

Each player that’s in the side that’s in the field goes out, and when he’s out he comes in and the next player goes in until he’s out.

When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.

Sometimes there are players who are still in and not out.

When a player goes out to go in, the players who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next player in goes out and goes in.

There are two people called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the players who are in are out.

Depending on the weather and the light, the umpires can also send everybody in, no matter if they’re in or out.

When both sides have been in and all the players have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the players have been in – including those who are not out – that is the end of the game!

‘You have two sides, one out in the field and one in’ … watching cricket this weekend in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Summer sun shines on the harbour and the beaches in Skerries

Summer sunshine at the harbour in Skerries this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

After a busy weekend, and another busy round facing me this week, I took a day off in Dublin today [23 July 2019], and went for a walk on the beaches and along the harbour in Skerries in north Co Dublin.

For many years, while in I was living in Dublin and working in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Skerries was one of my favourite places for a walk on the beach at the weekend, along with Bray, Greystones and Kilcoole in Co Wicklow , Bettystown and Laytown in Co Meath, and Donabate, Portrane, Rush and Loughshinny in north Co Dublin.

It was almost seven months (29 December 2018) since I had been on a walk on the beaches in Skerries, and even that visit came after an absence of two years (December 2016).

There was a strong breeze, but the temperatures were in the high 20s, and there was a holiday atmosphere in Skerries, with families taking shelter on the grassy areas above the sand, children picking their way through the rockpools, teenagers hiring kayaks at the harbour, long queues for ice cream outside ‘Storm in a Teacup,’ and all available space taken or booked in the cafés, bars and restaurants lining the harbour.

The North Beach and summer sunshine at the Harbour in Skerries this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

On the walk around the headland, there were clear views of the Skerries rocks and the islands, and the Mourne Mountains in the distance, sweeping down to the sea.

I could hardly visit Skerries and not stop in Gerry’s for the newspapers and a bottle of wine – I have long extolled the taste of the wine buyers in Gerry’s.

The pleasure of summer wine during a late lunch in the Olive Café in South Strand Street, Skerries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Later, two of us lingered over lunch and summer wine in the summer sunshine in the garden at the back of the Olive Café on Strand Street.

All around us, people were talking about the election of Boris Johnson in tones that showed they were somewhere between being aghast and disgusted.

But at least the summer sunshine is a promise that life goes on, and it brings too the hope that he may wither away by winter.

We returned through Loughshinny and Rush, with clear views of Lambay Island in the distance, and passed the cricket club at Kenure, recalling with pride how Eoin Morgan embodies so many of the positive gifts Ireland has to offer England.

The sun shines on the beach in Skerries this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

When Sergeant Pepper and a taste of Italy came to Bray in the summer

Despite the clouds, summer has come to Bray, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Despite the grey clouds that disguise this is the beginning of July, summer must be here. This is the season of barbecues, cool white wine, and walks on the beach followed by real Italian ice cream.

After Sunday’s barbecue in the Rectory in Askeaton, I travelled to Dublin late in the afternoon for another barbecue in the grounds of Christ Church Cathedral to mark the end of term for the cathedral choir and the imminent move of the organist and director of music, Ian Keatley, to Southwark Cathedral.

If the weather was not as warm and sunny as you might expect at this time of the year, then there was more than adequate compensation in the warmth of the welcome back to the cathedral, where I had been a canon for ten years.

If the sun was still not providing evidence this afternoon that summer had truly arrived, their was evidence of its arrival in Bray where mothers were taking children to the seashore, with beach equipment in tow, although it looked like it might never be used; a sailing class was going through its manoeuvres outside the harbour; and young Italian students here on English-language summer courses were queueing up outside the ice cream parlours for real Italian ice cream.

Good advice on the seafront in Bray this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Bray has gone through many changes over the decades. When the railway line from Dublin opened in the 19th century, Bray developed as a sedate and very proper bathing resort at Co Wicklow’s nearest point to Co Dublin, complete with its own Victorian Turkish baths.

By the middle of the 20th century, things were beginning to change. After they married at the end of World War II, my parents lived briefly at the south end of Bray, and my mother’s cousin ran a small hotel on the seafront.

By the 1950s and 1960s, long before package holidays gained popularity, Bray had become a popular seaside resort for middle-class English tourists, especially for families from Liverpool, who found Bray accessible because of the short crossing on the Irish Sea.

It is said that in those days, Bray’s very English-looking bandstand on the seafront regularly hosted performances by an act known as Sergeant Pepper’s Big Brass Band during the summer season.

Some people in Bray like to say that these holidaymakers brought their memories and the name of Sergeant Pepper’s Big Brass Band back to Liverpool, and that their tales inspired the name of the Beatles’ best-known album, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in the summer of 1967.

The title track of Sergeant Pepper starts with 10 seconds of the combined sounds of a pit orchestra warming up and an audience waiting for a concert, creating the illusion of a live performance. The use of a brass ensemble with distorted electric guitars is an early example of rock fusion, and may also be a concession to the memory of the seafront band in Bray that once entertained holidaymakers from Liverpool in decades that had passed.

Sergeant Pepper may just be a fictional character that the Beatles built a narrative around. Indeed, it may just be local storytelling and mythmaking that the Bray bandstand house band partially inspired the best-known album of all time. But why not? After all, the legendary circus owner Pablo Fanque, who is named in one of the album tracks, ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!’, performed nearby in Dún Laoghaire for one week in 1850.

A glass of Italian wine to go with real Italian food in Carpe Diem on Albert Avenue this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Two of us had lunch in the early afternoon in Carpe Diem on Albert Avenue, where the food and the wines are authentically Italian.

Although, sadly, some of the neighbouring restaurants have closed in recent months, this remains Bray’s own Italian quarter, with a smattering of Italian restaurants, vinoteche, enoteche and gelateria, all within a short distance of Albert Avenue.

Nobody knows quite why this Little Italy developed when and where it did, but it adds a taste of summer sunshine to Bray at any time of the year.

After a short walk on the beach, we sat down to ice creams at Gelateria on the seafront for another taste of real Italian delights. Even if the sun had not come to the east coast today, the Mediterranean had come to Bray.

A taste of authentic Italian ice cream at Gelateria on the seafront (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

A summer evening to enjoy sailing and dinner in Bray

A view of the beach and the Irish Sea from Butler and Barry in Bray, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Bray was planned in the Victorian decades as the ‘Brighton of Ireland.’ So, it is only to be expected that it should be at its best on a sunny summer evening in August.

The August bank holiday weekend was over, and they were taking down the last of the funfair rides on the seafront when four of us arrived late in the afternoon with plans for an evening meal to celebrate a family milestone.

The summer funfairs come to an end in Bray (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Looking up towards Bray Head, there were no signs of the recent fire that had devastated part of this place of natural beauty just a few weekends ago.

For some years now, Carpe Diem has been my favourite restaurant and wine bar in Bray. But it closes on Tuesdays, and instead we opted to have dinner in Butler and Barry, the gastropub on Sea Road, above Sealife.

Many years ago, this was the Beach House, and I had many enjoyable dinners there on summer evenings, including one memorable evening when we watched dolphins dancing and playing in the sea.

Sailing in Bray … seen from a table at the window in Butler and Barry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

We had no booking on what seemed like a busy summer evening [7 August 2018], yet we were warmly welcomed and given a table by a large window looking out on the beach and to the Irish Sea.

There were no dolphins in the sea yesterday. Instead we had a perfect view of an evening’s sailing that entertained us throughout dinner.

After double espressos, there was still an invitation in the evening sunlight to walk along the seafront and enjoy authentic Italian ice creams.

I recalled stories of how an aunt and cousins had lived in Bray for many decades, how this was the town where my parents first lived after they married in September 1945 at the end of World War II, how in my early teens Bray was a fun destination for a day out, and how the Bray People was one of the provincial newspapers I had worked for as a journalist in my early 20s, designed the front page and editing the sports pages.

Hopefully, Bray will bring its own joys and pleasures to future generations.

A double espresso after dinner in Butler and Barry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The harbour at Ballyvaughan is the entrance to the Burren

The Harbour at Ballyvaughan … owes much to the work of Alexander Nimmo in the 1830s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

One of the many pretty villages we visited on Saturday afternoon [21 July 2018] as part of our journey through the Burren was Ballyvaughan, the most northerly place in Co Clare and close to the border with Co Galway.

This traditional and beautiful fishing village stands at the entrance to the Burren and looks over Galway Bay to the coast of south Connemara. It is set in wooded a vale and was once a small fishing and trading port. It is now an ideal base for exploring the Burren, and the Corkscrew Hill outside the village gave us spectacular views of the sea and the barren mountain landscapes.

The name Ballyvaughan comes from the Irish Baile Ui Bheachain, meaning ‘Behan’s Town’ or ‘Vaughan’s Town.’

Ballyvaughan owes it origins to Ballyvaughan Castle, which once stood at the edge of the harbour, on the promontory where the Irish Cottage scheme is located today.

For centuries, the castle belonged to the O’Loghlen family, apart from a brief period in the 16th century when it was held by the O’Brien family. A stolen cow was found at the castle in the 1540s, and heavy fines were levied on the O’Loghlens, including the loss of cattle, goats and sheep and of the town of Ballyvaughan.

The Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney (1529-1586) – brother of Lady Frances Sidney Sussex, founder of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge – attacked the castle in 1569, but the O’Loghlens managed to hold on to the property.

Ballyvaughan Castle stood at the edge of the harbour, where the Irish Cottage scheme stands today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The present village grew up around the harbour in the 19th century, when this was a thriving port for just a short time. Three older piers had been built by the villagers, who used them for herring fishing. But these piers were unusable at high tide, and the Fishery Board built a new quay in 1829.

The new quay was designed by the Scottish engineer Alexander Nimmo (1783-1832), who had been working in Ireland from 1811. He designed a new harbour at Dunmore, Co Waterford, in 1814, and improved the navigation on the River Lee in Cork and improved the harbour at Cobh in 1815. From 1820, Nimmo worked on making extensive surveys and recommendations for Ireland’s fishing harbours.

The Knight of Kerry commissioned Nimmo in 1830 to design a new village on Valentia Island, Co Kerry, that was later named Knightstown. He also designed the road from Galway to Clifden and the harbour of Roundstone in Connemara.

Nimmo redesigned over 30 harbours on the west coast of Ireland in the 1830s. One of his major projects was the Wellesley Bridge in Limerick, built in 1824-1835 and now known as Sarsfield Bridge. Nimmo died at his home at 78 Marlborough Street, Dublin, in 1832.

By 1831, turf from Connemara was landed at the quay in great quantities, despite the shallow depths in the bay. To facilitate the turf trade, another quay was built in 1837, apparently also based to a design by Nimmo, who had died five years earlier.

The new quay was of great importance, as it allowed Ballyvaughan to export grain, bacon and vegetables and to import supplies from Galway, and also allowed Ballyvaughan to benefit from the herring fishing boom.

Exports from the Burren valleys included grain, lamb, pork, bacon and vegetables, while turf boats from Connemara crossed Galway Bay bringing much-needed peat because the Burren was without trees and lacked fuel.

Meanwhile, Ballyvaughan Castle was in ruins by 1840, and only the foundations remain today. The local landlord, Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (1797-1861), 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, was declared bankrupt in 1847 with debts of over £1 million, and he was forced to sell vast tracts of land in the Burren in 1848.

The Buckingham estates in the Barony of Burren, Co Clare, extended to 2,800 ha (7,000 acres). They were bought for £30,000 by Richard Samuel Guinness, acting as agent for Henry White (1791-1873), MP for Longford, whose father had made his fortune as a lottery operator in Dublin. White became a peer in 1863 when he was given the title of Baron Annaly, of Annaly and Rathcline in the Co Longford.

As a benevolent landlord, Lord Annaly built a reservoir outside Ballyvaughan in 1872 to supply water to the farms in the valley. This water supply was extended to the town in 1874, and in 1875 a fountain was built by the Coyne brothers from Connemara when they were stranded in town after their ship sank at Gleninagh pier.

For a while, Ballyvaughan was the official capital of this region of Clare, with its own workhouse, coastguard station and a large police barracks. But over time, as the roads improved and the piers fell into disrepair, the town lost its importance as a fishing harbour.

Ballyvaughan is a centre for water sports and a base for exploring the Burren (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

During the recent economic boom in Ireland, Ballyvaughan became known as Ireland’s ‘Gold Coast’ because of a boom in property prices in the area. Today, the economy of Ballyvaughan is based mainly on tourism. The new pier and slipway, built in 2006, have opened up the area to boating, fishing, scuba diving and other maritime activities.

Today the village bustles with visitors rather than fishermen as a base for exploring the Burren’s landscapes, unique flora and its archaeological and Christian heritage. Looking at the yachts and surfboarders on the blue waters beneath blue skies in the harbour at Ballyvaughan at the weekend, I wondered whether I could be closer to a summer scene in Greece.

But on another Facebook forum, commenting on my photographs from Saint Fachan’s Cathedral, Kilfenora, another poster reminded me of lines from John Betjeman’s poem, ‘Ireland with Emily,’ first published in New Bats in Old Belfries (1945):

Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place,
Little fields with boulders dotted,
Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted,
Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe’s stone age race.

A scene at Ballyvaughan Harbour that was reminiscent of holidays in Greece last month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)