Highgate Village Fair
I missed last year’s Highgate Village fete, since I’d just come out of hospital, and anyway it rained heavily, but this year the weather was lovely, and I was fully mobile, so I spent a very pleasant Saturday there. Highgate jealously maintains its air of being an affluent little village that has somehow become engulfed by greater London, and the fair is an important part of this, held on what is effectively the village green, between genteel red-brick georgian houses. Derya got the full English village fete experience; we bought herbs from my favourite herb stall (twelve sorts of mint), had tea and victoria sponge in two different churches and strawberries and cream at the Highgate Literary and Philosophical Society, lost a substantial amount of money on the tombola, had a go at bell ringing on a handy portable frame thing, admired the pearly king and queen (there was also a very charming prince, but we didn't manage a photograph of him) and finished up with a very good (and very late lunch) in a nearby pub.
One of the churches was St Michael’s Highgate, a nice early 19th century building, with a very impressive embroidered hanging depicting the church and notable buildings in Highgate, as well as a splendid organ with lovely gold stencilling on the pipes. As we came up the aisle to leave, I was a little startled to find myself standing on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s grave - I’d forgotten that he lived in Highgate for the last half of his life.
I spent Sunday moping about, planting out the herbs and rescuing the terrace plants which are looking a bit sad since I’ve been feeling to fed up to look after them. The herbs were balm of gilead, which I’d been failing to grow from seed and has a lovely aromatic incensey smell, English mace, which seems to be a sort of tansy, chervil, sweet cicely and a couple of different mints. I want to experiment with sweet cicely’s alleged ability to sweeten sour fruits.
The herb stall
St Michael's, with the travelling belltower - we had a go on this later, but it's harder than it looks.
This is the best of the pictures I took of the church embroidery - the bottom row of panels was details of tombs from Highgate Cemetery.
Pond Square occupied by the fete - the fountain thing in the distance is where children were queuing to play on a fire engine.
More of the fete, plus the pearly queen of Camden - there was also a pearly king and a very cute little pearly prince around, but this was the only photo I got.
One of the churches was St Michael’s Highgate, a nice early 19th century building, with a very impressive embroidered hanging depicting the church and notable buildings in Highgate, as well as a splendid organ with lovely gold stencilling on the pipes. As we came up the aisle to leave, I was a little startled to find myself standing on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s grave - I’d forgotten that he lived in Highgate for the last half of his life.
I spent Sunday moping about, planting out the herbs and rescuing the terrace plants which are looking a bit sad since I’ve been feeling to fed up to look after them. The herbs were balm of gilead, which I’d been failing to grow from seed and has a lovely aromatic incensey smell, English mace, which seems to be a sort of tansy, chervil, sweet cicely and a couple of different mints. I want to experiment with sweet cicely’s alleged ability to sweeten sour fruits.
The herb stall
St Michael's, with the travelling belltower - we had a go on this later, but it's harder than it looks.
This is the best of the pictures I took of the church embroidery - the bottom row of panels was details of tombs from Highgate Cemetery.
Pond Square occupied by the fete - the fountain thing in the distance is where children were queuing to play on a fire engine.
More of the fete, plus the pearly queen of Camden - there was also a pearly king and a very cute little pearly prince around, but this was the only photo I got.