Norwood Grove

One of my favourite walks in my area goes past this house. The grounds are now a public park, with scented gardens - lovely. It's not a busy park either so there are always benches to sit on. The view towards Croydon is great. The house is perched on top of a hill in Streatham.

A plaque on the house says:

"This park with the mansion house, in the seventeenth century the site of a shooting box presented to the 1st Earl of Portland by King Charles II, and in the nineteenth century for many years the home of Arthur Anderson, joint founder of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company and donor to Norwood of the Working Men's Institute, who represented in parliament the Shetland Islanders to whose interests he was devoted, was purchased as an open space in 1926 by the Croydon Corporation, assisted by the London County Council, many public bodies and Mr Stenton Covington of Gibson's Hill, who raised a large part of the cost by local subscriptions. The park was opened by HRH The Prince of Wales on the 16th November 1926."

I long to edit that plaque, but it's set in stone now. The Shetland Islanders note is a little out of place, but I looked up Mr Anderson and he was indeed from Shetland. Here is a bit more about him.

It's been scorchio today. The thermometer read 30 degrees first thing this morning! My cycle ride to work was hard-going. When I got into the office, people were astounded at my sunburn, but luckily it was only flushed skin from cycling in the heat. It calmed down after an hour or so in the air-conditioned office. I'm not complaining, though - the heat is lovely. The guinea pigs, according the Fred, have been popcorning in their run all day, quite happy in the shade. They had a lot of cold water bottles to lie against in case it all got too much. Poor guinea pigs can't pant or sweat so too much heat can do them in. They're chilling out now, safe from the snails, who don't like this weather at all.