People who follow such things will undoubtedly know the results of yesterday’s elections already. The campaigning in Herne Hill was particularly lively, wasn’t it? And the results were unusually close.
A neighbour on Fawnbrake Avenue had his bike stolen when the family were away over the Easter weekend, i.e. between last Saturday morning (31 March) and Tuesday (3 April).
The bike is black and had a child seat mounted on the rear, so it is quite distinct. The same (or other) thieves also made off with two fire extinguishers from the communal hallway, which is another thing somebody might have noticed.
If anyone happened to see someone wheeling or cycling that bike along Fawnbrake Avenue last weekend, please post a comment and I will pass it on to our neighbour.
The Friends of Brockwell Park are organising a dawn chorus (i.e. early!) bird walk in Brockwell Park next Sunday, 15 April.
This event is in partnership with local RSPB experts. Join them at the Herne Hill Gate entrance at 6:00 am, with your binoculars if you have them. Here’s the link to their website for more details.
As explained in Paul Wood’s excellent book “London’s Street Trees – A Field Guide To The Urban Forest”*, the Hanami festival takes place in Japan every spring, to celebrate both the arrival of the new season and the sensual and transient beauty of flowering cherry trees.
He goes on to say that London is graced with many fine cherry avenues, but that the most beautiful cherry tree street has to be Winterbrook Road in Herne Hill. “It is planted exclusively with the wonderful Japanese Yoshino variety. This exceptional planting scheme – a street uniformly planted with a single spectacular species – is a great role model for other London streets and down to the vision of one woman”.
Cherry trees on Winterbrook Road, April 2018
Mr Wood explains that this was Ms Robin Crookshank Hilton, a former local councillor, who was inspired by the cherry planting in Washington DC where she grew up. Washington is famed for its cherries, gifted by Tokyo after the Second World War. [In fact there are one or two other species on Winterbrook Road but as they are not in leaf when the cherry trees are in blossom, they do not in any way compete for attention.]
The Yoshino cherry is the most frequently planted species in Tokyo. If we get another sunny day in this miserable spring, it is worth trotting over to Winterbrook Road (or the neighbouring Stradella Road) to see our own local display before the wind blows it away like confetti.
This event has been postponed: see Twitter announcement below.
It’s not on Fawnbrake, but still worth signalling, as Herne Hill is actually quite famous for its Japanese Yoshino cherry tree blossoms – now coming into bloom along Winterbrook Road, we hope.
Paul Wood, author of the excellent ‘London Street Trees‘ (Guardian Nature Books of 2017) is leading a walk on Sunday morning to entice us to Explore the Urban Forest in Herne Hill.
Sunday 25 March 10.30am-12.30pm Start: Herne Hill rail station, London SE24 0JW.
The Annual General Meeting of Friends of Carnegie Library is this coming Thursday evening, 22 March, at 6.30 in St Saviour’s Church, Herne Hill Road. Non-members can join at the meeting.
Today’s Sunday Times extols Herne Hill as one of the best places to live in London – indeed, in the UK – along with Bermondsey (what?), Richmond, Notting Hill etc.
We are apparently “more happening than neighbouring Dulwich”.
News about Fawnbrake Avenue & neighbouring streets in Herne Hill, London
