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You might think not much happens in Moor Park, but on 30th August 1525 Henry VIII turned up to sign a peace treaty with the French. The venue was a magnificent moated palace owned by Cardinal Wolsey said to rival Hampton Court, and the outcome involved the surrender of land and a substantial annual pension. None of this feels remotely likely as you step off a Metropolitan line train and enter privileged leafy suburbia. But history was made here, just behind the detached houses on Sandy Lodge Road, when The Treaty of the More was signed exactly 500 years ago today.



The history bit

In the early 1520s the three young kings ruling western Europe were Henry VIII of England, Francis I of France and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. For four years Francis and Charles fought a series of battles in northern Italy, with Henry nominally supporting Charles in the hope of gaining lands in France. In February 1525 the French were firmly defeated and Francis was taken prisoner, however Charles showed no interest in supporting Henry's claims. Henry thus switched sides, supporting French attempts to get Francis released and deliver a diplomatic peace. French ambassadors travelled to the More, a palace in Hertfordshire, and on 30th August 1525 signed The Treaty of The More. As part of this document Henry agreed to give up territorial claims across the Channel, Calais excepted, and in return the French agreed to pay him an annual pension of £20,000.



The palace bit

The More was a medieval manor house by the river Colne near Rickmansworth, nothing special until a wealthy London merchant called William Flete blinged it up with fortifications and a moat in the 1420s. The Archbishop of York bought the house in 1462, attracted by its 600 acre estate, before he fell out of favour and the Crown took ownership instead. In 1522 Cardinal Wolsey moved in, one of his many roles being that of Archbishop of St Albans, and set about enlarging it to palatial standards. It was thus the ideal place to show off to Henry VIII and the French in 1525 when The Treaty of the More was signed. A French ambassador said he thought the house more splendid than Hampton Court, but although it may have been as turrety it was definitely rather smaller.



The location bit

The Colne still threads through the area, not a single river but a main channel plus various braids. You can still see the streams that fed the moat, or at least their evolved counterparts, if you walk round to the Withey Beds Nature Reserve. It's one of the few remaining wetlands in Hertfordshire and named after an old English term for a place of willow coppicing. I wandered in down its grassy path (alongside reptile mats labelled Do Not Remove) to the gate of a squelchy meadow where cattle graze, a scene that looked almost Tudor apart from the WW2 pillbox in the corner. A local wildlife group helps to maintain the reserve, and is currently trying to persuade the council to repair the boardwalk across the marshiest corridor after a tree fell and damaged it. It's a lovely spot but only fractionally accessible and also only reachable along a rather hairy road with no pavement. Now called Tolpits Lane it was once known as Wolsey's New Road, I guess 500 years ago, and still crosses the mighty Colne at a bridging spot Thomas would have recognised.



Another history bit

1525 is also when Henry VIII started letting his gaze drift towards Anne Boleyn rather than his wife Catherine of Aragon. He hoped the Pope would annul the marriage but The Treaty Of The More had aligned him with France rather than Rome, also Catherine was Charles V's aunt so no annulment ensued. Wolsey did not survive the subsequent religious upheaval, and the More passed into the hands of the Crown instead. This proved historically relevant when the not-yet-divorced Catherine of Aragon was banished here in the autumn of 1531, just far enough from London to be conveniently forgotten. She spent only 6 months at the More before being moved onto Hatfield House, but this modern suburb never had a posher resident than the Queen of England.



Another palace bit

Under Henry's patronage the Manor of the More was redecorated, repainted and hung with lavish tapestries. The grounds were also upgraded with facilities for archery, two deer barns and a couple of grandstands for watching the hunting. But later monarchs weren't so interested and by the time the Earl of Bedford took the lease in 1576 the fabric of the building was deemed too far gone to be restored. One of the biggest problems was the foundations, because it turns out building a palace alongside the River Colne was great for filling the moat but also made everything susceptible to flooding. A later Earl solved the problem by building a brand new house half a mile away on higher ground, this the building we now know as Moor Park Mansion, and the ruins of the More were summarily demolished. No trace remains, which makes a visit to the site essentially pointless.



The site visit bit

The thing about the More is that a school's subsequently been built on top of it. Northwood Prep moved here in 1982, thankfully nudged to one side because the the manor is a scheduled ancient monument, hence they laid their sports pitches across the footprint of the former palace. These cover a conveniently large area and are completely screened from round about, hence the only way you get to visit the site is during games lessons if your parents are willing to fork out £8183 a term for your education. It must add a certain frisson to know that you're doing your rugby practice where Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon once slept, also it means the history department's field trips don't require travelling far. Since a merger in 2015 the school's been known as Merchant Taylors' Prep, the lower half of the prestigious private boys school on the other side of the railway. It's possible to look down into the prep school car park from a passing train, where apparently they have display boards recounting the history of the Manor of the More, but I didn't manage to catch a glimpse myself.



Another site visit bit

In the meantime the closest you can get is the school gates, which is only socially acceptable at present because the kids don't go back to school until the week after next. I had to make do with a walk along Sandy Lodge Road instead, imagining the grassy turf lurking behind the row of substantial detached mansions, for here it seems the More is the less. If you want to celebrate the quincentenary I instead recommend staying home and watching the 2013 episode of Time Team where Tony Robinson and archaeological pals unearthed the foundations of the gatehouse under the cricket pitch because it's as comprehensive a nod to The Treaty of The More as we're ever likely to get. In Moor Park 500 years ago, who'd have guessed?

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-treaty-of-more.html

Posted by Unknown

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/08/tfl-foi-requests-in-august-2025.html

30 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in August 2025

1) There are approximately 2,620 trips per weekday on route 310. Of these 59% are made exclusively on the section between Finsbury Park and Golders Green, 26% are made exclusively on the section between Stamford Hill and Finsbury Park, and only 15% are made between these two sections.
2) 65% of violent crime on the Underground takes places at stations, 32% on trains and the remaining 3% occurs lineside.
3) During the last financial year TfL earned £352,804.01 from brand licensing (down from over £400,000 in the two previous years).
4) The strap hangers, grab poles and handrails on the new Piccadilly line trains will all be blue.
5) The charging sockets on the new Piccadilly line trains will be USB-A, but the front plate with the plugs is designed to be replaced should a decision be made in the future to change the port type.

6) TfL produced 40,000 pin badges as part of celebrations for their 25th anniversary. The total cost was £23,965 +VAT. This was covered through the normal Employee Communications budget.
7) From 2nd February passengers using contactless to pay for travel from Sevenoaks to zone 1 stations were overcharged during the evening peak. TfL were made aware of the error on 20th February and fixed it on 8th June.
8) Only seven new DLR trains have been delivered to Beckton depot. The delivery dates were 13/01/23, 06/03/23, 11/12/23, 27/08/24, 19/05/25, 17/06/25 and 01/07/25. 47 trains are yet to arrive.
9) Last year 155 complaints were submitted about buses being too hot. This represents 0.0000086% of all bus journeys.
10) Since 2020 there have been four murders on TfL trains/stations and six homicides on buses.

11) ‘Harlequin’ was on the initial long list for what eventually became the Lioness line. However it did not meet the agreed criteria for choosing a name so was not considered beyond the early stages.
12) The new accessible car park at Ickenham station cost approximately £1.4m. It provides three accessible spaces.
13) There are currently 382,737 active 60+ Oyster photocard cardholders. 119,735 new cards were issued in the financial year 2024/25. TfL estimate that £84m of revenue was foregone during the financial year 2023/24.
14) TfL is actively working with the Rail Delivery Group and Great British Railways to ensure that barcode tickets can be accepted in the future. However this would require a significant programme of work and there is no scheduled timeline at present.
15) Since March TfL has received 8 complaints about the withdrawal of the One Day Bus & Tram Pass, two from the same person.

16) The headcount of TfL's FOI Case Management Team is 10 (up from 8 two years ago).
17) Three Elizabeth line trains have been named. They are Heidi Alexander, Andy Byford and Jorge Ortega.
18) The most popular cycle hire journey, by a considerable margin, is from Hyde Park Corner back to Hyde Park Corner. The top 10 journeys are all around Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens apart from 4) Podium QEOP → Podium QEOP, and 7/8) Ackroyd Drive, Bow ←→ Maplin Street, Mile End.
19) Northbound buses on route 108 continue not to serve bus stops MU and MV on Tunnel Avenue as the requirement for reinstatement has not been confirmed.
20) There are 699 yellow box junctions on the TfL London Road Network.

21) There are no plans to add bilingual roundels at Whitechapel.
22) The three TfL modes using the most electricity last year were the Underground (1,184,087,953 kWh), the Elizabeth line (310,777,031 kWh) and the Overground (182,437,992 kWh).
23) No refurbished Central line trains have entered service this year. Only two have been refurbished since 2023. The deadline to refurbish the other 80 remains 2029, somehow.
24) The seven roles reporting to the Director of Buses are Head of Bus Performance Delivery, Head of Bus Performance Management, Head of Bus Service Delivery, Head of Bus Tendering and Evaluation, Head of Buses Business Development, Head of Monitoring and Implementation, and Head of On Demand Transport & Victoria Coach Station.
25) If you start your request "Hey TfL, You're probably aware of how enthusiastic I am regarding maps" and then ask eight long-winded questions, you will get no useful response.

26) The presence of CCTV has been shown to have little impact on women's safety perceptions at bus shelters. However 73% of women said they'd be more likely to travel by bus in London if CCTV were installed at the bus shelters they use.
27) Work on replacing the glass canopy at Canning Town bus station is due to begin on 15th September and continue until December.
28) If you'd like a zip file containing 25 pocket tube maps from 2000-2009, look here.
29) If you'd like a zip file containing the new tube carriage diagrams, including the new Overground line names, look here.
30) There is no need to ask "how muvh TFL spent to repaint the overground trains in rainbows and pictures of diversity and inclusion" because they answered last year and they spent nothing.

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/08/tfl-foi-requests-in-august-2025.html

Posted by Unknown

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/08/carrington-square.html

45

45 Squared
30) CARRINGTON SQUARE, HA3
Borough of Harrow, 40m×15m

We've got to do this one so let's get it over and done with.

Officially, according to the National Street Gazetteer, there are only two squares in Harrow. One is private within the luxury gated enclave at Bentley Priory and the other is in Harrow Weald. So Carrington Square it is.



What we have here is a dense cul-de-sac of townhouses, all two-storeyed and white-windowed, squeezed into a rectangular plot. From the brickwork I'm guessing 1990 give or take a few years. There are 32 houses altogether, slightly staggered to create the illusion of non-uniformity. Everything underfoot is tiled, be that roadway, pavement or front garden, with two raised beds of shrubbery doing all the heavy lifting lookswise. Grass does not feature. A single access road connects to the adjacent dual carriageway, which is Uxbridge Road, with a couple of rows of garages tucked out of sight. Everyone faces out onto the central square/carpark so I imagine living here is a bit claustrophobic and curtain-twitchy.



There is nothing interesting about Carrington Square, as I shall now demonstrate with the following list

10 uninteresting things about Carrington Square

1) I have no idea why it's called Carrington Square, although it was built on the site of a former builder's yard and maybe they were called Carringtons.
2) The Green Belt begins just over the back fence.
3) The speed limit in Carrington Square is 30mph, although if you ever tried to drive at 30mph within the bounds of the square you would undoubtedly crash horribly.
4) Carrington Square is lit by four lampposts.
5) Harrow footpath number 30 passes the backs of the higher-numbered houses on Carrington Square on its way to Brooks Hill (via footpath number 28).
6) Carrington Square is 250 feet above sea level (about 76 metres), so is intrinsically safe from rising sea levels.
7) It felt a Neighbourhood Watchy kind of place, but thankfully I got lucky on my minute-long recce by slipping in just after two vaping dogwalkers had left and slipping out just before a stern-looking granny returned from her constitutional.
8) Carrington Square backs onto one of the new artificial sports pitches at the Bannister Sports Centre. This is named after Harrow-born miler Sir Roger Bannister (although he grew up miles away in West Harrow).
9) The nearest coffee outlet to Carrington Square is the Costa machine in the reception at Jurassic Golf, the dinosaur-packed attraction less than five minutes up the road.
10) Carrington Square is the only Carrington Square in England, there are no others.

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/08/carrington-square.html

Posted by Unknown

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/08/londons-worst-bus-route.html

London's Worst Bus Route
375: Chase Cross to Passingford Bridge
Location: Outer London east
Length of journey: 4½ miles, 15 minutes



The 375 is one of TfL's least frequent and least used bus routes. It exists to connect the village of Havering-atte-Bower to urban London, specifically Romford, and is their only public transport link to shops and a station. The Essex village of Stapleford Abbotts benefits too, this because buses have to continue almost to the M25 before turning round, Passingford Bridge being the site of the first roundabout across the border. This means the tip of the route is over 3 miles from any other TfL service, so if the every-90-minutes bus doesn't turn up you are royally stuffed. This is not why the 375 has become London's most balls-uppingly bad bus route.

The flyover at Gallows Corner is being replaced at present and the consequent traffic closures are causing enormous disruption. The 375 goes nowhere near Gallows Corner - always at least two miles distant - and yet for some reason TfL have decided to curtail the route so it no longer serves Romford town centre. They first intended to do this in June, sticking up numerous posters warning passengers that the route would be starting at Chase Cross, then silently changed their mind. However last weekend they finally put the curtailment plan into action, the intention being that this much shorter 375 will continue to operate until the end of September. And now you can't catch the 375 in Romford, you have to catch it 2½ miles up the road, which is effectively the limit of TfL's advice to residents.



Part 1: London's Worst Bus Route - northbound

Beginning the only bus to Havering-atte-Bower and Stapleford Abbotts way out of Romford town centre is a problem, because how do you make sure you catch it? It's crucial to catch it because it only runs every 90 minutes, but now there's the additional issue of how and when to get a connecting bus. Last week it was easy because even if the traffic was terrible you knew that so long as you boarded the 375 in the town centre it'd get you home. This week's advice to 'please use route 175 instead' adds risk, potentially considerable risk, because it might not get you to Chase Cross before the 375 departs. What doesn't help is that all the 375 timetables at all the stops in Romford have been covered over by yellow posters telling you to catch the 175 so you don't know when it would have departed. The apps don't include times either because the bus isn't running, so your only hope of definitely reaching Chase Cross in time is to use a journey planner and hope the traffic doesn't snarl things up.

Also the yellow poster fails to explain where to change buses. 'Chase Cross' covers a fairly broad area north of the A12, and officially it's a crossroads the 175 doesn't actually serve. Most regular users of the 375 will of course know where the bus goes and aim correctly to change on Chase Cross Road, but anyone less informed might easily alight too early or too late and miss their connection. There are in fact two overlapping bus stops on Chase Cross Road where interchange is possible - Felsted Road and Belle Vue Road - but in the absence of a map or specific instructions who's to know? Also neither stop has a shelter, which when you could be waiting up to 90 minutes is potentially a big fail. The best all-weather option is to alight at Merlin Road and walk 80m round the corner to Avelon Road, or to ignore the 175 completely and catch the 103 instead all the way to its terminus.



To test the sudden jeopardy I decided to see what would happen if I just missed a 375, as many people inevitably will. It's another 4½ miles to the end of the route so is it better to wait for 90 minutes or would it be quicker to walk?

A double decker is running on the 375 at the moment, or at least it was yesterday, I presume because of the availability of the vehicle not because anyone imagines it could ever fill up. Off it headed up the hill, Havering-atte-Bower being the highest point in northeast London, and off I pootled after it. It took 20 uphill minutes to reach the centre of the village by the green and stocks, which is within the physical capability of most villagers but by no means all. Here I noted that someone had tied an England flag to the village sign, which is not a usual presence so is likely related to the current burst of flaggification across the country. It was either left there by a patriot or by a pea-brained racist, and given they'd attached it the wrong way round so that 'England' read backwards I'd suggest the latter.



After half an hour I'd reached the edge of the village and also the edge of London. TfL would rather go no further, it'd mean they could run the bus every hour rather than every hour and a half, but like I said they have to continue because there's nowhere to turn round. That said there were passengers waiting on the other side of the road for the return journey, not just at the last stop in London but also at the first stop in Essex. What was odd, when I checked on Citymapper, was that the returning 375 should have been due but was instead apparently 25 minutes away. This was the first hint that my southbound journey was going to be a timetabling disaster but I didn't know that yet.

Stapleford Abbotts goes on a bit - 2½ miles between the signs at each end of the village - although most people live towards the southern end. They boast a village shop, also a pub which doubles up as cafe and takeaway, also a school although that's quite a hike up the road. I hiked up the road, getting unexpectedly drenched when the earlier sunshine turned into a 20 minute shower. The returning 375 finally passed while I was sheltering under an overhanging tree, 27 minutes later than the timetable at the nearest stop suggested. I continued north past a surprising amount of housing infill, typically gated bungalows or clusters of detached fourbedders, also a few NIMBY signs saying the village can't sustain a few dozen new homes.



The pavement finally gave out just beyond the primary school, but thankfully the verge ahead was wide enough to avoid having to walk in the road. It's a bit of a rat run out here, being the back way into Ongar, and also offers a fine panorama across a golden valley of ploughed fields. If London feels a very long way away that's because it is. The penultimate stop is at The Rabbits, a popular pub serving an immediate population of about 20, beyond which one last downhill stretch took me to the Passingford Bridge roundabout. The former ford and current bridge are crossings of the River Roding, in case you were wondering. Here I found the 375's last stop out and its first stop back, so smiled because I had indeed beaten the bus. It turned up five minutes later, disgorging zero passengers into the middle of nowhere, and I smiled again because the ride home would be so much easier. And that's where I was wrong.



Part 2: London's Worst Bus Route - southbound

According to the timetable at the Passingford Bridge bus stop the 375 was due to return in seven minutes time. The route's always operated by a single vehicle so the turnaround is short to allow it to head back to Romford and start the circuit again. I had no reason to realise that the timetable was wrong until the driver wound down her window, leaned out and informed me that she wasn't due to return for another hour. I think she'd been expecting the look of incredulity that spread across on my face. How on earth does a seven minute turnaround become 60 minutes instead? She got on the radio and checked with the garage, also checked her laminated duty card, and both of these confirmed that she was indeed supposed to sit here in the middle of nowhere for a full hour. She even showed me the card when I went over to have a chat, because she thought it was as ridiculous as I did.

My previous assumption, based on everything I'd seen online, was that the normal 375 timetable would have been retained with the Romford end chopped off. People round here know the timetable inside out, thus they know to turn up at one of the nine times a day the bus actually runs. It would therefore have made sense to run it to time, i.e. to have the driver sit around at Chase Cross for the best part of an hour so that normal headway could be maintained. Instead it seemed some moron had tweaked things so that the longest wait was at Passingford Bridge, and then some other moron had decided not to print any new timetables. Even the so-called Timetables page on the TfL website still shows last week's timetable, not the new abomination the buses are running to now.

Normal timetable

Passingford Bridge (arr)	07:09	08:49	10:21	11:52	13:23	15:19	16:35	17:52	19:17
Passingford Bridge (dep)	07:15	09:00	10:30	12:00	13:30	15:24	16:40	18:00	19:30
Chase Cross	07:32	09:17	10:46	12:16	13:46	15:40	16:56	18:16	19:46
Romford Station	07:49	09:34	11:00	12:30	14:00	15:55	17:10	18:30	19:58

New timetable

Passingford Bridge (arr)	07:09	08:49	10:21	11:52	13:23	15:19	16:35	17:52	19:17
Passingford Bridge (dep)	07:51	09:25	10:57	12:27	14:23	15:43	17:01	18:25	19:30
Chase Cross	08:08	09:42	11:13	12:43	14:39	15:59	17:17	18:41	19:46

I should say I haven't uncovered this new timetable anywhere, I've attempted to assemble it by using TfL's Journey Planner and a website that tracks specific vehicles on specific routes. I certainly hadn't worked it out while I was stood by the roadside at Passingford Bridge wondering what to do for an unexpected hour before the bus finally headed back to civilisation. Apps were no help because they only announce the next bus when it's 30 minutes away and this rural hiatus was double that. Analysing what I now believe to be the new timetable, what were previously dalliances of no more than 10 minutes at the northern end of the route have been systematically extended, in many cases 'only' by about 25 minutes but in my case I hit the wazzock jackpot and got the full hour. I decided to walk back instead.



I actually walked for over an hour, all the way back into Greater London, before the returning 375 finally caught up. Along the way I passed two people waiting patiently at remote bus stops thinking the bus would be along imminently, as timetabled, but instead it was faffing at the terminus for no good reason. One was aboard the bus when I finally boarded and one had plainly given up and gone home, and who could blame him? This is why I'm claiming the 375 is London's new worst bus route, because someone's changed the timetable without telling any of the passengers, and you really shouldn't do that with a bus that runs every hour and a half unless you're an institutional sadist.

One thing the driver said, which makes perfect logistical sense, is that in the time she'd been asked to wait at Passingford Bridge she could have driven the bus all the way to Chase Cross and back again. Indeed TfL could have taken the opportunity during this six week window to run a more frequent timetable, at least every hour, maybe even every 45 minutes, to make up for the inconvenience of not being to travel into Romford direct. Instead they stuck with 90 minutes, seemingly for familiarity's sake, but then inexplicably changed the times of all the return journeys. Digging into the Journey Planner I have a suspicion that the database contains more than one set of timings and someone's joined them up really badly.

I should also say that the driver asked me to tell you this. She suggested sharing the news of the new timetable with local residents, perhaps on Facebook, and getting as many people to complain to TfL as possible. She had no idea I write a blog people at TfL actually read, indeed last time I blogged about the ineptitude of the changes one manager emailed to thank me for "highlighting the inconsistency in the 375 publicity/service operation". It's ten times worse now, inadequately explained and leaving pensioners by the wayside, and all because nobody gives a damn about the residents of outer Havering. Let's hope somebody official works out what the temporary timetable really is, prints it out and tells people what's actually going on, else the 375 will remain London's most unnecessarily awful bus route until October.

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/08/londons-worst-bus-route.html

Posted by Unknown

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/08/a-century-and-day.html

My grandparents got married in August 1925.
My niece got married in August 2025.
Exactly a century and a day later.

My grandparents grew up in the Lea Valley four miles apart. She was a farm girl from Essex and he was a town boy from Hertfordshire, both very much from different sides of the tracks. But their jobs brought them together, she a barmaid at the village pub and he the postman whose rounds took him across the river. He caught her eye, she leaned out the window for a daily chat and before long a wedding was pencilled in.

My niece and her husband grew up 120 miles apart, she in East Anglia and he in the West Midlands. University brought them together, the great modern social mixer, and all because they happened to choose the same campus far from home. They waited until the final year to accidentally meet, he behind a drumkit on stage and she skipping revision at a gig she was never planning to attend. The wedding, though, took eight more years.



My grandparents married at the local parish church. Hers not his, as tradition dictates, so the medieval church on the far side of the village rather than the medieval church four doors up the road. The local newspaper reported that my grandmother was the first bride to walk through the new lych-gate at the end of the churchyard path. I shall be referencing the local newspaper article several times in what follows.

My niece and her husband went nowhere near a church, weddings having moved on somewhat since the early 20th century. They did the official bit in the city and then held a second celebration with a larger audience in the woods. The location brought its perils - I was buzzed by a wasp during the opening remarks and a large yellow leaf fell onto the violin while the string quartet were playing. The celebrant was a woman in jaunty leggings rather than a man in a dog collar, the readings were poems rather than scripture, the music included secular works by Elton John and the Beatles rather than classical organ pieces and the end result was a signed certificate rather than an inked register. I bet we smiled more than they did.



My grandmother wore ivory crepe-de-chine with veil and orange blossom. My niece also wore ivory, a flowy veiled thing with a train and less in the way of floral decoration, such are the limits of my descriptive abilities when it comes to wedding dresses. Her bouquet featured roses and a bold spray of white flowers, whereas my grandmother's comprised pink and white carnations, possibly locally grown. There was also a contrast in the choice of bridesmaids, the 1920s quartet being young nieces in white frocks and the 2020s trio being schoolmates in green dresses. Everyone looked lovely, no doubt on both occasions.

My niece and her husband were showered in organic confetti, thrown in strict accordance to the photographer's wishes because it's all about framing the right shot. I'm willing to bet that my grandparents never paused during their shower for a dip and a snog. Other contrived images included the group shot on the lawn, multiple combinations of family and friends and, later in the evening, an avenue of sparklers. I've searched in vain through the family archives for a photo from the older wedding, indeed I suspect very few were taken, which is a shame because the latest wedding will be preserved in print, digital image and video format forever.

My grandparents' reception was held at a farm up the lane because you can always hire your sister's gaff on the cheap. I suspect the groom's family found it a bit down at heel, indeed the bride's relatives are the poorest folk I ever remember visiting, but I've checked the actual venue and it's a listed 15th century timber-framed house that's now worth over a million. My niece also held her reception in a barn, this time merely 18th century and never used for chickens, additionally with a convenient space for canapes and crazy golf on the lawn outside.



A modern reception is a carefully choreographed occasion with fine cuisine, fine wines and ubiquitous floral touches. I bet my grandparents had a broader spread of cooked meats than we did and that their cakes were more filling than our bijou trio of desserts, but also that our roast chicken platter would have blown their minds. As for alcohol a rural pre-war village would have been able to provide killer ales on demand, nothing fancy in a schooner, also liberally dispensed rather than reverting to a paid bar staffed by black-clad contractors. The merry end result will however have been the same.

When did speeches get so long? My grandparents probably got away with a few words of thanks but these days everyone's expected to produce a carefully-scripted star performance before the food can continue. As father of the bride my brother knocked his four-pager out of the park with all the right nods and nostalgic warmth, while the groom played safer than I'd have guessed the day we first met. For a proper 21st century touch we enjoyed a speech from the maid of honour as well as the best man, the former eliciting all the paper hankies and the latter digging amusing dirt as only brothers can.



The identity of the first dance had been speculated in a sweepstake prior to the meal, a grid of mostly 21st century tunes which greatly challenged attendees of an older persuasion. The actual choice I'd never heard of - it failed to reach the top 40 in 2013 - but is now indelibly imprinted on my mind complete with vigorous romantic visuals. The band then proceeded to play covers that ticked all boxes, from I Can't Get No Satisfaction to Moves Like Jagger and Wonderwall to I Predict A Riot. I can confirm that Pink Pony Club is the latest addition to the list of wedding staples that even auntie knows, and that several of the beardier men present proved unexpectedly proficient at the Macarena.

The 1925 newspaper article states that my grandparents spent their honeymoon in Folkestone, which to be fair is better than my parents managed four decades later. By contrast the latest happy couple are currently sunning themselves in Portugal, and by all accounts utterly delighted to finally be husband and wife. My grandparents would have laughed at the idea of an eight year courtship and been shocked that the couple moved in together five years before tying the knot. But they'd have recognised the emotional connection the two of them share, indeed it's always apparent, and no doubt been proud that three generations later the family line continues to thrive.



The two weddings may have been vastly contrasting occasions but what binds them both together, a century and a day apart, is a great occasion in a barn, a very happy couple and true love.

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/08/a-century-and-day.html