Another London jaunt. An unusually quiet one. The quietness really set in on the East London line - London's newest stretch. I picked it up at Haggerston in Hackney having walked up the Regent's Canal from Islington. Like the other stations on the line, as well as the trains, visual design ... Read More...
Dabbler Country
Out and about
Thomas Hardy, as a young man, was tasked with a job that was extraordinarily well matched to his morbidly repining tendencies. Whilst working as a trainee architect in London, he'd overseen the disinterment and removal of bodies from St Pancras Churchyard. A plaque commemorates his task: During the 1860s the Midland ... Read More...
Inhabitants of the inner city have to take their country pleasures where they find them. So my sons' going to a supervised birthday in Stoke Newington provided an opportunity for a stroll around the more bucolic parts of the district. The party was held at Pirates Playhouse, a many-storied soft-play centre ... Read More...
Ian Vince writes the regular Strange Days column in The Daily Telegraph and is the author of the highly recommended new book The Lie of the Land. He is also the founder of the British Landscape Club. It was a bright day in early winter, the sun was shining and a ... Read More...
All my local parks are overrun by crows and grey 'squirrels' (and overflown by squadrons of screeching parakeets). In one of the smaller parks, favoured by people who like to feed cute critters, the population of crows and squirrels is densely concentrated, and they are increasingly living cheek by jowl ... Read More...
Ian Vince writes the regular Strange Days column in The Daily Telegraph and is the author of 'The Lie of the Land' - a great new book that attempts to uncover and demystify the UK's fascinating geology (he wrote a guest post for The Dabbler on the subject here.) He is also ... Read More...
Today's Dabbler Country is a guest post by Guardian writer Patrick Barkham, whose book The Butterfly Isles - A Summer in Search of Our Emperors and Admirals is published by Granta this month. For those of us who join the likes of Vladimir Nabokov, John Fowles and the famous clown Joseph ... Read More...
Surrey has a famously undistinguished architectural history, at least in terms of grand houses or fine medieval churches - but it had its brief golden age, when a clutch of architects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries became fascinated by the riches of its vernacular architecture, got to ... Read More...
The other night at home, there was a dark moth fluttering around the ceiling light. Idly wondering what it might be, I waited for it to settle - which it eventually did, in a most unmothlike manner. It was a butterfly, a Speckled Wood - and having one of those in ... Read More...
A Dabbler Country double bill today. We are delighted to present a post from Martin Wainwright. Martin has written numerous invaluable books about the countryside, is the northern editor of The Guardian and is a prolific blogger on the subject of moths... As an increasingly ancient journalist, I’ve lived through many stories ... Read More...
