A Market Town, a Palace, and a Royal Park

The weather forecast for Easter Monday called for sunny skies, so we decided to head to the southwest edges of London for a walk through some areas new to us. After a very long bus-tube-tube-bus journey, we discovered that the sun had gone away and the dark clouds were back--it actually snowed for about five minutes while we were walked along this stretch of the Thames, but the sun came back much later in the walk, making for a pleasant day.

We were in Kingston (proper name: Kingston upon Thames), an historical market town whose oldest council recording dates to 838. Kingston Bridge as it stands today was built in 1825, although an older wooden bridge is thought to have been built in the 13th century. An absolutely absurd number of swans gathered beneath Kingston bridge,

and a pair of less boisterous dogs snoozed on a nearby windowsill.

All Saints Church stands near the market square, with a mixture of work from the 14th, 15th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

The entrance to the church featured this attractive plaque against a lovely backdrop of cherry blossoms.

The market square was quiet today, but the surrounding streets were filled with shoppers filing in and out of high-street shops.

In this next photo, the impressive mock Tudor building in the background had these facades added in the 20th century, while the adjoining building in the foreground dates to 1570.

Now the site of tourist information, this building was once the Market House (built in 1840):

The Druid's Head is Kingston's oldest pub, standing at this location for more than 300 years:

The bridge over the Hogsmill River is called the Clattern (after the sound of horses' hooves), and is the oldest bridge in the area that remains in use.

The Clattern is very close to the Thames, which is where we found even more swans!

All the swans in Vancouver parks have had their wings clipped, so we'd never seen a swan flying until we moved to London. Although we've witnessed this strange sight a few times, I was never quick enough with the camera to catch the event, until today:

Each time we've seen swans flying, we've heard them before we've seen them--they're not exactly graceful fliers, and those first few moments of flight always involve what looks like a supreme effort to haul their bodies out of the water, with wings clipping the water for at least a dozen strokes before the birds fully rise above the surface. They never seem to fly very far either--it really does seem like so much effort for so little reward. We walked along the Thames for a bit before turning back toward the town, where we spotted Kingston's Guildhall. Apparently the coronation stone on which up to seven Saxon kings are believed to have been crowned in the 10th century lies near the Guildhall; we didn't see it, but you can have a peek, if you're curious.

Probably the strangest sight of the day was this:

Rather than some sort of teenage prank, the domino-like procession of phone boxes is instead a 1989 sculpture titled Out of Order.

I always enjoy browsing in Oxfam shops (one of the best charity shops--or as we call them in Canada, "thrift stores"), and Kingston's was built in 1660 as the Three Coneys alehouse--using hand-made bricks:

Across from the Oxfam shop are a set of almshouses, built in 1669 for 12 poor people, six of each gender.

In spite of the presence of quaint buildings and historical tidbits, Kingston left us with the impression of being a part of suburban London overrun with shopping culture, with an anonymous set of high-street shops that doesn't exactly lend the place a distinctive feel. In addition, it seemed to be graced with several enormous shopping malls (which we didn't go into), and the back of one of them definitely dominated this street of more human-scaled homes:

Finished with Kingston, and eager for more greenery and fewer shops, we consulted our A to Z and decided to head over to Bushy Park to see what it was like. The bus we caught dropped us off right in front of Hampton Court Palace, a former royal palace that is meant to be quite impressive.

We walked up to the entrance, but weren't up for the £13.30 admission fee, so we just had a quick look at one part of the exterior before turning around.

We walked through a lovely field of trees and blooms on our way out

and left the grounds,

crossing into adjacent Bushy Park, where our first wildlife sighting was of some deer grazing nearby. That's more like it!

Covering more than 1,000 acres, Bushy Park is the second-largest of the Royal Parks (after Richmond Park). The Diana (Arethusa) fountain

and expansive, orderly landscapes of grass and trees

were impressive, and we walked on neatly mown paths as we cut across this vast space.

We loved Bushy Park and as the sun came out, we thoroughly enjoyed our relaxing walk along the paths,

spotting parakeets

and more deer as we went.

Looking at a map of the park on our way out, we realised there's a lot more to see of this wonderful place, and it's definitely on our list for a return visit!