Wrong Nonsuch

Last week for a morning visit to Nonsuch Park. Not paying attention, I followed the road to the baker at Cheam, rather than the road to Tooting, and we wound up in the northern car park, the one near the big house, rather than the southern car park.

This meant that we walked around the park the wrong way, but this had the up-side that we penetrated into the southern quarter of the park, beyond the made up path which runs between the southern car park and the site of Nonsuch Palace. For notice of an expensive model of same see reference 1. A southern quarter which we had never visited before, rather wild and woolly, but was said to be home to the site of the once excavated banqueting house said to have been attached to the palace proper. We found a large raised area, surrounded by a three feet brown brick wall, illustrated, which we thought might have been the place, but there were no plaques and no-one to ask, so we don't know. There were some rather odd grey concrete posts, quite new, tapering to about two feet in height, but we don't know what they were about either.

Heading back to the house we did come across an excavation - but on closer inspection we decided that this was a skate board park which had gone wrong and had been abandoned.

Back at the house, the café was busy with special needs, mums and babies, but the hard pressed Polish serving girl managed tea, coffee and some sort of raspberry jam frangipane, this last rather good. The very same café where we first learned about the Ripieno choir, very good, but whose last two concerts we had to miss for some reason or other. See reference 2. Hopefully we make the next one.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=nonsuch+palace+model.

Reference 2: http://ripienochoir.org.uk/.

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