Down the leafy lane

I often drive past this old Victorian house set in a leafy garden in the middle of suburbia and alongside a canalized river, but have never known anything about it. All you can really see is an alluring gable with the date 1789 on it (which turns out is stretching the truth a bit - although there might have been some buildings on the site in the late eighteenth century, the gable is most definitely later nineteenth century). Anyway, this is Timour Hall, which is run by the International Police Association as a guest house. It has an rich history that includes a link to Percy FitzPatrick of Jock of the Bushveld fame. They have an interesting website but nothing about why it is called Timour Hall, except that it was given the name in 1878 by Mrs Aletta Jacoba Smith. Maybe some colonial link to East Timor in south-east Asia?

Security chancel

The chancel of this delightful Anglican church of All Saints in the suburb of Plumstead was designed by one of Cape Town's illustrious architects, William John Delbridge, in 1910. (I can't find any information about the original part but presume the tower was also Delbridge's.) Delbridge also designed the Polana Hotel in Maputo, and the Marine Hotel in Hermanus, along with many of the very distinctive thatched roofed houses that define Hermanus. He was interested in French Gothic designs, and the Arts and Crafts movement, which is borne out by the look of this little church.
The word chancel refers to the lattice or railing which was used to separate the clergy from the congregation, and comes to us via Middle Enlgish and Old French from a Latin word cancelli meaning ‘crossbars’. It is ironic that today there is a very high "chancel" right around the outside of the church in the form of a security fence with razor wire on top.

Loud

My son is off to another 21st party tonight - with the theme "In bad taste". We went down the road to a shop in Plumstead called Fancy That Costume, and he found an Austin Powers outfit.