Okay – I know that sounds a bit dramatic, especially when I tell you that what I’m telling you to clear your diary for is a set of open gardens, but stay with me. I have my reasons. This is for all Greenwich lovers, gardeners or not.

St Alfege’s parishioners ran this project a couple of years ago, to raise funds for the ever-burgeoning restoration costs of a 300 year-old church. Over a couple of Sundays around a dozen gardens in West Greenwich were open to the public in exchange for cash (and not a lot of cash at that.)

As a fan of beautiful gardens and as even more of a fan of nosing around other people’s back gardens (why else do you think I run the Rear Window section?) I was in there like the proverbial Flynn – it was in Parish News – hopefully a few of you managed to make it too.

If you did you will know what I am speaking about. Each of the gardens is exquisite in its own way – and June is a wonderful time to see them. They range from the lavishly formal – a particular favourite is the Manor House at the top of Crooms Hill (see above) – and the exquisitely bijou (see the delightfully narrow, be-mirrored jewel at 27 Maidstone Hill, which comes complete with the fanciest chickens I’ve ever seen…) through to marvellous, unexpected jungles. I am deeply intrigued by one that opening this year described as “Dangerously steep and thorny terraced garden, entered at the visitor’s own risk”.

There is even genuine woodland – Westcombe Woodlands at Maze Hill will enjoy a rare opening – worth seeing for so many reasons – not least to nose around what all the fuss was over a few years ago. It’s also a real pleasure to enter as you have to go through someone’s garden, a secret, quietly-landscaped series of nooks, on several levels and a joy in itself.

There are so many brilliant gardens open I don’t have time to describe them all, but I promised something for all Greenwich lovers, gardeners or not. There is one house you MUST see.

Number 14 Crooms Hill is a gem in every single respect. As nutty as it is historic, as exuberant as it is lavish, as eccentric as it is joyful, as mysterious as it is ever so slightly creepy, this deceptively large confection leads out to a deceptively larger and delightfully unkempt back garden. I won’t even begin to try to describe Ann Broadbent’s extraordinary home – I will just say that if you don’t go on one of her tours of the house you will sincerely regret it later. This is an example of Greenwich at its secretive best. Go. Just go.

Sold yet? Then scrawl Sundays 2 and 9th June, 2-5pm in your diaries. You’ll need both dates as different places are open on each day.

Break open your piggy banks to get the money required – a whopping £3 per garden or £10 for the lot on a single day. Just pay the tenner. I’m telling you now, you’ll need to see them all – pay at the first garden you visit. It’s worth bringing a bit more money too, as there’s tea and cake to be had at some venues.

I have forgotten how to attach PDFs (well, okay, I wrote down the instructions wrong) so I’m going to copy the details here for you, with the descriptions by the owners in italics.

Seriously – you need to go to this one…

Sunday 2nd June:

1. Tim and Patricia Barnes, The White House, Crooms Hill, SE10 8HH TEAS

A walled garden laid out when the house belonged to the Astronomer Royal. Lots of climbers, good-sized lawn and flowers planted in a rather haphazard but hopefully cottagey way. And a mulberry tree as old as the house.

2. Ian and Susan Pawlby, 22 West Grove Lane, SE10 8QP WINE

Come and explore a hidden garden in a hidden lane.

3. Jane Custance Baker and Peter Gingold, 51 Hyde Vale, SE10 8QQ

Dangerously steep and thorny terraced garden entered at the visitor’s own risk. Designed to be viewed from the house, the owner and inept gardener will do house tours to show the exceptionally varied and challenging site from different (and safe) vantage points.

4. Ann Broadbent, 14 Crooms Hill, SE10 8ER

A very large and peaceful garden, it contains nothing much except wonderful mature trees including a plane as big as the ones in Berkeley Square. Tours of the house, which is much more interesting, are also on offer.

5. Susan and Jimmy Gaston, 119 Maze Hill, SE10 8XQ TEAS

North-east facing garden lying under Vanbrugh Castle; raised beds with shrubs, a pergola covered in Albertine and Brides Veil roses, and a beautiful dovecote as the centre piece.

6. Alan Bartlett and Simon Gallie, 27 Maidenstone Hill, SE10 8SY TEAS

This narrow hillside garden forms part of Point Hill and features some of Alan’s RHS medal-winning garden items as well as his chickens. There are many unusual plants in the garden. Due to the many steps, slopes and limited accessibility of this garden, it may not be suitable for people requiring walking assistance.

7. Westcombe Woodlands, Lasseter Place (off Vanbrugh Hill), SE3 7UX

A contrast to other gardens, this is mature woodland, hidden away from the public eye, but recently improved to be a better wildlife habitat. There are wild bulbs and newly-planted fruit trees, but today there is simply access to a small clearing and a winding path with nest and bat boxes – and views towards Canary Wharf.

Sunday 9th June:

1. Clare and Mark Hatcher, 41 Gloucester Circus, SE10 8RY PIMMS

A walled garden in a late Georgian terrace, the garden comprises formal elements with herbaceous borders, a beech hedge and a woodland garden under a horse chestnut tree.

2. Penny and David Matheson, 30 Hyde Vale, SE10 8QH PIMMS

The garden of an 1830s tea-caddy house with a lawn in front and, behind, two shallow flower-filled terrace beds backed by rose-covered arches through which one sees a round lawn surrounded by a stone path and banks of shrubs, ivy and large trees.

3. Teresa and Jonathan Sumption, The Manor House, Crooms Hill, SE10 8HG

A large garden standing on the edge of the hill comprising two small formal gardens, a flower garden surrounded by trellis and pleached apple trees divided by a parterre of lavender, and a sunken garden with a geometrical box parterre planted with herbs.

4. Caroline and Richard Newton Price, 3 Hyde Vale, SE10 8QQ TEAS

New garden, old garden, tea and cake.

5. Geoff and Paula Nuttall, 124 King George Street, SE10 8PX

A small, south-facing walled garden that can be entered by a side gate.

6. John and Helene Mitchell, 4 Orchard Drive, SE3 0QP

Views from the house (wisteria and jasmine) and rear terrace (camellias) lead, via the croquet lawn and yew hedge, to the orchard (apples, pears, plums and quince) and a wild area (silver birch, oak and walnut).

Moving on from the dreariness of yesterday’s post about what’s happening to Lovell’s Wharf now, something a little cheerier. This fabulous photograph was sent to me my Hilary Peters, who long-term Phantophiles will know was the one-woman driving force behind saving the stunning buildings along Ballast Quay (where the Harbourmaster’s Office is, next to the Cutty Sark) and the creation of the cutest garden in Greenwich.

She has been writing a history of Ballast Quay, which I am dying to read, and I won’t have long to wait, as she’ll be selling copies on a special open garden day in June.

Put the 8th and 9th June in your diaries, folks – and get the chance to walk through that usually-locked gate (and meet the wonderful Hilary…)

Today possibly wasn’t the very best day to experience London’s newest tourist attraction, but it was the first one (official, anyway, apparently there were a bunch of the usual rent-a-crowd celebrities up there last night) and The Phantom Webmaster and myself managed to be some of the first proper punters to see it.

Actually, that’s not quite true, for we were there because I’d won a competition* – a very, very rare occurrence for me. It was a challenge to suggest a place that you can see from the Shard but most people would miss. The ten winners have had their suggestions included in the groovy digital telescope things at the top, and here’s my (winning, tee hee) entry, already programmed into the viewfinder:

Not that you could see even the vague area in which Severndroog Castle might be spotted today – the rain was lashing down and the black clouds seemed to completely surround Shooters Hill. You couldn’t even see Greenwich, though I’m told that you can at least see the Old Royal Naval College, Observatory and Power Station on a good day.

It’s a fun experience, and on that mythical ‘good day’ I am sure you can see far into the distance. As it was I still had fun, staring down and spotting fun stuff like the little shelter from the old London Bridge that sits in Guys Hospital, and the Globe Pub which, you can see from above, really was built around to create the new lines out of London Bridge station.

But it does have to be that ‘good day’ if you want to do anything beyond enjoying St Paul’s Cathedral and a charmingly model-like Tower of London.

It costs £24.95 for an adult (though at the tills they all said £29.95; I don’t know where they get that figure from,) or £100 if you want to go up there and then so to get your money’s worth, it will be worth waiting for better weather (they tell me it’s pretty much fully booked anyway until April) and then watch the weather forecast and book accordingly.

I can see this becoming one of those ‘things you have to do’ when you come to London, but those prices are squeakingly high for everyday folk, and that’s before you even hit the gift shop where they must be thanking the marketing gods for ‘Romeo,’ the fox who lived up the Shard for two weeks while it was being built and thus giving them a cute animal as the tower’s first resident to rurn into cuddly toys (not literally, of course…) to go with the rest of what I have to admit are generally pretty un-tacky souvenirs.

So – the Phantom likes – but make sure you get the weather right…

*if you’re wondering how I managed to get in without being spotted, I have to thank Will, the guy who organised the completely anonymous tickets – cheers Will – I was the short, fat, tall, skinny one in the red/green/black/blue cloak and tricorn…

Well, perhaps it’s over-egging it a bit to say I had ‘a ball.’ But given that there was a small child to entertain, it was a bloomin’ awful day, we’d ‘done’ Greenwich and there wasn’t enough time to go into town, a trip across the water to a free exhibition in the dry – with nice cakes – seems like a bit of a result.

I’m always slightly suspicious when a giant multinational that depends on consumer – well, consumption, actually, creates a ‘sustainable cities initiative’ and then spends vast wads of cash giving us the patronising ‘we need to talk about saving energy by not doing stuff’ message (I’m assuming the ‘not doing stuff’ doesn’t extend to not buying their goods…) but as propaganda goes, this is pretty slick.

The building itself is a handsome glass affair in an area that has very little else going on, right next to the cable car, the first, I am hoping, in a new rush of interesting attractions worth making the trip across the river for.

We went on a Saturday, and even on a traditionally ‘family’ day, most of the visitors seemed to be group bookings; brownies, I believe, and students. I should imagine that during the week it’s wall-to-wall school parties. There’s plenty to do, lots of buttons to press and games to play – someone has spent a lot of time and money making some very good exhibits, and it’s so new that nearly all of them still work (I was in the Maritime Museum the other day and several of their interactive displays are already broken. But then they don’t have Siemens funding them…)

And there IS much to think about. My favourite part was the bits where you’re getting to plan a virtual city, you’re given various constraints, a budget and a list of transport, energy, education etc. options and told to get on with running it. As Phantom Monarch I tried quite a few ways to put in infrastructure, take infrastructure out, add more roads, remove roads, give my subjects more public transport, less waste disposal etc. and every time I watched my city implode under the strain.

Some of it’s just plain baffling. I can’t remember what on earth this giant Chinese lantern represents, and I’m not sure I ever knew, though it’s possible it’s just covering the exterior of the cinema. Other things are pretty but again, I couldn’t tell you what they mean:

There’s a quite alarming film about global energy use (why did I find myself wondering that we would save a load of energy if we just turned off all the giant 360 degree movies about climate change..?) and some rather wonderful sections about the body.

In short, there is much to do, much to see, and if it doesn’t sit quite right that this is all funded by a multinational who are as busy plundering the earth for rare metals, gases, energy etc. as any other computer/white goods giant, then hey – we all sucked up that MacDonalds and Cadburys sponsored the Olympics last year. And Boris approves. This is pride of place in the City section:

Ultimately the result was one small child entertained for an hour on a wet day, and I find that hard to knock.

The thing I like most about this place, though, and something I will be returning to, is the splendid cafe.

Good food, nicely presented

with prices no worse than anywhere else in London, and actually, IMHO, very good for a London attraction:

I can see myself taking a cable car across the water just for the hell of it (and a cup of coffee at the Crystal). I delight in being the unfashionable Phantom that adores the cable car – of course it’s daft, but oh, I love it. Even I, though, raised an eyebrow at this particular display in the City part of the exhibition:

Hmm.

On a day when I sit writing this post in two dressing gowns, fingerless gloves, a blanket and hat (no, really…) my mind is drawn back to last night when I was in the West End and saw a shocking number of people sleeping rough in the snow. And in turn that me brought to a number of emails I’ve been getting about Greenwich Food Bank, since I first mentioned it a couple of months ago.

What happened? At what point did the concept of food banks, where ordinary, everyday folk become reliant on others’ charity just to be able to feed themselves properly, become ‘normal?’ And at what point did the situation in Greenwich become so bad that we need one ourselves? There are currently three distrubution centres in the borough – Thamesmead, Plumstead and Woolwich – but they’re planning five more, including, somewhat shockingly the ‘affluent’ areas of West Greenwich and Westcombe Park.

Don’t get me wrong – I am hugely impressed at the generosity and dedication of everyone involved – both volunteers and donors – but I find it very distressing that it’s needed, that so many people are slipping through the net, and that instead of hanging their heads in shame, central government seem to think its perfectly okay.

Local government, in cash-strapped times, at least appears to be doing what it can – Greenwich Council have provided somewhere to be the central warehouse. But ultimately it’s slipping back to Victorian times as far as I can see. Who knows – give it a few months and the New Heart of East Greenwich could  be hurriedly remodelled back to its 19th Century alias as the local Workhouse…

Soapbox aside, this is what we have, and it is a Good Thing, given that central government is not recognising the distress of so many. I applaud the efforts of the combined churches, I applaud the people who buy a few extra items each week to donate to the cause and I applaud the (so far) 60-70 volunteers who are working in the depots to process the items.

Carol’s been donating food to the bank for some time – she gives money to charities, but “somehow actually buying a few extra bits and pieces each week as I do the grocery shopping and taking them along to the Avery Hill Food Bank makes giving more ‘real’, i.e. making the effort to buy stuff, take it there when it’s open, walking past those people waiting to obtain food.”

I know what she means. I’m old enough to remember when the annual Blue Peter appeal involved collecting ‘stuff’ – milk bottle tops, plastic bottles, old woollies etc. which always felt much more hands-on and inspiring than just ‘send us your cash.’

The strange thing is that it’s not easy to find out online how to actually get involved in the project, which is a shame – individual churches seem to have their own systems, but if you’re just a bog-standard nice person who wants to join in, information’s thin on the ground – Capability Bowes had to email them to find out and he still didn’t get a straight answer.

But Mike’s filled me in.  People can take stuff to a collection point at the reception of St John’s Church, in Stratheden Road near Blackheath Standard, which is usually open from 9.30am to 4pm. Alternately anyone wishing to donate food can call 07771 830549 or email contact@greenwichfoodbank.co.uk.

There is also a collection point in Sainsburys Woolwich – hopefully this is something that other supermarkets will pick up on, like the little Cats Protection League box of Tins for Poor Cats in the Tellytubby Sainsburys on the Peninsula (I always pop a can or two in there – when I remember, blush…)

There is a ‘shopping list’ of suitable foodstuffs for the human version:

• Milk (UHT or powdered)
• Sugar (500g)
• Fruit Juice (carton)
• Soup
• Pasta Sauces
• Sponge Pudding (tinned)
• Tomatoes (tinned)
• Cereals
• Rice Pudding (tinned)
• Tea bags/Instant Coffee
• Instant Mashed Potato
• Rice/Pasta
• Tinned meat/fish
• Tinned Fruit
• Cooking Oil
• Jam
• Biscuits or Snack Bars
• Toiletries
• Baby Milk (powdered)
• Baby Food (tinned or bottled)

In a twenty-first century world that has come back down to cold charity it is up to us to fill a gap that should never have opened.

Ryan asks:

As a Greenwich local I am familiar with the evening “scene” – I generally head to the Pelton for some live guitars, or if feeling a little more continental I will head to Olivers….however while out and about on Saturday the clock ticked passed midnight and I couldn’t think of anywhere that was still open (other than some more sketchy venues at New Cross)

Any ideas of consistent late night venues with a reasonable playlist? It seems to be the one thing missing in Greenwich…

Now I confess I am not a clubber or late night Phantom in any way, so to my  embarrassment I hadn’t actually noticed that there isn’t much (or, indeed, anything) open after midnight. Being a scaredy Phantom I take one look at the people staggering around the market around 11.00pm and scurry home.

I assumed that Olivers was open late, but apparently not.  I hear that INC above the market is reopening at weekends, and according to the websites  it has DJ sets until 3.00am on Saturdays but I have no idea if it is any good.

I notice the ghastly place up by the Blackwall Tunnel that used to be the Tunnel Club in the 80s and that has had more names since than I can remember (including ‘That’) has been having a general makeover including what I can only describe as black, wobbly-surfaced hotel bathroom tiles stuck all over it  (which they did over Christmas, which I thought was pretty brave since that must be their busiest time of year); I don’t know if that’s going to be any good either. I also assume that there’s nightlife up at the O2 – don’t they have a nightclub? I went once and remember it having decor that reminded me of an underground car park.

I guess the issue is that Greenwich just isn’t as trendy as very near neighbours such as Deptford and New Cross, so people head over there – and that any Greenwich students probably have their own nights up at the Student Union, which of course isn’t for the likes of us.

So I’m opening this one to the floor. Do you know of good places open after midnight with decent playlists?

I’ve been very bad about the Parish News recently – I have stuff to tell you but not the time to do it. Hopefully I’ll get round to it soon, but in the meanwhile I need to mention three not-terribly-old but very traditional things that are happening this weekend.

Firstly Wassail at the East Greenwich Pleasaunce. If you’ve been following the new fruit trees in the park, planted by the Friends, you may already know about it, but if you don’t mind a bit of (very light) work it’s open to all.

Wassailing traditionally involves hailing fruit trees – waking them up ready for the new season and scaring away evil spirits, and this seems to be a lovely way of welcoming the trees properly. I’m not sure they’re having a Wassail King and Queen but there’s plenty else going on. They’re mulching the trees with woodchip at 11.30am on Sunday  6th Jan, then from midday, it’s more fun – music, stories, poems and locally-pressed cider from Orchard Press in Charlton.  If cider’s not your bag, then Lizzie at Pistacchios cafe will be doing all the usual hot drinks and food, plus mulled wine.

Of course Twelfth Night is actually the evening of the 5th of January (I think it has something to do with the day starting at dawn in the medieval calendar) but the Lion’s Part will be at Bankside as usual for the Twelfth Night Celebrations at the Globe from 2.45pm. If that doesn’t sound very ‘Greenwich,’ then my tenuous link to it is Fowler’s Molly, local Morris dancers who will be dancing at the George Inn when the event reaches there – probably about 3.30pm. If you’ve not experienced it, it’s well worth wrapping up and going along. I’m a big fan of the storytelling in the George afterwards.

If making it all the way into London Bridge just seems that little bit too much like hard work, Fowlers Molly will be celebrating Plough Monday much more locally, starting at the Ashburnham Arms, Ashburnham Place, meeting from 7.30pm to dance at around 8pm, moving on to the Morden Arms (while it’s still around, though I understand planning permission for flats there has now been refused) to dance around 8.45pm. They finish at the Tolly (Richard I), Royal Hill dancing around 9.30pm.

I had a revelation yesterday – I’ve never written about the Junk Shop, one of the last remaining corners of Old Greenwich. Time was the town was full of junk shops, ‘antique’ shops and secondhand bookshops; dusty corners in which treasures lurked (anyone who has ever managed to see inside a certain house in Crooms Hill will have seen the result of judicious ‘antique’-buying in the 1950s. It’s very, very rarely open, I’ll let you know if I ever find it is…) but today, with the demise of everywhere from the Spread Eagle to Stewart John and Marcet Books, the only real corners of eccentricity left are Greenwich Book Place, Halcyon Books and the Junk Shop. In  the unlikely case that anyone who reads this doesn’t know where they are, the latter two are in the same parade in South Street; GBP is the lonely-looking tumbledown building in the middle of Creek Road.

But I digress. Today is about the Junk Shop, which is a true TARDIS of a place. It looks pretty small from the outside, with its jolly nonsense spilling out onto the pavement, and everything from WWII gas masks to frameless mirrors and broken chandeliers jumbled to the ceiling inside.

Don’t be fooled – this shop bulges out in pretty much every direction. If you go right to the back, and out through the back door, there’s a whole other building, full of the same old junk as everywhere else:

and a very creepy basement full of tribal masks – don’t go on a dark day – I was once with a rather sensitive pal who totally freaked out, complaining it was like being in a Hammer Horror movie of the 1970s. The photo below uses a flash which makes it look cosier than it is…

The yard outside is full of vintage pedal cars, American crests and rusty fireplaces, but if, instead of going back through the door, you go to what appears to be the outside loo (there is one of those, too), you’ll be confronted with a set of steps. Go down them to what looks like a teeny tiny room full of dusty books, and you’ll find it’s part of a warren of little stalls, many of which are taken up by the dealers displaced when the Village Market was closed (including the Bottle Shop.)

Wear old clothes – this stuff is very dusty. And don’t expect prices to be as old-fashioned as the wares – there are bargains to be had but quite a few of the prices are pretty steep for what they’re for. You can go back upstairs (where the prices are also variable – some excellent, some a bit of a shock) via some fabulously rickety stairs and find yourself back at the front of the shop.

There’s been an addition in the shop for a few months that I am very fond of – a little tea-room, complete with mismatched china, nice strong tea, wonderfully shabby furniture, low-lamps and reasonably-priced, yummy home made cake. I’ve been several times and forgotten to write about it. Such was much of last year.

If they remember to shut the back door (I usually end up doing it myself – I guess they keep it open to encourage people to visit the back, but in this weather it’s a bit parky)  it can be very cosy and quiet, and there’s lots of odd, locally-related reading matter if you’re on your own. In the warmer days, there are seats outside the back door (just before Christmas there was a lovely little nativity scene on one of the outside tables).

The service is friendly and solicitous, if you can get it – I sat waiting in the room for fifteen minutes once, but despite the lights being on and the place being clearly ‘open’ no one turned up, and I couldn’t see anyone in the entire shop (I was probably wrong, but they must have been hiding), so I left, but that’s sort of part of the charm for me – part of that slightly anachronistic ‘old Greenwich eccentricity’ that is in such short supply these days. I almost get the feeling that had I served myself and left the cash no one would have minded.

It’s closed on odd days; I can’t remember which, but Thursday rings a bell.

There are so few places like the Junk Shop left in Greenwich these days – visit while you can.

An Exlusive Insight into 100 Architecturally Inspiring Buildings in London 

Victoria Thornton,  Ebury Publishing, £25

We’re nearly at that time of year again, folks. The time where we can poke into places we’re not normally allowed near, see inside buildings that we’ve only seen the outside of and see some incredible architecture, old and new, up close, for one weekend only. I have a love-hate relationship with it – however hard I plan I always end up turning up on the wrong day being late or being the one after the last person in the queue is let in (happened with Linley Sambourne House last year – I queued for a good forty minutes, then the person in front of me got in and I didn’t. To add insult to injury she turned and smirked at me. Bah…)

We’ve talked about Open House weekend so many times – had long discussions about things in Greenwich we’d like to see opened and even tried the odd campaign to see that happen.

Greenwich is pretty poorly served for openings – just two pages in the catalogue and many of them are places that would be open anyway. Not that I’m knocking anywhere that chooses to open their doors for this incredible event – a heartfelt thank you to all of them. I’ll do my pick of the openings at the end of today’s post. But there are places I would love to persuade to open their doors too.

One I keep meaning to contact is Our Lady Star of the Sea on Crooms Hill – a church I understand has Pugin interiors. Yes. I’ll put that on my list for pestering next year. You can see the lovely White Dog of Crooms HIll at the same time if you’re lucky. She’ll be feeling lonely now the paths are open again in the park…

I did try to get the roof of the Observatory opened a few years ago – they said they’d think about it, and that’s the last I heard of it, hint, hint.

Forget the Observation Tower at Greenwich Borough Hall. Several Phantomites have had upleasant encounters with the letting agency who have no intention of allowing anyone at all up there, ever. Why Greenwich Council ever gave that up I still don’t know. It’s an observation tower, built for the people,  from which only the pigeons have a view.

I’ve lost count of the number of different places I’ve written to to try to get power station tours – never with any luck at all – it seems such a missed opportunity for a place that most people think is closed down (I get a lot of emails from people suggesting this derelict hulk be turned into an art gallery/peformance space/shopping mall)  to become part of the community but I’ve had virtually no repsonse.

The closest I got to an answer was mutterings of ‘security issues’ – but I don’t buy that. There are much higher profile buildings (including strategic-industrial) quite happy to do tours. My problem is that I’ve never been able to pin down the guy (or gal) who could actually make a decision and I’m passed around jobsworths who don’t want to stick their necks out.  Maybe next year we could have a concerted effort together – anyone know the exact person we need to talk to?

My final wishlist ‘want’ is the fabulous Rotunda -Nash-designed, incredible history, odd construction methods – and absolutely locked up.

But that’s enough of what we can’t see. Before I go onto what we can, I really want to talk about the book that’s come out celebrating the event. It’s not cheap, but it is beautiful, and one of those books that you’d want as a physical presence, rather than on your Kindle.

A hardcover, full-colour exploration of the kind of buildings open across London, it features heavily the modern, achitect-led constructions rather than the historic ones I tend to graduate towards. The great thing about this is that, flicking through, I find myself fascinated by them – my eye doesn’t really catch listings in the brochure about modern buildings, but seeing a photo of a particularly odd/innovative design makes me want to read the write-up and the write-up makes me want to see the real thing. Often the sculptures inside very large, airy atriums pull me in more than the buildings themselves.

Obviously other people’s homes are particularly nose-worthy and the ones in this book are, for the most part sleek, smooth and design marvels, especially the ones created in teeny spaces, using innovative technology. But how on earth would you live in such places? Don’t these people have clutter? I note that at least one place has children living in it. HOW? Where are the books? The toys? The papers? The mess? The crayons? Those poor kids…

There’s only one actual Greenwich place in the book  - if you’ve never been to Greenwich Yacht Club, it’s worth a sneak around there, and reading the background to it and the GMV, but there are close things – such as the extraordinary cathedral of sewage, Crossness (never been? Go!) and the very wonderful Trinity Buoy Wharf – so near, and once, so far – now a little easier to visit thanks to the cable car. It’s also worth checking out Marlborough House in Pall Mall to see the loot from the greatest act of Royal vandalism Greenwich has known. Both are discussed in the book.

So -onto my Greenwich recommendations for the 22/23 September this year:

Blackheath House – I don’t know this, but I think I read it’s recently been listed. I may be wrong.

Charlton House – owned by the council and thus pretty empty, but the panelling, fireplaces, ceilings etc remain and are majestic.

Devonport Mausoleum – you can get pretty close to this anyway these days but I’m hoping to be allowed inside the fencing.

Dreadnought Library – I’ve never seen this – I always seem to turn up on the wrong day – but it’s apparently a good example of new within old.

Eltham Lodge – make sure you’re in plenty of time for this fabulous old mansion – I arrived on the stroke of 12.30 and was unceremoniously (and quite rudely) kicked out.

Greenwich Heritage Centre – nice place, not really sure why it’s on the list – it’s always open.

Greenwich Yacht Club – definitely worth a nose for the stilts alone.

Old Royal Naval College – the tours you normally have to pay for are free.

Queens House – absolutely seminal building – again, not sure why it’s on the list, being open all the time (except during the Olympics, natch) but deffo worth seeing if you’ve not been inside yet (where have you been? )

Ravensbourne – an utterly amazing building from the outside – one of my faves, but rather dull inside.

Ruins of Garrison Church, RA Barracks – normally only able to be squinted at through iron gates, worth a view.

Sevendroog Castle – Supeb views and well worth the long queue, not least for the mouldings (and mould) on the inside. Sponsor a brick while you’re waiting; I hope to see it reopen as a tea room and observation tower sometime in my lifetime.

St Alfege Church – book one of their Crypt tours and see the tombs of General Wolfe, Thos. Tallis and Lavinia Fenton.

Call: 020 8853 0687

St Mary Magdalene School – I don’t know this one.

St Saviour’s Church, Eltham – ditto

Station Officers’ Mess, RA Barracks –  If this is the cute bit in the middle, it’s well worth joining a tour.

Thames Barrier and Information Centre  - not sure this is particularly worth it – the REALLY interesting bit is the barrier itself and that bit’s not open.

The Coronet Cinema, Eltham – in the middle of some serious change – probably worth seeing while it’s still at least partially there.

Tudor Barn – a beautiful place.

Woolwich Town Hall - I’ve only ever been in the foyer – it’s on my list for this year.

Enjoy Open House Weekend, folks.

Last Sunday I finally made it to the Planetarium. I know, I know, it’s been what – five years and I live – what – twenty minute’s lazy walk away? But yeah, it’s very easy to live near things people travel across the world to see and just never get around to actually going.

I was quite surprised by the price – £6.50 for adults. For some reason I had thought it was much more than that – my memory tells me around the £12.50 rate, but hey – I wasn’t complaining, and since I’d mentally already spent that, I decided to go to see both shows, back to back.

I don’t know whether it was because it was a rainy Sunday but the place was really quite busy. I’d been told to turn up about ten minutes before the show started to get a good seat, but by that time the queue outside was already snaking around itself several times. It wasn’t an issue – there was plenty of space, although I’m not convinced that with the configuration they’ve chosen – a conventional cinema style, with all the seats facing in one direction rather than the traditional rows in a circle round the edge – you’d get much of a view from the front. Maybe I’ll try it some time.

I confess I find that cinema-style seating a bit offputting. I loved the old fashioned circle-rows they used to have in the cute little planetarium upstairs and it just feels a bit odd to have a 360°, domed screen with directional seating. I was to find out later why they’ve gone for that style, but I’m still not convinced it works.

Still, it’s fresh and modern and they have saved what is to my mind the most important thing about the Royal Observatory Planetarium, the thing which made it stand out from the other, more commercial versions (including the much-missed London Planetarium – my, how the mighty have fallen there…) and makes Greenwich special.

And that thing?

Live commentary from real astronomers who will guide you through the sky and then answer questions afterwards. The first Greenwich Planetarium show I ever went to, there was a guy who looked like he had stepped off the set of Apollo 13 – short sleeved shirt, knitted tie, black-rimmed glasses –  and I thought he was great. I couldn’t believe that someone that important had taken time off from being a scientist to talk to me.

I was a weird kid.*

These days the astronomers are much younger – and cooler. So trendy, in fact, that at first I did wonder whether they’d just got an all-purpose tour guide to run the show, but the fact that he was prepared to answer questions afterwards made me think they do still employ people who know what they’re talking about.

So – I was in for the long haul. Two shows.

The Sky Tonight Live is pretty much what you’d expect it to be, a guided tour round what you might be able to see if you go outside at about 9.00pm on the day you go to the show (if there’s no cloud and the light pollution’s not too bad). I love the immediacy of that – that it’s been tailored for ‘tonight’ (though obviously the night sky only changes slowly, so they do have time to change the spiel). I really loved the way it starts out with a projection of the Observatory during the day and gradually gets darker; it  felt very specific to me and where I live. In fact the whole talk – clear, simple enough for everyone to understand but still with a nice amount of stuff I didn’t know (I was particularly impressed to know that Saturn’s rings are only about the size of a four-storey building) – and was specific to Greenwich – fair enough for tourists, lovely for locals.

The astronomer was personable, engaging and, if his gags were clearly of the variety he uses every show, why not. There aren’t going to be many people who do what I did, and, as they exit, immediately join the queue for the next show.

The next show was a new one (though since I didn’t know the old ones, I hadn’t been aware of that.)

Across the Universe is the story of the Voyager probes – sent to investigate the Sun’s planets and though now, having finished their mission, are spinning out into deep space still sending back fascinating data. This is more like a conventional movie. The resident astronomer is pretty much a glorifed usherette here – explaining the fire regulations and telling people not to turn off their mobile phones (“we’re underneath 45 tonnes of bronze here…”) so it’s a bit jarring, after having been used to human-level volume, when he turns on the film and a giant recorded voice booms out.

This is where the forward-facing seats come in as although they use the whole dome in an IMAX-y sort of way, it’s mainly stuff you look straight ahead to.

For me the strength of this show is the subject matter. I enjoyed it all because it really is amazing stuff, the figures, data and images are jaw-dropping – and, okay, I admit it, I like looking at big pictures, which is why I went to see Mission Impossible III at the Waterloo IMAX. But it didn’t engage me the way the live presentation did, and some of the CGI looked a bit like the sort of thing you’d see on a teenage Sci-fi fan’s bedroom wall circa 1980.

I guess that’s always going to be the problem with recorded shows – the human interaction just isn’t there. All the way through, despite the fascinating information, I was aware that there was a real live astronomer sitting behind me, twiddling his thumbs when he could be talking to us.

That’s not to say this isn’t a good show. I did enjoy it and I’d take someone else. But for my money if you’re only going to one show at the Planetarium, go to the Sky Tonight Live.

I have one last suggestion for the planetarium guys on the Sky Tonight Live. Given we live in such a badly light-polluted area, rather than just telling us that fewer stars will be able to be seen, perhaps you could show us, at the end,  what we REALLY might see in the sky (if it’s cloudless), complete with sodium-orange glow, so that we can mentally eliminate what we won’t be seeing and concentrate on what we will?

Tell you what, though. The Planetarium is still really excellent entertainment, especially for a rainy afternoon and given the weather forecast for the foreseeable future, I highly recommend you take a trip, it’s not just for kids. Details here.

*I felt the same sort of awe when I went to the Kennedy Space Centre and was shown round by a real, live astronaut. No one I’d heard of, obviously, but an astronaut…