A Sort of Homecoming

Waverley is the municipality in Sydney where Keezee grew up and went to school (W-W-A-A-V-V-E-E-R-R-L-L-E-E-Y-Y-Waverley...... go Waves, etc.). It's also the local government area where Mr & Mrs Keezee made their first marital home, before moving to the more salubrious Redfern area. Anyway, as it turns out, Waverley is also the name of a borough in southwest Surrey (what are the chances?), and this Waverley also has a number of picturesque and historic places (some even older than the kids train at Bronte) - a few of which we visitied today.

First stop is the historic market town of Haslemere, which is about a half hour drive from good old West Byfleet. We've driven through a couple of times and said we must have a look around the shops - unfortunately on a Sunday, most of the shops were closed. The one shop that was open had a half price sale, so it wasn't a complete disaster. We also managed to find a pub for lunch, so we did pretty well all up.



Haslemere High Street... pretty quiet on a Sunday, but a keen eye will spot the "Open" sign at The Swan Inn.


The Swan Inn is an old coaching inn, with the archway and stables for the horses, old beams, leather chairs, huge fireplaces, and the like... very nice.

Next up on our Sunday afternoon drive is the pretty village of Tilford, where the River Wey merges with the River Wey to form the River Wey (it's true!). Tilford has two medieval bridges (both crossing the Wey as it happens) as well as a pub and a cricket club. Despite it being a grey old day, it was still a picture-postcard spot.


The Tilford Cricket Club was founded over a 120 years ago. Apparently they've had a few big nights here through the years.... sometimes fitting up to six people in the club at once!


Umm.... this is the town hall (from memory). Looks good but.


"It's over here!" Keezee finds the village pub - no surprises there.


The medieval bridge. Apparently a good spot for swimming, or fishing on a day like this......



..... so the locals tell me


And our final stop for today is the remains of Waverley Abbey, which was built in the 12th century. It's a very pretty and thought provoking place. We were happy to find this is a site we could visit for free, and were amazed how few visitors there were on a Sunday afternoon as it's quite an amazing place. The abbey is certainly a little worse for wear after nine hundred-odd years, and being in an open field, completely open to the public with no security, no doubt relies on the good nature of visitors not to degrade further before its time.


Welcome


Not sure how old this bridge is, but its a good photo opp. on the path to the abbey.


Ah, here it is.


It's big!

Really big!

And a little bit spooky as well.


But very interesting, even for these two.


Time to go

We took so many photos here, we filled up the memory card on our camera. Give us a yell if you want to see more. Hope you enjoyed these.