Today's County in the spotlight

[NewcastleFalcon]

First association with Surrey which came to mind for me, born in Norfolk but played many years for Surrey and England.

https://youtu.be/3kWQ2rxQ9Ow

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

The first thing that came to my mind was a place I thoroughly enjoy a day out at. I've been 4 or 5 times and always had a great day so I can recommend:

BFTW

All the info is here

[mickthemaverick]

As a youngster, primary school age, my father did not own a car so our only means of travelling around was public transport. As a result we were taken on coach day excursions on Premier Coaches (later to become Premier-Albanian) from Watford. One of my favourite Sunday trips was to Hindhead in Surrey to see the Devil's Punchbowl and the heather across the common! More recently a tunnel has been built under the common so travelling down the A3 now misses the wonderful views of my childhood!!

BFTW

More information here

[bobins]

Cue : ......looks into photo library.....


Ah, the Hindhead Tunnel.

Hindhead Tunnel 1 - own work

Hindhead tunnel 3 - own work

Hindhead tunnel 5 - own work

I used to be a fairly regular user of that tunnel and it always surprised me how many people slowed down to drive through it. The normal car speed limit in there is 70mph, but an awful lot of people would automatically slow down to 60mph or slower - either assuming a lower limit was in force, or they just felt more comfortable going slower

[bobins]

"Gibbet Hill, at Hindhead, Surrey, is the apex of the scarp surrounding the Devil's Punch Bowl, not far from the A3 London to Portsmouth road in England.
The area was one of disrepute due to the activities of highwaymen and robbers, the corpses of three of whom were formerly displayed there on a gibbet as punishment for their crimes. The Celtic cross is reported either to have been erected by the judge Sir William Erle, or an unmarked memorial erected after his death."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbet_Hill,_Hindhead


Celtic cross on Gibbet Hill
Charlesdrakew, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Under Gibbet Hill, Hindhead - own work

[mickthemaverick]

One famous place in Surrey, thanks to TV, is the wildlife animal rescue centre in Leatherhead. The centre features in the Discovery TV series Wildlife SOS which has been on discovery channel for a fair few years now. One of my favourite creatures which they have had dealings with is this beauty:

BFTW

All the information about the centre can be found here.

[Hell Razor5543]

An interesting fact about owls is that they typically have 14 bones in their necks, which is one reason why they can turn them so far.

[bobins]

How the dead centre of London actually came to be in Surrey.........

"The London Necropolis Railway was a railway line opened in November 1854 by the London Necropolis Company (LNC), to carry corpses and mourners between London and the LNC's newly opened Brookwood Cemetery 23 miles (37 km) southwest of London in Brookwood, Surrey. At the time the largest cemetery in the world, Brookwood Cemetery was designed to be large enough to accommodate all the deaths in London for centuries to come, and the LNC hoped to gain a monopoly on London's burial industry. The cemetery had intentionally been built far enough from London so as never to be affected by urban growth and was dependent on the recently invented railway to connect it to the city.
Trains carried coffins and passengers from a dedicated station in Waterloo, London, onto the LSWR tracks. On reaching the cemetery, the trains reversed down a dedicated branch line to two stations in the cemetery, one for the burial of Anglicans and one for Nonconformists (non-Anglicans) or those who did not want a Church of England funeral. The station waiting rooms and the compartments of the train, both for living and for dead passengers, were partitioned by both religion and class to prevent both mourners and cadavers from different social backgrounds from mixing. As well as the regular funeral traffic, the London Necropolis Railway was used to transport large numbers of exhumed bodies during the mass removal of a number of London graveyards to Brookwood.
The company failed to gain a monopoly of the burial industry, and the scheme was not as successful as its promoters had hoped. While they had planned to carry between 10,000 and 50,000 bodies per year, in 1941 after 87 years of operation, only slightly over 200,000 burials had been conducted in Brookwood Cemetery, equalling roughly 2,300 bodies per year.
On the night of 16–17 April 1941, the London terminus was badly damaged in an air raid and rendered unusable. Although the LNC continued to operate occasional funeral services from Waterloo station to Brookwood railway station immediately north of the cemetery, the London Necropolis Railway was never used again."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Necropolis_Railway

[mickthemaverick]

An interesting fact about owls is that they typically have 14 bones in their necks, which is one reason why they can turn them so far.

That is quite fascinating James. To me the reality of more solid components in a structure would make the structure less compliant rather than more so!! They must have some interesting UJ style joints between their bones!!

[Hell Razor5543]

Well, the extra vertebrae allows for the extra rotation. Typically owls can turn their necks 320 degrees. Half the number of vertebrae and you probably halve the rotation. They also have wide blood vessels in the necks, to allow for any constriction of them.

[mickthemaverick]

Another relatively famous place in Surrey is The Lakeside Country Club at Frimley Green which hosts the BDO's version of the world darts championship. Coming up at the end of this month is an event for the Darts seniors tour:

BFTW

Details here

[NewcastleFalcon]

Wikishire has a decent coverage of Surrey on this page here....different from the "normal" wiki entry for Surrey, and it relates to the historic county. I was wondering whether Twickenham was in historic Surrey, but no its up in Middlesex, but one of the worlds top of the tree sporting venues is in historic Surrey even if it is colloquially and actually a.k.a SW19.

Been to Wimbledon on men's semi-final day 3 times.

First time 2001 when Tim Henman played an epic semi-final with Goran Ivanisevic. With Henman ahead 2 sets to 1 and up in the fourth set 2-1 and well on top, torrential rain ended play for the day well into the evening. Next day Goran won in 5 sets, and went on to beat Pat Rafter in the final.

Next time was 2003 where the semi finals were between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick , and Mark Philippoussis and Sébastien Grosjean, with Rog winning his first Wimbledon title, and the first of his 20 so far grand slam titles. A true sporting great and Rog did look very relaxed in the warm up on the outside court where we could see it all at close quarters.

On to 2011 more absolute legends of the game playing. Rafael Nadal beat Andy Murray in the Semi Final, and Novak Djokovic beat Jo-Wilfred Tsonga in the other Semi, with Rafael Nadal subsequently winning the title in 4 Sets against Novak Djokovic.

Transport and accommodation....1. Overnight car plus sleeping in the car at an entrance to Richmond Park, 2 Daytime Drive and Camping in the "Official" campsite. 3. Overnight Bus, Can't remember exactly the right order we did it in.

Wasn't going to pay London Hotel Prices! They were all spontaneous trips


Cmglee Wimbledon Championships venue aerial
Cmglee, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

One of my favourite creatures which they have had dealings with is this beauty:

Two FCF spookies for me today. I specifically went on an outing to a quarry where a barn Owl had raised a brood, in previous years, and actually saw the Barn Owl today this very afternoon...back at its nesting site.
pic of the youngsters from previous year.

The other one, bit convoluted, in the spoiler!

Spoiler: show

was that one of the teams playing in the Sevens Video from Hawick I watched was Randwick from Australia. Sydney’s Royal Randwick Racecourse then appeared in good "familiarity phenomenon" style as the home of Snowden Racing who have a Horse called McLaren from my query "Snowden Orange McLaren" trying to track down an orange McLaren currently carrying the reg KS1...the first reg ever issued by the Roxburghshire County)
This post refers...in its natural home on the Trivia Investigation Thread
https://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/ ... 89#p716489

REgards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Despite Steve's mention of his Epsom Salts I think it is only right that we include Epsom Racecourse as a famous sporting venue in Surrey. Undoubtedly the Epsom Derby is one of the world's great horse races:

BFTW

As usual you can get all the history here.

[NewcastleFalcon]

How the dead centre of London actually came to be in Surrey.........

How did I know about that
Michael Portillo Season2 Episode 2 Waterloo to Canary Wharf
available on Daily Motion here


Regards Neil