The fourth stage of my King’s Way walk, from the palace in the south Hampshire town, north-west across the wooded lower downs, into the South Downs National Park. This walk passes Wintershill with its Roman Road, Upham, Blackdown (great views), Baybridge, finishing north-east of Owslebury. Georgeous countryside, very rural, bright spring sunshine and some very curious calves.
Month: May 2013
Hampshire Architecture – TE Owen’s Southsea
In the 19th Century Southsea spread eastwards from the initial building east of the Portsmouth walls. This growth was slow at first, from around 1830-60, with the creation of the villa suburbs around Kent Road, Sussex Road, Queens Crescent, Portland Road, Grove Road South, The Vale and Villers Road. These roads were planned and built for the most part by TE Owen, who gave them a spacious feel with walled gardens, curved roads and gentrified villas, lodges and terraces. It’s some kind of leafy, expensive, stucco heaven. He centred this new suburb on St Jude’s Church (1851). To the south are Netley and Clifton Terraces, by Gauntlett.
Thank you to all the owners who allowed me on their property to get better views. Here I present the listed buildings of central Southsea, along with some general views, starting with my favourite today, 3 Queens Place:
Hampshire Architecture – Southsea: The Terraces, Castle Road and King Street areas
In the early Nineteenth Century, building spread outside of the city’s defensive walls with their moats and vast ravelins. Facing the battlements to the west, running north to south, several terraces were established, beginning around 1809. Southsea meets Portsmouth here and the space offered must have been very appealing compared to the cramped conditions of Old Portsmouth and Portsea. From the north, the terraces are named Hampshire, Landport, King’s, Jubilee and Bellevue. Much of the area was bombed in WWII and since modified, but many of the early C19 houses survive, with the characteristic maritime bay windows seen in Old Portsmouth. Behind the terraces, small streets were established by skilled tradesmen: the ‘mineral streets’ of Croxton Town – but were all bombed. Just further east are Great Southsea Street and Castle Street, with many plain but stylish town houses, my favourite designs, and a couple of older villas, along with early 1900s pubs and antique shops. Southsea Lodge was built in the C18, before there really was a Southsea, and before it was a resort, in what must have been a fairly rural area. To the north are a couple of other pockets of C19 houses, in King Street and Gloucester View and Mews. Gloucester View is a well kept secret, a superb terrace of identical houses in a cul-de-sac. Gloucester Mews in Norfolk Street hints at Owen’s Southsea to come. Park Lodge may have been built by T. E. Owen’s father. Further west towards the old city are the former Clarence Barracks, now Portsmouth Museum, a quite spectacular affair built for officers, and the Victorian lower school of the grammar school.
Here I present the listed buildings of west Southsea, and Portsmouth east of the wall:
How King’s Terrace once looked:
Meditation Journal 6 May 2013
A total action, a total seeing, an action whole, that has no residue. An action that has after effects of only the possibility of more right action. At some point, due to habit loops, I suppose, the non-total actions resume and thought takes over the game of time, with its memories and projections, fantasies and concerns. And yet in the quiet of sitting, the whole actions can return at any point, from a direction not expected, familiar yet new new new. In these moments there’s an absence of feeling that I should be doing something else, that something else is more important. In these moments there is no where else to be, nothing else to be doing, nothing more valuable or more beneficial than here and now, when I am not, but only awareness is. This is not a state or something to get to, and it’s closer by than I ever imagined.
Meditation Journal 5 May 2013
May 5
That thing being avoided, it’s not what I think it is. From a distance it warns me of all kinds of things as to its nature. It’s fronting. Go near with a tender heart and caring attitude and it will start to change. It might get worse in it’s extreme behaviour and intensity, but stay with it, in affectionate yet skeptical awareness, and that intensity can’t last long. The games and the fornting are soon revealed for what they are: layers of protection. Thought wrapped around emotion, round and round. Curiosity allows the connection to continue, the soft listening. The breath may go wild, panting, shallow, fast and ragged. Stay there, without force or expectation. The body may react in shaking, exquisite tensions, all sorts of things, but that’s part of the game: it’s all good. Ultimately, I discover I am it, or I am doing it. For me at least, this inquiry needs quietude, some time doing nothing, sitting still, time to breathe, to listen, to connect, to allow things to change as my reactions change, to see the subtler doings, where my approach is refined and the right awareness is forged in the fire of attention.
Cheriton Wood
Not far to the north west of where I live is the largest wood in the area, Cheriton Wood. It’s near the site of one of the famous battles in the (Un)Civil War. I think it was closed to the public for most of the time I’ve lived here but is now open under the CROW Act. Here are some images from walking through the woods, and just outside the trees.
Meditation Journal 2 May 2013
Vipassana Meditation May 2
Waking up early now, naturally at 5-something or 6-something, with the birds and the sun. To the stool or cushion I go. Trepedacious but welcoming the chance to… what… make friends with myself. It sounds corny as hell, but how can one be comfortable with life, and allow change, if one is antagonistic within?
Usually the first twenty minutes are breathing and allowing thought to catch up with things it wants to think about. There’s not much I can do about that. I’m not big on the whole ‘bring the awareness back to the breath’ stuff. Thoughts processing, clearing up a few things, running back and forward. Then the emotional side shows up, and this needs a slightly different kind of attention, the mind naturally quieting. A kind attention. An embrace. And then later, the deep sensations of the body begin to express. Today deep into the eye areas, and the gums and teeth. A different attention again, one of the body, with a steady, unjudging gaze of the mind, overseeing operations but without taking control.
This is becoming good fun, and very very good for me. So much so that I even want to continue come evening time for another hour.
Meditation Journal 23 April 2013
Breathing, breathing, thinking, thinking, thinking, thi… thought sees its own doing and is suddenly unwound and a purer presence is apparent, action in the moment unfolding rather than continuing on familiar lines. Sensation, sensation, sensation, sens… where has it gone, that pain which was so dominant moments ago? Waves of bliss, ecstasy, wellbeing, from the base of the spine to the top of the head, a sense of tingling lightness across the sides of the head, an expansion, openness. Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anx… it shifts and mutates as it is listened to, touched, let go of, without a purposeful letting go.
Deep rest early in the morning, beyond that which eight hours of sleep can touch.
The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips – Documentary
An excellent film, deservedly Webby-nominated, on the making of this modern classic, which happens to be one of my favourite albums. Interviews with the key personnel. I am always in favour of ditching the electric guitar and leaving some space…
Falling Awake 