Hertfordshire Archives - Kidding Herself

Lavender’s blue at Hitchin Lavender Farm, Hertfordshire

Outdoor activities are hard to predict in any country. In Russia, you may think you are going to get a guaranteed couple of months of minus 15 and tons of snow, and then find that it’s March and you still haven’t had suitable climatic conditions for a proper go at outdoor skating. Or that it’s barely mid November and the snow drifts are up to your hips before the leaves have finished turning yellow, scuppering the last opportunity for walks in the countryside to inhale the delightfully dank smell of rotting leaves and hunt the wily mushroom entirely.

In the UK, of course, the problem is usually rain. Certainly was this last year gone, wasn’t it? Says Mama who abandoned the (typical) heat of a Moscow summer to spend July in a jumper in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Although she’ll admit it picked up a bit there at the end. Briefly.

So we were lucky that the day we went to Hitchin Lavender Farm was actually very pleasant. I believe we may have made do with a light cardigan or something.

Now, I’ll be honest, I was expecting the fields of lavender to be a tad more extensive than one admittedly quite large one round the back of the outbuildings, which just goes to show that you can take the girl out of Russia…

But this almost certainly means that it is a more suitable small person rambling space that the average country walk Mama takes us on if she has half a chance. Especially as instead of expecting me, the city girl, to glory in the variety of trees, grass, the occasional bird sighting and fifteen different varieties of nettle, at Hitchin Lavender Farm you get to wield scissors in earnest in order to cut enough of the smelly blue sticks to fill a few bags to take home with you.

Although I found that a bit difficult, unfortunately. My fingers as yet are insufficiently muscly. As a result Mama and the Grandparents’ determination to stop every few paces and gather more, just a bit more, and yes, a bit more sweetie pie, got a bit old rather quickly. You’ve sniffed one lavender bush, you’ve sniffed them all in my opinion.

Except that this is not true, says an excited Mama, for whom finding out anything new is always a pleasure. Must be her age, because I, personally, was much more jaded about the realisaiton that while the lavender on this side was pretty, the lavender on that side was much more fragrant. You can also imagine her delight in the discovery that photographed from this angle, the boring but stinky flowers looked a rather dull grey, but from the other side of the field the purple highlights showed up much better. It’s lovely to see Mama’s little face light up. Big up to one of Hitchin Lavender Farm’s workers for pointing that out to us.

There is white lavender too!!! Exclamation marks definitely Mama’s.

The adults also enjoyed looking at the view from the top of the field, and admiring the red poppies mixed in with the blue.

I really think they need to get out more.

But Mama brought out the sandwiches at this point so the day improved significantly for me, and Grandad revealed he had coffee, so Mama was also thrilled. Again.

My Twitchy Big Brother liked chasing the swifts (or possibly swallows) who swooped obliging round the giant tent at the bottom of the hill.

And, grudgingly, I am prepared to admit that the fact that Hitchin Lavender Farm has HORSES is also pretty cool, especially as they were very happy to let me stroke their noses!

And yet more small girl pleasing experiences were to come in the shape of the play area next to the cafe, which didn’t just have climbing equipment outside, but also model farm buildings, animals and toy transport items to buzz around under cover. There was lavender flavoured shortbread too. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Says everyone.

All in all, Hitchin Lavender Farm is not a day out, more of an afternoon. And it’s only open in the summer months, and the lavender doesn’t come into full flower until mid June. Which means you should make haste to visit when it is open! Because if you fancy a lunching spot with a difference near Stevenage in July, this will definitely do it for you, even if you are dodging rain showers.

More information

The farm’s website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about ideas for a small herb garden.

Address: Cadwell Farm, Ickleford, Hitchin, Hertfordshire, SG5 3UA

Opening: Hitchin Lavender Farm is closed from the beginning of September until the beginning of June. Opening hours are 10am to 5pm. The flowering season begins in mid June.

Admission: Adult 5GBP, Kids 1GBP, under 5s free. Picking rights included in the price.

Getting there: You’ll need a car for this one. It’s not far off the A1M. Detailed instructions on the website.

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Stevenage Museum, Hertfordshire: why small is beautiful and Dickens was wrong.

‘The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwellings with the largest of window-shutters to shut up nothing as if it were the Mint or the Bank of England.’

– Charles Dickens on Stevenage.

Mama, who grew up in the town, is quite capable of taking the piss out of Stevenage with the best of them. It is, after all, a new town, built to relieve the pressure on the slums and bombsites of London after the second world war and designed with all the architectural and aesthetic principles the 50s and 60s could muster .

It is also the forerunner of Milton Keynes. Yes that’s right, Milton Keynes is what they built while applying the lessons learnt from their previous efforts in Stevenage. Milton Keynes is, in fact, an improvement on Stevenage. Says Mama (see what I mean?).

Stevenage Museum has a fairly large section devoted to the new town aspect. However, Stevenage also:

was settled even in prehistoric times
hosted a Roman villa yielding 2000 silver coins in an archaeological dig on a new building site a few years back. Must have made the property developers happy
takes its name from an Anglo Saxon phrase meaning ‘strong oak’
was raided by the Vikings
got itself mentioned in the Domesday Book
constructed a 12^th Century church
endured the excitement of trying to farm Hertfordshire’s awful clay soil throughout the medieval period and sending most of it off to the main local landowner, Westminster Abbey
was decimated by the Great Plague
built a 16^th century grammar school founded by a monk
which is now haunted (not by the monk)
acquired an occupied coffin and alternative tourist attraction in the rafters of a local house
went through a boom period when road travel really took off as one of the first major staging posts on the route up north out of London
saw Dick Turpin, who worked the area, escape through a secret passage in one of its pubs
died down a bit with the coming of the railways
was dissed by Pepys and Dickens
survived the world wars
produced the odd writer, formula one star, a French resistance leader, two films, a heavy metal band, the last person every to be accused of witchcraft in Britain, a brace of footballers of varying levels of fame, a handful of contestants in programmes such as the Voice, twin brother poachers, and at least one actor
is currently a relatively popular place for major companies to park their headquarters, being with easy reach of the capital and cheap
one of the first representatives of which was the Vincent motor cycle factory
is also (for much the same reasons) the first stop for any journalists wanting to report on likely chavy behaviour in the provinces. The Black Friday riots reporting? Was filmed in Stevenage’s Tesco.

Stevenage is a great town, in fact, for exemplifying in a largely undramatic way how history affects ordinary people. There are even six mysterious mounds in the centre which, as tradition demands in such cases, everybody thinks are plague pits, but actually aren’t. It really doesn’t get any more representative than that.

And Stevenage Museum does not miss the opportunity to showcase the full extent of this. It’s emphatically not a museum which just glorifies Stevenage’s award winning cycle paths.

Although perhaps there should be more about these given that Stevenage is responsible for proving that it doesn’t matter how good your bike infrastructure is, the same small number of people will still cycle to work and the rest will take the car (no really. There are studies).

Actually, Mama thinks that if they wanted more people to cycle they shouldn’t have made Stevenage so easy to drive around. As long as you like roundabouts. You can do 40 mph right through the centre, round the edges and then all the way back again along arterial roads! Mama, who always drives in Stevenage immediately after having had to slog across the middle of London by car, really appreciates this sort of thing. And the ample reasonably priced parking.

Ahem. Where were we?

Stevenage Museum also understands that the people who will be most interested in what it has to say are those living in the town and to keep them coming back you need to offer a wealth of different activities so you can never feel that you have definitively ‘done’ it.

Back when Mama was a girl (a looooooooong long time ago), this was mostly achieved via a vast and ever changing number of paper scavenger trails. Stevenage Museum still has these, but they have also added an extensive and very varied selection of extra button pushing and other interactive opportunities sprinkled around the exhibits in addition. We certainly didn’t have time for half of these in one visit.

Of the ones we partook of, my Fantastic Big Brother particularly enjoyed the multi-part audio recordings of a modern day Stevenage boy who travels back in time and meets an equally ordinary child from the past. A particularly nice touch was how each episode involved things from the display cases nearby.

Mama, on the other hand, was thrilled to find a board where you can weigh up the arguments for and against building a New Town.

I preferred the full-sized 1950s play kitchen.

And we all agreed the hats you could try on from each era were beyond cool.

All in all, Stevenage Museum is probably not somewhere you will ever make a trip to specially unless you are enjoying a stay in Stevenage or the surrounding area and have some time to kill. Although when Mama found out about their excellent and very reasonable birthday party deals, with four different historical themes to choose from and food included, she did briefly consider hiring transportation and shipping all our little friends out there this year.

But if you are in the area permanently and you haven’t been then it’s high time you went, and I recommend you put it on your list of regular wet weather afternoon hangouts to boot.

More information

Stevenage Museum’s website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about concrete.

Address: St George’s Way, Stevenage, Herts, SG1 1XX

Opening: Wednesday to Friday 10am – 4.30pm. Saturdays 10am – 5pm

Admission: Free.

By car: Stevenage is bang on the A1M, which is convenient for London (40 minutes to the outskirts). There is extensive parking in the town centre car parks, especially the multi-story carpark on the other side of the road. Use one of Stevenage’s iconic underpasses to reach the museum.

By bus: The SB6 is the route that gets the closest to the museum, but all buses will stop at the bus station, which is on the other side of the first totally pedestrianised town centre in the UK to the museum, about a ten minute walk away.

Getting to Stevenage by bus is now much harder than previously, after the cancellation of the 797 service from London.

By train: The train station is likewise on the other side of the town centre. There are regular trains out of Kings Cross and the fast ones take about half an hour.

By plane: Stevenage is excellently served by both Luton and Stanstead airports, both within 30 miles. Heathrow is 45 miles and a trip round the M25 away.

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Paradise Wildlife Park, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire

Has Mama mentioned that my Brilliant Big Brother is quite keen on animals? She has? Then it should surprise nobody that when Mama discovered an opportunity to visit somewhere for FREE (Mama does like the free) with a promotion, she chose a zoo. Paradise Wildlife Park, specifically. That was quite some time ago now but this winter we went again voluntarily and paid our own money (well, Mama and Papa’s money) to get in. And we even took friends.

It’s an interesting name, ‘Paradise Wildlife Park’. It suggests a certain… commercial approach to zookeeping. And Mama did experience grave misgivings when as we first went in we were greeted by the ‘put a pound in this ride… and this one…. and that one…. and look, there are five more over here too’ area. Mama wondered if she was going to have to pay extra for everything and be fobbed off with orange dyed, stripily painted pet cats in lieu of your actual tigers. Although I don’t know what’s wrong with that. Cats! Woohoo!

In fact, nearly everything else, and there is a lot else, is included in the entrance price. And the animals are, Mama thinks, a very carefully chosen mix between, small and manageable, large and impressive, familiar crowd-pleasers and the full on exotic. What a relief it must be to be released from the terms of your latest scientific grant meaning you don’t need to try to convince the punters that forty-two species of slugs hiding in the leafmold are interesting.

My Brilliant Big Brother really liked ALL THE ANIMALS. Especially the snakes, the small monkeys and the sloths. The adults preferred the big cats, especially the oddly white tigers and lions. Mama was also thrilled to find the roosting, perpetually squeaking bats were extremely unnerving, even as she resisted the temptation to clutch at her hair. I actually refused to go into that room. Luckily they have obligingly cute chipmunks in the vestibule outside.

Me? I liked the stairs. There are stairs because there are a lot of viewing platforms and walkways that take you right over where the animals are hanging out. This is fabulous, especially for someone my height.

I also loved the ostriches, the goats, the sheep the pigs and the PONIES!!! This was because an advantage of the evils of capitalism approach is that Paradise Wildlife Park lets you feed some of the animals. Cabbage, mostly, which I don’t like, to Mama’s everlasting relief. There are signs telling Mama which animals you can throw bits of limp veggies at, and it definitely increases you chances of getting up close to those animals! The goats will eat from your hands!

Mind you, some visitors got to feed the tigers. This was very exciting. The remote but thrilling possibility that someone might get their fingers bitten off! Plus, the tiger stretched up really high, right on his hind legs. Coooooooooooooooool.

No, said the keeper, obviously used to deflecting the concerns of the British public that they are training wild animals circus style.

The reason you get your tigers to do this is so that you can check out their nails, take a bit of blood, examine their belly and so on. Without having to dope them so you can get close enough and not get your arm bitten off. It’s a deadly serious and really quite dull bit of exotic captive animal care. Honestly.

But enough about the animals! Paradise Wildlife Park also has a (free) bouncy castle! To be honest, it was hard to concentrate on the animals once I had seen that, and we had to take a jump break about half way round the zoo part because us smallest people kept going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about it.

In addition, as we found out during our mild weather first visit, there is an extensive outdoor playground sporting a variety of slides with (yes!) more steps to climb to get to them. And an actual fire engine! And an actual steam engine!! Both of which you can scramble all over to your heart’s content. Papa had been so softened up by the quality of what had come before that he put a whole 20p in a slot and the steam engine roared and whistled and puffed for hours.

There was also a pirate ship, and an assault course, and some go carts to pedal around, and a (pay for) miniature railway, and a (pay for) crazy golf course as well as a large full on (free) soft play area/ café that much to our excitement we got to spend a good hour in at the end of our second visit because it was so jolly cold outside that day and the Mamas needed some hot refreshment. Coffee, possibly.

Mama reckons the zoo really works as either a good or not so good weather venue. In fact, given that there are distinct signs that the place may be rammed to overflowing in summer, Mama rather thinks off-peak is the time to go. It’s not that they stop the live feeding shows or anything. Although we always seem to miss them anyway.

More! In the colder months it’s just chilly enough that the lions might not be lolling around asleep in the sun for the duration of your visit. Even the gibbons put on a swinging display for us, which almost never happens.

There are plenty of places for humans to eat, both for those who have taken a packed lunch and for those who wish to buy something on site, hot or cold. For sheer coolness value, Mama recommends the snack bar overlooking the tiger enclosure.

And finally, they play you music in the toilets. Result!

Anyway. The Paradise Wildlife Park really is a full day out and was thoroughly enjoyed twice by a family who are quite the connoisseurs of wildlife experiences. If it was just a tiny bit closer to where we live, Mama would seriously consider getting us all year round passes. Which given that they would be between £250 and £300 for us is a serious recommendation.

Disclaimer: We first went to Paradise Wildlife Centre for free as part of a moneysupermarket days out discount promotion, but our subsequent visit was all our own decision as are our opinions.

More Information

Paradise Wildlife Park’s website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about Glad Day – the Life and Works of William Blake.

Address: White Stubbs Lane, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, EN10 7QA.

Opening: 9.30am to 5pm (winter) and 6pm (summer).

Admission: There are high, mid and low season prices which range from £19 – £17 for adults and £16 – £14 for kids. It’s always significantly cheaper to book in advance online, especially in the off season (£10 apiece for adults and kids in winter). Mama also recommends googling for any money off vouchers that might be available too.

By train: The park operates a minibus service from Broxbourne Station. £1 per person for the over 2s.

By car: There is ample free car parking. also, nice clear signposting and it’s only a short ride A10 from that big M25 road we seem to spend our lives whizzing around. There’s also a cross country route from the A1.