Eye Wear

I hadn't been to get my eyes tested for a couple of years and in the interim the opticians have acquired new gadgets. I've always liked going to the opticians- it's like a visit to the amusement arcades of my youth. "So just look down the eye piece and focus on the hot air balloon."

My long distance vision is virtually unchanged but for the first time in my life I need reading glasses.

I like my glasses to have a touch of Elton John about them- but the only frames in bright primary colours were in the children's section. I settled on a pair from the women's section in muted pink and another from the men's section in muted blue and brown. The assistant in shocking pink specs clearly hadn't bought her frames from her employer...

Haysden Country Park

As you swing past Tonbridge on the A21 the road crosses a wooded, watery area by way of a long viaduct which has a notice at the top end of it which says "weak bridge"- (It turns out that the weak bridge isn't the viaduct but a lesser bridge that crosses the railway a little further on but the casual motorist isn't to know) and I've often wondered about it.

Yesterday I learned its name. It's called Haysden Country Park. We went there yesterday on a whim after the appointment at the opticians. It looks rather different at ground level. There are woods, watermeadows, running water, standing water, a well-appointed play area and a café that serves very good food- including home=made ice lollies; the grandkids would love it.

The water is provided by the river Medway. In the 1830s there was an attempt to straighten the river's course between Tonbridge and Penshurst by putting in a canal. When this failed the engineer- a Mr Christie- remembered a pressing engagement in America, leaving behind the scars of excavation and a large empty lock built of huge stones that may or may not have been nicked out of Tonbridge Castle. Later the area was mined for sand and gravel.

The sand and gravel people moved out in 1980 and the Haysden Valley- or whatever it was called back then- was left as a post industrial mess. A major road went over it, a river and railway went through it. There was a weir on the river with a pool where people bathed and boated and fished; they called it Tonbridge Lido and it was in danger of collapse.

Someone decided this just wasn't good enough.

There was a plan, there was landscaping, paths were put in, trees planted, the gravel pits became lakes...




Barden Lake, Haysden Country Park, Tonbridge

(The information in this post mostly comes from a leaflet picked up on site.)