IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Westron Gardens, TRING, HP23 5NA

A view down a snow-covered Mortimer Hill in Tring. The railings on the right are around the gardens of the sheltered homes of Westron Gardens.

This quite large (c. 1.56ha / 3.85acre) Recreation Ground is on the northwestern side of Mortimer Hill, sandwiched between the allotments of Westron Gardens and Tring School. Compare with Image] taken in rather warmer weather 12 years earlier.

Houses line both sides of Mortimer Hill in Tring, but this plot of land opposite Nursery Gardens has not been developed and a stand of silver birches has taken advantage of the resulting space. The white blob above the trees is the moon. If you look carefully amidst the branches you can find a bird and a leaping squirrel, though you may need to look at the bigger version (More sizes).

Thomas Gardens, and the smaller, newer, King Edward Gardens a little further south-west down Mortimer Hill, are so recent that neither yet appear on any online maps [as at December 2017] They are built on the site of several former houses and their gardens, which were purchased, demolished, and the land built on by Shanly Homes in 2016/2017. I believe Thomas Gardens is named after a former headmaster of the nearby Tring School, whereas King Edward Gardens are named after King Edward II (reigned 1307-1327) who was king when Tring gained its charter in 1315 (see https://www.geograph.org.uk/snippet/13624 )

This recreation ground, popular with weekend football players, is sandwiched between allotments (to the left) and Tring School (to the right). Cf. Image] taken over 12 years later - in somewhat less sunny weather.

This may well be considered too much like a home snap to be included on the site - but it's intended to show the considerable fall of snow that we had in Tring on the night of 28th October 2008 - very early for such a fall. Some snow also fell in London, this was the first time it had snowed in the Capital in October since 1934. The cat behind the snowbear is real and revelling in the chance of being camouflaged at last !

The wall mounted temperature gauge in our garden doubled as a snow-depth gauge for a number of days during the December chill of 2010. The snow depth peeked at between 5" & 6" (12-15 cm). As can be seen, the temperature when the photo was taken was about -3ºC, but a few days earlier the overnight minimum measured by my little electronic weather station was a far chillier -12.3ºC while nearby Chesham recorded -18ºC the same night apparently.

A misty morning resulted in all the cobwebs in the garden being picked out with tiny drops of dew along each strand of the web.

Feathery formations of ice crystals on a garden mirror. The temperature over the last few days has rarely crept above freezing and has been as low as -12°C Note that the parallel lines are the result of the reflection in the mirror.