IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Strand School Approach, LONDON, W4 3RN

The post office is at 54 Thames Road, the first of a row of shops, but the road just behind us is Strand-on-the-Green, like the suburb name. There has been a post office hereabouts since 1 August 1876, apart from a closure between November 1900 and July 1908.

In Thames Road, one block in from the river.

What I like about Strand on the Green is that it so obviously dates from the days before the motor car, and it's still not making any concessions: front doors here are accessible only from the narrow path along the river bank. Even that can get a bit overgrown, as seen in this shot. The white-painted house is Compass House, a grade-2 listed building dating from about 1800. At ground level there is an array of black-painted cast-iron columns, supporting the entrance porch, one floor up - very curious.

Historic Thames-side pub which gets its name from The Lord Mayor of London visiting here by barge.

As seen from the City Barge.

Strand on the Green is a narrow picturesque walkway on the river, running east from Kew Bridge, with varied vintage houses and pubs along its length.

Seen from the muddy Thames foreshore, at low tide. This house catches the eye because of its shutters, painted in the Dutch manner with a split-diamond design. As with a few other houses along Strand on the Green, the gable, too, is in the Dutch style, with convex and concave curves. The shutter decoration is often to be seen in Holland, on older buildings - but the colours are almost always red and white - so why, I wonder, did the owners of this house choose blue ? To see how close the river can come to the Dutch House at high tide see: Image

The riverfront at Strand-on-the-Green consists of a footpath running along the bank of the River Thames. It is overlooked by fine 18th-century houses and a collection of riverside pubs, and as it is on the tideway is regularly flooded by the river, especially when high tide combines with heavy flow from upriver as here in November 2012. The entrance of all the properties is raised above the path so that the view of the river is not spoiled. This is one of the passageways leading from Thames Road to the riverside footpath. The flooded river was literally on the other side of Tunnel Cottage.

Seen across the river from Kew. The diamond pattern painted on the shutters of the Dutch House is very much in the Dutch tradition. I notice that since I was here last year, shutters and door have been repainted using a darker shade of blue http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2352960 On this occasion the tide was out. For an impression of the scene at high water see http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2318379

Strand on the Green is a narrow picturesque walkway on the River Thames, running east from Kew Bridge, with varied vintage houses and pubs along its length.