Gardening is an exceedingly British pastime. Yet so many of the perennials that populate our gardens have exotic origins, sourced in the past 300 years by plant hunters who scoured the globe for treasures to bring back to our shores.
Where to live when children come along is one of the biggest decisions facing young couples. A safe local area is all important and equally vital is access to good schools.
Romford’s Catholic priest, Father Colomb, was sent to Greymouth on the South Island, where he drowned crossing a river in 1871.
After an Army career, Colonel Benjamin Branfill retired into poverty. His pension was small, his Upminster Hall estate yielded little income and he’d split from his “expensive and worldly” wife.
In 1880, he too took refuge in Nelson, choosing a place called Brook Street (perhaps it reminded him of home), where he started to build a replica of Upminster Hall.
An amateur painter, he supported himself giving art classes. In 2013, the Nelson Mail published an article – it’s online – about Branfill’s self-portrait of himself at the easel.