Time for more postcodes.

PE13 and SW4.

PE is Peterborough, one I know well – I’ve lived in several different Peterborough postcodes. Peterborough itself is fairly interesting, but it’s not in PE13 so you will have to wait for details of two queens, ten saints and the aircraft factory.

Back in PE13 you might be forgiven for gasping at the sheer emptiness of it. The Fens are basically a lot of flatness topped off by a huge sky.  I lived in PE15 once so I know this from first hand experience. PE13 does a good job of looking like it’s in the middle of nowhere, but actually it’s it’s just close to the edge of nowhere.

The interesting fact isn’t that I used to rear chickens in Parson Drove, or that I nearly hit a wall one night when driving with youthful stupidity, it is that Parson Drove was the site of the last woad mill in England – it closed in 1910. The last commercial crop of woad was grown in Lincolnshire in 1932. We did look at growing it when we were on the farm but, though it’s easy enough to grow, it’s hard work to extract the dye and nobody was interested in using it.

There are other interesting facts but I like woad because of its links to the body paint of the ancient Britons.

SW4 is in London – Clapham, to be precise. I know nothing about London. I’ve visited a few times but much of my knowledge is based on watching TV or blog posts of Derrick Knight. According to Wikipedia a Roman Road runs through it, which is always interesting, and Samual Pepys lived there for a couple of years. As he had his horse stolen in Parson Drove, which he called a “heathen place”, in 1663, this forms a neat link to put the two places together.

I promise this was coincidence – this is the actual order in which we listed the parcels.