Nærøyfjord, Norway

In 2016 I visited part of the World Heritage site of Geirangerfjord in Norway. In June 2018 I managed to visit the other half of the WH site, Nærøyfjord. To get to it, we took the railway from our hotel in Voss to Myrdal, and there we transferred to the Flam Railway. This took us down to the fjord. This is one of the steepest descents in the world and this adhesion type railway on normal tracks is the steepest in the world. It descends 863 m. Myrdal is at 865 m and Flam at 2 m. Consequently the line goes round and round. It is 20 km in distance and has 20 tunnels totally 6 km. The maximum gradient is 55%, 1 : 18. It takes one hour. The railway criss-crosses the river. In this photo taken from the train window, 2 levels of tunnels can be seen -

It is one of the world’s most scenic rides with high mountains, rivers cutting through deep ravines and waterfalls cascade down from snowcapped mountains. At the really impressive Kjos waterfall, 93 m free fall. The train stops to allow passengers to get off for photos. A girl was dancing and singing high up by the fall. 

The line ends at Flam, 

Flam is the start of the Aurlandsfjord - 

We then took a cruise along this fjord, to Gudvangen. 

It is the second arm of the fjord that is the Nærøyfjord. These are small branches of the main Sognefjord. The Sognefjord is the longest and deepest in Norway and is 204 km long and more than 1300 m deep, with the mountains rising to 1700 m. The Naeroyfjord  is UNESCO World Heritage – it comes under the West Norwegian Fjords along with Geirangerfjord which I did in 2016. Naeroyfjord is the narrowest of the fjord arms with very steep mountains. 

The Naeroyfjord area is famed for the anorthosite rock and there is just one quarry, no more are allowed under WH. All the mountains are white anorthosite, although of course the outside has weathered to dark colours. Anorthosite is igneous and contains aluminum oxide though it is too expensive to extract.

St Antholin's Spire, Forest Hill

I've been using Forest Hill library for many years, but it was only this year that I found out about the nearby St Antholin's Spire. This is a church spire without the church!

The original St Antholin's Church was located in Budge Row in the City of London. After it was destoyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, the church was rebuilt on designs by Sir Christopher Wren. It had an octagonal stone spire.

In 1829 the upper part of the spire was replaced. The removed portion, including the dragon's head weather vane, was sold for £5 to Robert Harrild. Harrild was a printer and erected the spire on his property, Round Hill House, where is still remains, surrounded by modern houses.

The spire is Grade II listed by Historic England but its future is unknown.

This Cedar of Lebanon tree is very close to the spire, and once stood in the garden of Harild's grand manor house. The houses later became the Sydenham and Forest Hill Social Club, then was demolished in the 1960s when the townhouses were built.

St. Antholin's Church was demolished in 1874. See Wikipedia entry.

Read more about the spire on Forest Hill Society.

UPDATE 2019 :

The NewsShopper 19 Nov 2019 reported that the spire will be restored.