The Algarve (6): Castro Marim and Vila Real do Santo António

Two Very Different Small Towns in Portugal's South Eastern Corner

Portugal

Our annual October pilgrimage to Portugal generally produces a post, sometimes two. This year's contribution is about two small towns. The first is Castro Marim.

Castro Marim

Driving east along the A22 auto-estrada (autobahn/motorway/freeway), the Algarve and Portugal come to an end where the road crosses the River Guadiana into Spain. Taking the last exit before the bridge, Castro Marim is just a kilometre to the south.

In some ways it is a typical Portuguese small town/large village, looking, as they all do, much tidier and more prosperous than when we first visited in 1982. The houses lining the narrow streets are freshly painted and in good repair and the town has grown several new developments, including a large and convenient car park and a neat little football stadium that might be small but could accommodate the entire population.

The Algarve with Castro Marim & Vila Real do Santo António in the extreme south east
(map borrowed from Luz Info - the guide to Praia da Luz)

Little else about Castro Marim is ordinary. The river is two hundred metres away over land criss-crossed by water channels and the town is almost encircled by salt marshes, partly used for salt production and partly as a sanctuary for wetland birdlife.

Castro Marim Castle

The village is built on an area of firm ground surrounding a rocky outcrop and on top of the outcrop is as dark and forbidding a castle as you could hope to see. Approaching it along a side road the view was softened by the foreground bougainvillea, but still the black curtain wall seemed to block out the sky.

Approaching the curtain wall, Castro Marim Castle

The reconquest of southern Portugal from the Moors started with the Battle of Ourique in 1139 but didn't reach the Algarve until the 13th century. The Moorish fort at Castro Marim was taken in 1242 and the reconquest was completed in 1247. The walls we were approaching were built on the orders of King Afonso III (reigned 1248-79) partly to prevent the Moors from returning but also to deter encroachment by the Kingdom of Castile just across the river.

Lynne inside the castle, Castro Marim

Castro Marim and around from the Castle Battlements

We followed the walkway up to the castle gate, paid the small entrance fee and strolled round the battlements.

There are views over the town of Castro Marim which grew outside the castle after the 1755 earthquake...

Castro Marim from the castle

...across the salt pans and the Guadiana River to the Spanish town of Ayamonte...

Looking across the salt pans to the river and the Spanish town of Ayamonte on the far side

....and upstream to the modern bridge connecting the two countries.

The bridge connecting Spain and Portugal

Inner Castle, Castro Marim

Inside the walls is a smaller castle, almost a scale model of the larger fortification. This is either the original Moorish Castle that was taken in 1242 or the keep to Dom Afonso’s castle, depending on which source you read.

The inner castle, Castro Marim

As well as a clean and useful toilet, the inner castle contains a small museum which informed us that Castro Marim was an important strategic centre long before the Moors arrived. Archaeological remains suggest the area was occupied in Neolithic times. and  later a town grew up that traded with the Greeks, Phoenicians and Carthaginians. Then the Romans arrived and, under the name of Baesuris, Castro Marim became an important port and distribution centre for the whole of what is now south east Portugal.

During its years on the border between Christians and Moors the population dwindled, but after the reconquest the town regained some of its earlier importance. Castro Marim became the headquarters of the Order of Christ in the fourteenth century and Dom Infante Henrique (later known as Henry the Navigator) lived in the castle when he was governor of the Order.

The Fortress of São Sebastião, Castro Marim

But Castro Marim has not one but two rocky outcrops. Although the Moors had long gone, friction with Castile continued and in 1641 King João IV built the Fortress of São Sebastião on the second outcrop, linking it to the main castle.

The Fortress of São Sebastião, Castro Marim

The earthquake of 1755 destroyed the village within the walls and damaged the castle. Although the great days of castles were by then over, it was restored to stand brooding beside the new and peaceful town as a reminder of more troubled times.

Ironically, the great days of castles have returned, but as tourist attractions rather than fortifications. Castro Marim Castle is now a National Monument and it is maintained and looked after by the appropriate state agency.

On the battlements of the inner castle, Castro Marim

From the top of the castle the high rise hotels of the modern beach resort of Monte Gordo can be seen to the south, while the much lower buildings of Vila Real de Santo António crouch beside the mouth of the Guadiana.

Vila Real de Santo António

To reach Vila Real we drove three or four kilometres south along the modern road across the salt marsh.

The 1755 Earthquake and the Marquis de Pombal

Castro Marim was settled before written history began; Vila Real by contrast is a (relatively) new town. In 1755 an earthquake estimated to have been of magnitude 8.5 – 9.0 occurred beneath the Atlantic to the south of Portugal. The quake and tsunami that followed destroyed 80% of the buildings in Lisbon and killed between a quarter and a third of the city’s population. The Algarve, with its long exposed south facing coast, was hit hard; old buildings less substantial than Castro Marim's castle are very rare in the region.

Portugal was fortunate that the Marquis of Pombal (Secretary of the State of the Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves from 1750 to 1782 and de facto head of the government) was an energetic and capable administrator and a fully paid up member of the European Enlightenment.

The Marquis of Pombal in the square named after him in Lisbon (photo 2005)

Vila Real de Santo António is a creation of Pombal. A town was needed, he decided, by the mouth of the Guadiana to emphasise that this was Portuguese territory. It was not primarily a military installation, though soldiers were stationed here, but more a statement about the new civil Portugal he intended to raise from the ruins.

With the opportunity to build from scratch he set about producing an urban design to the highest standards of the age. Like Pombal’s restored areas of Lisbon, but unlike anywhere else in Portugal, Vila Real is built on a grid pattern with two main axes, one containing the church to show the might of God, the other with the barracks and government offices to show the might of the state.

We found a car park, not included on Pombal's original plans, and walked through the town to the riverside. The eighteenth century buildings which lined Pombal's streets have largely been replaced over the years, but some survive including the surprisingly exuberant barracks.

The former barracks, Vila Real do Santo António

Building for an age of pack animals, handcarts and the occasional horse drawn vehicle Pombal, unsurprisingly, failed to foresee the coming of the motor car. When we first visited in 1982, pedestrians and cars were struggling for supremacy. That struggle is now over and the town's central area has been pedestrianised allowing the tables of cafés and restaurants to colonise the streets.

Vila Real do Santo António

Riverside Vila Real de Santo António

Commercially Vila Real was a fishing port and grew wealthy on tuna and sardines; politically it was a frontier town, eyeballing the Spanish town of Ayamonte, two hundred metres away across the River Guadiana.

After negotiating a route through the street market setting up on the corniche, we reached the river beside the busy marina. With the fishing industry struggling and frontier towns being of little importance within the European Union, Vila Real makes its living from tourism, as represented by these boats, the playthings of, if not the rich, at least the comfortably off.

The marina, Vila Real do Santo António

In 1982 when there was no A22 and no bridge, ferries connected the two towns. Beyond the marina we were surprised to find the ferry port was still there and the boats still running. In 1982 we had travelled across to Ayamonte for no other reason than because we could. There was little going on there - we arrived in the middle of the afternoon and Spain, particularly in the south, closes down from 2pm to 5.

But of course people still want to cross the river. There are no car ferries now - it is a short drive up to the bridge - but there are still plenty of foot passengers, and many cyclists, mostly tourists. In 1982 we took our passports on the ferry and they were examined on both sides and the Portuguese (but not the Spanish) stamped us out and stamped us back in. Today there are no formalities, if you drive over the bridge the only indication that it is an international frontier is a sign saying ‘Bienvenido a España’- though you still have to remember to put you watch forward an hour.

The ferry to Ayamonte, Vila Real do Santo António

1982 was eight years after the Carnation Revolution had put an end to the right wing dictatorship of António Salazar and his protégé Marcello Caetano. In those heady days of new found freedom Portuguese politics wobbled from right to left before settling on the parliamentary democracy the country has now enjoyed for thirty five years. In those early years stencil portraits of Lenin, Mao, Trotsky and others could be found on walls all over the Algarve. I particularly remember the fine collection adorning the ferry terminal. They have all gone now, the terminal is a functional if rather dull building, free of stencils, posters and graffiti.

Ferry terminal, Vila Real do Santo António

The Spirit of the Carnation Revolution

I almost regret the change. Modern democracy is so often devoid of idealism and we are ruled by technocrats; we do not vote out a government because of the desire of a mass movement of people to change society, but in the (usually vain) hope that the new government will do much the same things*, only better. I was delighted, then, to see, just round the corner from the ferry terminal, this poster for the Portuguese Communist Party...

Communist party poster, Vila Real do Santo António

…and, a short walk away this picture.

Che, Vila Real do Santo António

I know they were there in the wake of the weekend’s election which, when the horse trading is over, will probably result in a continuation of the economic orthodoxy supposedly steering Portugal safely if painfully through its debt crisis, but at least they indicate that youthful idealism is not entirely dead. I applaud it, even while not entirely agreeing with it. It seemed appropriate in Vila Real, built by a man who had a dream of the future and a desire to improve the way people lived. The Marquis of Pombal, despite his relatively humble beginning, was a man of the establishment, not of the yet to be born left, but at least he built with a vision.

We paused at a café for a snack lunch - a cheese and ham toastie and a tiny (20cl) beer - within sight of the public baths, an original and innovative benefit to the public when it was built, though, of course, a benefit Roman citizens would have taken for granted fifteen hundred years earlier.

Public baths, Vila Real do Santo António

Pombal’s vision has not made it intact through 250 years; there have been changes he could not foresee or even imagine, and Vila Real do Santo António has had to reinvent itself, most recently as a tourist resort, but something of that vision still remains at the heart of this small but very pleasant riverside town.

*I wrote that in 2015, unaware of the imminent rise (though not in Portugal!) of the populist nationalists - know-nothing politicians with a sense of entitlement who pander to right wing bigotry. A warning to be very careful what you wish for.

Algarve Posts

1: The Algarve: Delights and Depredations(2010)
2: The Algarve: Random Delights (2012)
3: Mexilhoeira Grande and a Long Lost Cousin (2013)
4: The West Coast (2013)
5: Lagos (2014)
6: Castro Marim and Vila Real do Santo António (2015)
7: The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)
8: Mertola and Alcoutim: Strongholds by the Guadiana River (2017) - Also under Alentejo
9: Silves, Former Capital of the Algarve (2018)
10: Eating the Algarve (2022)
11: Drinking the Algarve (2022)

Codsall: Cowpat Walk No. 9

A Circular Walk Through South Staffs Horsiculture

Staffordshire

South
Staffordshire

Francis, Alison, Mike and I met at Codsall Wood for the first Cowpat Walk for over eighteen months. Now that Francis has retired – the last of us to do so - it should be easier to get together, though experience suggests the opposite is actually true!

Since November 2011, the Cowpat Walks have formed a rough circle of circles as the starting points have moved clockwise around Stafford – and if that sequence has not been strictly adhered to, who cares? At Codsall Wood we had pretty well gone all the way round

Getting ready to set off, Codsall Wood

Leaving Codsall Wood on the Monarch's Way

On a morning that was as warm as you want for walking and promising to keep dry - as good as it gets this summer - we parked beside the Crown Inn [renamed the Pendrell Arms sometime after July 2018] and set off in a northwesterly direction along the road beside the old wall of Chillington Park.

The old wall of the Chillington Estate

The road forms part of the Monarch’s Way, a long distance footpath following the meanderings of the future Charles II after his defeat in the Battle of Worcester. At this point Charles would have been fleeing north from the battle and would spend the next day hiding in the famous oak at Boscobel House.

Striding out of Codsall Wood

We passed an apple tree. The fruit looked a little small to me, but some of them had promising rosy touches. Francis plucked one and took a substantial bite. His look of pain said all we needed to know about their ripeness.

The road crosses the M54, with its noisy concrete surface, and runs beside a big wood which, according to the map, is called Big Wood – sometimes place names tell you all you need to know.

Lime Kiln Lane, Skirting the Chillington Estate

Reaching the northern edge of both Big Wood and the Chillington Estate, we turned right into Lime Kiln Lane, leaving the Monarch’s Way, but still following the boundary wall of the estate. Obviously the Lime Kiln is little used, as the lane was unpleasantly overgrown. On a walk with hardly a contour in sight Alison had little need of her walking poles for their traditional purpose, but now she went to the front, pole in hand, to bash down the nettles.

Alsion leads down Lime Kiln Lane

When not overgrown, the path was boggy but after a kilometre and a half we reached a minor road. I would like to say that we emerged unstung, but it is no criticism of Alison's efforts to say that was not entirely true.

Chillington Hall

After his unsuccessful attempt to cross the Severn at Madeley, Charles Stuart returned to Boscobel House and then headed south east to sanctuary at Moseley Old Hall. We followed part of this route past the front of Chillington Hall where we paused for coffee.

Behind us was the long Upper Avenue which turns right in the far distance and becomes the even longer Lower Avenue. In the avenue a group of Chillington Hall’s Long Horns sat chewing the cud in mindful meditation or staring blankly into space - it is not easy to tell with cows.

Cows practice mindfulness in Chillington Lower Avenue

On the other side was Chillington Hall, home of the Giffard family since Peter Giffard (pronounced with a soft 'g') bought the manor for 25 marks and a charger of metal in the early 12th century. Sir John Giffard replaced Peter’s stone castle with a manor house in the 16th century and in 1724 another Peter Giffard demolished the Tudor house and built the present structure. The following year he planted the avenues, incorporating many older trees.

Chillington Hall

The hall is currently the home of John Giffard, the 29th generation of Giffards to live there. Perhaps unusually for a man in his position he joined the police on leaving Southampton University in 1973. Working his way through the ranks he became Chief Constable of Staffordshire in 1996, retired in 2006 and now serves on the sort of worthy committees that retired Chief Constables usually serve on.

Chillington Street

We followed the Monarch’s Way down Chillington Street which,despite its name is a roughly surface lane, past some outstanding (or, if you prefer, twee) examples of English vernacular architecture.

A house in Chillington Street

The 'street' becomes a grassy lane from which we turned south across a couple of field paths while the Monarch’s Way continued east.

Chillington Street becomes a grassy lane

South to Codsall

By the time we reached the B road connecting Brewood with Codsall we had joined the Staffordshire Way, a 150km long footpath traversing the county from one end to the other. We walked it in 1997(ish) and again in 2005-6

We were on the road for 100m or so before heading towards a lane which reaches Codsall via the hamlet of Gunstone, a Norse name (Gunni's farmstead) although the boundary of the Danelaw was several miles north of here.

We re-crossed the M54, rounded Gunstone Hall, now a riding centre, and the pond beyond, much beloved of local fishermen.

Fishing Pool, Gunstone

The field paths beyond were well marked and Staffordshire County Council seems to have taken delivery of some new and distinctive signs - I wonder how many of these they had made.

The Stafforshire Way?

We reached Codsall at the church, once the centre of the village, now on the north west corner. Codsall is described as a large village, but along with Bilbrook - and to an amateur it is not easy to tell where Codsall ends and Bilbrook begins - it feels more like a small town. We walked down Church Street, across the square, which is now Codsall's focal point and down to the railway station.

Church Street, Codsall

Lunch at Codsall Railway Station

At the station a train to Shrewsbury was just arriving, but although the train had brought Alison in the morning and would take her away again later, it was not why we were there. Unusually, perhaps uniquely, the station buildings have been turned into a pub.

Train to Shrewsbury anyone?

A pint of Holden's Black Country Bitter was very welcome. These days, when a new microbrewery opens every other week, Holden's is an oddity; it has been a microbrewery since 1915, long before the word was coined. Although Codsall is in the rural hinterland beyond the true urban and industrial Black Country, I decided to combine the Black Country Bitter with the ultimate Black Country lunch. While the others had a sandwich, ploughman’s lunches or all-day breakfast, I had faggots and peas. The faggots from the local butcher were good, the peas were appropriately mushy, but the gravy was, disappointingly, a product of commercial gravy powder.

Lunch at Codsall Station

Francis Explains 'Horsiculture'

My legs had almost recovered from the morning’s nettle stings by the time we set off along the surfaced footpath opposite the pub/station to the affluent village of Oaken. Across the fields in this flat piece of country we could see the tower blocks, and industry, on the edge of Wolverhampton. 'We are just beyond the outer edge of the conurbation,' Francis remarked, and then as a girl on a large and expensive looking horse passed us, he added: 'between industry and agriculture is horsiculture.' (That’s not an exact quote, but it has the gist)

Towards Oaken

The Staffordshire Way continued south and we picked up the northbound Monarch’s Way through a patch of woodland.

I was walking through this wood when I turned round and found I was being followed by three very scary people

We missed the right turn that would take us down to the bridge over the railway - it should have been better signed on a major footpath. Realising what we had done we took the path across the land of Oaken Park farm -which confirmed the accuracy of Francis' 'horsiculture' remark.

Horsiculture, Oaken Park Farm

Crossing the railway by Husphins Bridge we headed for Husphins farm beyond. I have tried to discover the origin of this unusual name and learned a) that a lot of other people had done the same, and b) nobody knows where it came from, but 'it appeared in the 19th century'.

Mike and Alison approach Husphins Bridge

Husphins Bridge to Wood Hall Farm and Pendrell Hall

There was a simple farm track through the farm, but that was not the right of way and signing made it clear that we were expected to follow the official route. We were obviously unusually law-abiding as parts were so overgrown we may well have been the first to walk it this year. The tingling in my legs was back long before we reached the minor road.

Overgrown path round Husphins Farm

Passing some half completed barn conversions we took the path past Wood Hall Farm. The farm building dates from 1663, but the medieval moat - a scheduled ancient monument - was built to defend an earlier version of the building. The golf centre and paintballing business are presumably less venerable.

Wood Hall Farm with a medieval moat

The farm track/entrance to the golf centre brought us out on the minor road to Codsall Wood opposite Pendrell Hall which the map and Alison's memory suggest was a college of some sort (adult education?) but is now a 'country house wedding venue.'

From Pendrell Hall it was only a few hundred metres back to the cars.

It had been a short day as Cowpats go, and as flat a walk as can be imagined, but we have not done a great deal of walking recently so that was no bad thing. The sun failed to put in an appearance, though it had been warm enough, and more importantly, we had not seen any rain. Negotiations were opened for another Cowpat in the near future....watch this space.[The next, and probably final Cowpat, was a year later, almost to the day.]

Approx Distance: 15 km

The Cowpats
 

1 Ironbridge Gorge

2 Eccleshall and Cop Mere

3 Swynnerton to Whitmore

4 Biddulph, The Cloud and Rushton Spencer

5 Shutlingsloe and Danebridge

6 Crowdecote
7 Scaling the Mighty Weaver Hills

 8 Morridge and Onecote
9 Codsall
10 The Roaches and Lud's Church

Standing on the Sod: Abadan 2000, Part 3

This is the third and final of my 65th birthday posts. It follows directly on from

Part 1 Finding my Way Home

and

Part 2 Return of the Native

In the morning Hossein Afshar conducted a tour of Abadan, and there is no one who knows more about the city.

We crossed Breim, pausing briefly at his old house, and reached the northern shore of the island, passing the AIOC artisans’ dwellings. Built back from the coast they were denied the cooling breezes from the Gulf, but received the refinery fumes in compensation. Like the houses in Breim some were empty and decaying. A little further on the bridge to Khorramshahr was closed.  The surrounding area had grown up more recently and was little more than a shanty town with a tatty fly-blown market. We followed the coast westwards to a bridge under construction and then headed down the other side of Breim.

The part constructed bridge over the Karun from Abadan to Khorrmashahr

Here we would have seen the biggest and most imposing houses, but this area was within easy range of Iraqi artillery. During the Imposed War (or the Iran-Iraq War as we usually call it) the Iraqis invaded and occupied Khorramshahr, but never came onto Abadan Island, contenting themselves with lobbing shells across the Shatt-al-Arab. Most of the buildings still lay in ruins, the house of AIOC’s top man in Abadan, later a residence of the Shah, was a burnt-out shell.

Once the Abadan residence of the Shah

The road ended in a bank two metres high. Beyond was the river and beyond that Iraq, a land the authorities did not want us to see or even think about. Police stations and army posts were much in evidence and I had to take great care how I used my camera.

Damage from the Imposed War (The Iran-Iraq War), Abadan

Nearby, the Gymkhana Club was once the watering hole of the Abadan elite. During the 1951 riots much was made of the sign outside saying ‘No Dogs, No Iranians.’ ‘It never existed,’ Mr Afshar said. ‘It was invented for propaganda purposes.’ Despite its once well-stocked bar, the club looks like a village hall which should be somewhere else, but is held hostage in Abadan by a high fence and formidable iron gates.

The Gymkhana Club (with the refinery in the background) Abadan

The Church of England chapel had been destroyed long ago, though whether by neglect or malice was uncertain, and the gravestones in the expatriate graveyard were largely illegible. N hurriedly stopped me taking photographs as the church backed onto a police station and I was being watched by suspicious eyes.

The Site of the C of E chapel and the expatriate cemetery, Abadan

We left Breim and passed the refinery. Here the road came to the water's edge so the authorities could not prevent views of Iraq. Across the river was a green land fringed with palm trees, it hardly looked a threat to world security.

Planning their leave in 1951, my parents felt that their infant son should be gently acclimatised to the rigours of the north European climate. My mother and I left early, taking the slow route aboard the BP tanker ‘British Patriot’; my father flew out later. The jetty from which I embarked on the tanker is still there, if unused and unloved.

Probably the jetty from which I left Abadan in April 1951

The refinery bristled with ‘No Photographing’ signs and watchful guards, so I held my camera by my knees, raising it for an instant as we passed the jetty. Then we turned round and I did it again in case the first one missed. ‘Once more,’ I thought ‘and we’ll be arrested as spies.’ I did not dare photograph the refinery itself, once the biggest in the world but now running at only two thirds capacity.

As I had expected, the AIOC hospital was indeed opposite the AK Hotel although I had failed to notice it yesterday. At the entrance, despite Hossein Afshar’s eloquent pleading, the gatekeeper would not let us into the grounds and told me not to take photographs. I ignored him.

The Imam Khomeini Hospital, Abadan
Built on the site of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company nursing home

Once a company nursing home, it is has grown into a large modern hospital and is now named after Emam Khomenei. The Shah was indeed a despot and needing overthrowing, but Ayatollah Khomenei, who led the revolution, was an intolerant bigot. I look forward to the day, and it will surely come, when his name is no longer attached to my hospital.

Round the back of Abadan town Mr Afshar continued his commentary on the island’s development. He had been educated by the British and worked with them for many years and remained a (not-uncritical) anglophile.

Probably unaware of the ‘what have the Romans ever done for us’ sketch he described how the British had organised a piped water supply in Abadan years before Tehran had such a luxury, and built a reservoir of untreated water feeding a separate set of mains for irrigating the city’s parks and green spaces. The British built hospital had originally been British staffed but, he said, trained Iranian nurses who went on to work all over the country. The houses of Breim and Bawarda were British built (by Costains using bricks imported from Bahrain) so they did not fall down during the war - unless they took a direct hit - and Abadan had its own television station, the second in Iran (after Tehran, this time) long before there was a national network.

The British also provided Abadan with Iran’s first football pitch. Football has since become big, to say the least, and the rejoicing when Iran beat the USA in the 1998 World Cup Finals united the whole country. That original pitch now has a stadium round it, four neat little concrete grandstands that I estimated would seat some fifteen thousand spectators (update: the ground’s official capacity is now 25,000). Inside is the brightest, greenest grass in all of southern Iran. Sadly Sanat Naft, the Abadan team, were relegated from the top division of the national league last year and must spend next season in the second tier (update: they have been up and down several times since and are currently back in the second tier).

Sanat Naft Football stadium, Abadan

We continued to the distinctive buildings of the British built Abadan Technical Institute and then to the more recent Abadan Museum, which was closed.

Abadan Technical Institute

Disappointed, we left the museum and almost immediately arrived at the Taj cinema ...

The Taj Cinema, Abadan

...and the entrance to Bawarda.

In 1950 access was restricted to residents and, of course, their servants. We drove in unchallenged and after only fifty metres I saw the house. ‘There it is,’ I said confidently pointing to a building on our left. Mr Afshar instructed N to take the next right. As we passed I looked for a number; I saw a board with ‘SQ something’ on it, but the paint had peeled beyond legibility. We drove slowly round the block whilst Mr Afshar examined the numbers, but we saw no houses of the right design. After a complete circuit we were back to the house I had first identified and this time I saw, written on the plasterwork of the bay, the number 1495.

SQ 1495, Abadan in 1950

“That is it.” I said, this time with complete confidence.

“So it is,” said Mr Afshar. “You know I lived next door for three years, but that is 1553 so I always assumed this house was 1552 or 1554.” There was little he did not know about Abadan, but we had taught him something.

SQ 1495, Abadan in 2000 - with N's car in the drive

The residents of 1495 were away, but there were servants in the house; they were expecting us and invited us in.

Inside SQ 1495, Abadan

The bay contained a large living room, unfurnished except for a Persian carpet. I immediately recognised the fireplace and mantelpiece from old photographs but the picture hung above was purely Iranian. Behind the bay was the bathroom. “That must be the original bath.” Mr Afshar sounded quite excited,.“It’s got no mixer taps. It must be British.”

Servants quarters and the yard where Ali and 'Nanny' shared a hookah. (I suspect the air-con unit was not there in 1950)
SQ 1495, Abadan

Behind the bathroom was a kitchen or, more properly, a pantry because the real kitchen was in the servants’ quarters which were just across the courtyard. My mother had often spoken of ‘Ali and Nanny’ sitting in this courtyard in the evening, leaning against the wall sharing a hookah. My imagination had seen a larger courtyard – here, a tall man would hardly be able to stretch out his legs - but I mentally propped them over by the door, their hookah glowing brightly as dusk fell. The arrival of a child, particularly a boy, had discomforted this apparently contented childless couple. Much to his wife’s distress my birth prompted Ali to spend time in the bazaar trying to acquire a younger wife who could bear him boy children. Polygamy was not, and still is not, illegal in Iran though the practice has all but died out. Ali never carried through on his threat.

Ali in my parent's kitchen, Mian Kuh, He later moved to Abadan with them

There was a dining room opposite the bay and two bedrooms behind, but there was no furniture in the house other than three fridges, two of them in the back bedroom waiting to be unpacked.

There were several children, a youngish man and an older woman who were milling round smiling. The older woman produced glasses of iced cherry juice and we stood around, sipping and smiling lamely at each other. The cooling system was not switched on and the house was over-warm and smelled of damp. It was tatty and run down, inside and out. Mr Afshar apologised for the state of the building, he could not understand the lack of furniture and seemed a little embarrassed.

Lunch was offered, which is the Persian way, and declined on our behalf by Mr Afshar, which is also the Persian way - you must offer three times if you really mean it (and decline three times, if necessary). Hands were shaken and we went outside for more photographs. I have a photograph of my father and myself (in pram) standing by a eucalyptus tree on the front lawn; on the back my mother, tongue firmly in cheek, had captioned it ‘My baby, my Eucalyptus’.

My Baby, my eucalyptus

I tied to recreate it, standing, as close as I could the very sod on which my father stood. Not having the original to hand I stood a little too close to the tree - and it surely must be the same tree, there too many points of similarity for it not to be (though I have no idea how long a eucalyptus will live)..

His baby, his eucalyptus 50 years on.

Bawarda was designed by James Mollison Wilson as a garden suburb, a direct descendant of Hampstead by way of New Delhi where he had been an assistant to Lutyens. My first home was a house with no architectural parallel anywhere I know, in an Anglo-Indian style village tacked onto the end of an Arab town itself tacked on to a Persian country. No wonder I was confused about where I came from.

My father and me, September 1950, SQ 1495, Abadan

After what seemed only a few minutes it was time to move on. I wanted to linger but I could think of nothing to justify extending our stay; I could not just stand and stare at the house. As we drove away I turned in my seat, watched SQ 1495 slip into the distance and helplessly grasped at the sands of time as they slipped through my fingers.

The Williams family, SQ 1495, Abadan, September 1950
Cute, wasn't I? How times change.

I was sad to see so much decay and dereliction in both Bawarda and Breim. Bawarda was built to house both Iranian and European staff, but this innovative experiment in racial mixing failed, partly because Iranians did not want to live in Bawarda and partly because the Europeans did not want them there.

SQ 1495, Bawarda, Abadan, 2000
A last look

James Mollison Wilson had assumed that Iranians living in Bawarda would ‘desire British conventions of domestic life,’ and the houses were designed ‘along the lines of a European house with such modifications as climatic conditions impose.’ Northern Europeans live inside their houses; people in the much warmer Middle East tend to live in enclosed courtyards around their houses. Where Wilson went wrong was to build houses to live inside, and as the damp in SQ 1495 proved, he badly underestimated ‘the modifications that climatic differences impose.’ Building goes on apace across Abadan while houses in Breim and Bawarda remain empty, and no attempt has been made to repair the war-damaged dwellings. European style houses clearly fail to meet local needs.

We returned to our hotel via the centre of Abadan town which in contrast to Breim and Bawarda looked prosperous in an Arabic sort of way. A mosque and the Armenian Church were companionably semi-detached – a model that could usefully be followed elsewhere - and there were large well-maintained banks and shops selling heavy gold jewellery as well as the more usual stalls.

The centre of Abadan town

In the evening Mr Afshar took us for a brief tour of Khorramshahr . Saddam Hussein invaded Iran on the 22nd of September 1980 and Khorramshahr was in Iraqi hands by the end of the year. They swept on round the north of Abadan Island, but for reasons which are unclear they made no assault on Abadan and no attempt to cut the last bridge. Abadan remained in Iranian hands and connected to the mainland throughout the occupation. The Iraqis fought street by street to take Khorramshahr and in 1982 the Iranians regained it the same way. There was not a building that was not damaged or destroyed. I had been impressed by the smart new buildings as we drove through yesterday. Now I realised that had been the new section of town, the rest looked dishevelled with splatterings of bullet holes over the face of any building that was not new.

Fruit stall, Abadan town

Hossein Afshar might have once been the mayor of Khorramshahr but after so much enforced rebuilding he had difficulty finding his way around. After some circling we reach the corniche beside the Karun that was built when he was mayor.

On the far side was Abadan island and on its shore old ships had been brought to die. Rusting hulks by the dozen, launches, fishing boats, coasters were tied up by the jetties or hauled onto the land where they sat and rotted. If we looked right to where the Karun met the Shatt-al-Arab there was the coast of Iraq, its date palms green against the sky.

My father learned only just in time that if I was not registered with the British Consulate within three weeks of my birth I would automatically become an Iranian citizen and they would have difficulty taking me home. He hurried up from Abadan with Abed, his driver, and presented himself at the now long-vanished building. They gave him the birth certificate I still have, half a yard long and covered with enough official stamps to convince any observer that I was a subject of the British King George VI, not of Muhammad Reza Shah.

Abed, who was my father's driver for several years

I photographed Mr Afshar on the corniche pointing at the empty lot where the consulate had been. There this story ends, in the very same place that it officially started in September 1950.

Hossein Afshar and the former site of the British Consulate, Khorramshahr 

We took Mr Afshar back to the airport.

I had set out to find SQ 1495, or at least the site where it once stood. Thanks to BP-Amoco and the generosity of Hossein Afshar I had accomplished that and much more besides.

I had also wanted to find out something about my father who died during the initial planning. We had never found it easy to talk and in some ways I hardly knew him. I could not put into words exactly what I had learned, but it felt significant.

As we parked I tried to find the right words to bid farewell to Hossein Afshar, but as I searched my voice thickened and my final “thank you” sounded lame.

We shook hands. He turned and walked off towards the terminal.

Part 1 Finding my Way Home

Part 2 Return of the Native