The Star and Garter Home

What for over fifty years I had believed to be the biggest war memorial I had ever seen, the Star and Garter Home for ex-servicemen (and recently women, too), stands four-square in vast neo-classic monumentality dominating the top of Richmond Hill, against the gates of the royal park, over- looking the whole Thames Valley. The Surrey Hills and Windsor Great Park are on the horizon, the bend of the Thames and Eel Pie Island (once the Mecca of Edwardian houseboats) lie below, the Home Park and Hampton Court in middle-distance – the 'Home Counties' indeed.