Mud in Belgravia

The sign on the lamppost says Diplomatic cars only. Parked beneath it is a Series III on a 1979 plate, windscreen folded flat, paint worn through along the bonnet edges where hands have leaned for decades. Nobody moves it on.

Belgrave Square is embassy country — stucco terraces, flag poles, the quietest parking in London. For one morning it belonged to Land Rovers, ranked nose-in against the garden railings like they were queueing for feed. Defenders in chequer-plate and black. A 90 wearing a snorkel and a roof tent, equipment about as useful in SW1 as a harpoon. A plate that read, simply, AH06 MUD.

The row covered seventy years. There were Series I trucks with cream canvas tilts, a pastel-green 110 with its spare on the tailgate, and a green Series with Santana Trophy 2025, No. 24 on its door. It was built under licence in Linares, when Spain needed farm machinery more than cars. Beside the roundel was a sticker: #LaGranAventura.

Series II and III trucks against the garden fence, drivers staying close.

None was clean. Gateposts and low branches had reshaped the aluminium panels. Several wore the flat green of old military service.

The Linares connection: Santana Trophy No. 24, spare on the bonnet, driver waiting.

The people were harder to categorise than the trucks. Gilets and gardening jackets, a chocolate labrador, a dachshund inspecting wheel arches, a boy on someone's shoulders for a better view. The vehicles were built when roadside repair was expected rather than exceptional.

Going home. A Series I holds the middle of the convoy at its own pace.

They went the way they came, a white 90 pickup leading the convoy out past the embassies, roof tents and rally plates dissolving back into ordinary traffic. The square returned to Range Rovers and diplomatic plates.

The Series III with the folded windscreen left last.