River Avon, Tewkesbury

The subject of today's photograph is one that I have returned to on several occasions over the years. Here, here, and here are just three shots that illustrate my previous attempts to get the best from the riverside scene. For this one the cow parsley provided a different foreground, the narrow boats an interesting middleground, and the Abbey Mill the usual background. However, the sky didn't co-operate quite so well as it might have done.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

The Almonry, Evesham

The site of the Benedictine Evesham Abbey is in the town centre on high ground overlooking the River Severn. Within the abbey precincts are, oddly, the town's two medieval parish churches. Of the abbey itself the only substantial remnant is a sixteenth century bell tower. However, there are plentiful fragmentary structures of which one of the most interesting is the Almonry. This domestic building of stone and timber-framing dates from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries and today is a small museum with a very eclectic collection of exhibits. It was formerly the residence of the abbey's almoner, an official charged with the distribution of alms to the poor. The photograph was taken in the Almonry's enclosed garden.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Stacked chairs

A trend of several decades seems to have accelerated in recent years, at least it has if my experience is anything like typical. I refer to the movement to replace heavy, dark wood Victorian pews with modern, lightweight, often stackable, chairs. Where this happens shiny stainless steel and light coloured laminated wood seem to be favoured - a strong contrast with what is being ejected, and something that brightens the interior of the building. One can see the reason for the change, not least the ability to use the main space within the church for other purposes. And, of course, the modern chairs are usually kinder to the posteriors of those sitting on them.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Weather vane

Weather vanes are objects where the designer often indulges his or her whims and fancies and frequently these relate to the location in which the vane is sited. The example in the photograph above is more elaborate than many and was designed to mark the location of an antiques business in a redundant church in Ross on Wye. It may well have replaced an almost mandatory (for churches) vane featuring a cockerel. The designer achieved the aim of making the weather vane noticeable and relevant by featuring a Dickensian connoisseur viewing the antiques through his lorgnette.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Anthemion

When I was being taught about the history of art and architecture I learnt to to distinguish anthemion and palmette ornament on the basis that the former was derived from the honeysuckle flower and the latter from palm leaves. Today, it seems, that distinction no longer applies and the two types of Egyptian, classical and renaissance ornament are grouped as variations of a single form. That is an unusual trend: usually finer classifications prevail over a reduction in types. The anthemion design in today's photograph is part of the cast iron railings that formed part of the perimeter of Gloucester Docks and is presumably of the late Georgian or, more likely, Victorian period.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucester

Llanthony Secunda Priory was established in Gloucester in 1136 as a safer offshoot of Llanthony Priory in the Black Mountains of Monmouthshire, a location that was subject to attack during border wars and skirmishes. Nothing remains of Gloucester's priory church or cloisters. Parts of the walls, barns, gatehouse and other domestic buildings can be seen and have recently been subject to restoration and interpretation. The photograph shows a long medieval range of stone and timber-framed construction. Adjoining it is a farmhouse, rebuilt in c.1855-60 by P.C. Hardwick, that gives scant acknowledgement to its venerable neighbour.The whole setting is now an open parkland area near Gloucester Quays and Docks, in which the size of the buildings is somewhat lost. My wife obliged by adding some scale to the scene.

Woodland track

Currently the woodland track that crosses Coppett Hill, above Goodrich in Herefordshire, is bordered with bluebells. At least that is the case in the areas where the trees are well-spaced and sufficient light has penetrated to the grass below. In these parts it has something of the character of heathland with the occasional hawthorn so heavily laden with blossom it almost looks like there has been a recent snowfall. I grew up in the Yorkshire Dales where "bluebell woods" were known and celebrated. In the part of the Marches where I now reside bluebells are more widespread and even give areas of open grassland a blue hue, as was the case a couple of weeks ago when we ascended May Hill in Gloucestershire.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Windows, louvres and shadows

Louvres have proliferated on modern buildings as architects have wrestled with the problem of solar gain. In the eighteenth century the louvres were in the form of shutters that closed across the outside of a window. Today they can be fixed in place with movable vanes. Other designs are immovable and only have an effect when the sun is at a particular angle. In some buildings the louvres become the main decorative element as well as having a functional role. The photograph shows the louvres on part of Gloucestershire College in Gloucester. They are fixed above the windows and project outwards. throwing shade across the window as the sun moves across the face of the building. In bright sunlight the shadows enliven the relatively plain facade.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

The Montpellier Caryatids

Montpellier Walk in Cheltenham is noted for the Caryatid figures that separate each shop from its neighbour along the street. A sign mounted on a building by the Cheltenham Civic Society explains how they came to be. "In 1843 some terracotta "Armless Ladies" modelled by the London sculptor Rossi were incorporated in the new bowed entrance to Montpellier Walk. Their design was loosely based on statues on the Acropolis in Athens. Between 1843 and the 1850s additional Caryatids were carved by W.G. Brown of Tivoli and added to the shops which replaced the avenue of trees in Montpellier Walk."

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Raglan Castle

Raglan Castle is one of the last medieval castles to have been built in England and Wales. Most of what can be seen dates from the mid to late 1400s and mid 1500s, including the state apartments, garderobe tower, gatehouse and closet tower seen in the photograph. The castle was built on the site of a smaller castle/fortified house. The large building whose remains we see today was the work of William Herbert (d.1469). Later owners in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries turned it into a Renaissance palace with extensive gardens, lakes, fountains and other landscaping features. The seventeenth century owners' loyalty to Charles 1 proved the building's undoing because after its capture the Parliamentary forces under Thomas Fairfax "slighted it" i.e. destroyed enough of it to render it unusable. The photograph I took in May proved less satisfactory than this image from July 2018.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

View through coffee shop window

The view from the coffee shop window was unremarkable - vehicles, passing people, and a few market stalls, with the stone-built historic buildings the most interesting things on offer. The view through the window was another matter due to the sheet of dots that had been laid over the lower half to give the coffee drinkers a modicum of privacy. These dots, that decreased in size the higher they went up the glass, gave every object seen through them a pixelated-cum-Pointillist-cum-newspaper print flavour that kept me amused for quite some time.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Rhododendron or azalea?

I've never been sure how to distinguish a rhododendron flower from an azalea. Consequently, when I brought up this photograph of a bloom taken in the park at Great Malvern I didn't know how to caption it. A quick internet search soon put me right: "On average, rhododendrons are larger shrubs than azalea plants, and they have larger leaves. Also, azalea flowers usually have five stamens, while the rhododendron flowers have ten. ... Finally, unlike rhododendrons, many azalea plants are deciduous." A quick count of the stamens shows this is almost certainly a rhododendron.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Usk Bridge, Abergavenny

The seven-arched bridge over the River Usk at Abergavenny is of medieval origin and has the the benefit of protection afforded by Listed status. The downstream arches and piers featured in the photograph date from the 1400s. On the upstream side a tramroad bridge of 1811 and further roadway and parapets of c.1868 were amalgamated with the old structure to make a bigger bridge.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Pointing

The Malvern Hills are made of a variety of igneous and metamorphic rock including some of the oldest in Britain dating from the pre-Cambrian period. As building stone it isn't the best, but it is durable and it is colourful. In the town of Great Malvern local stone is widely used in rubble walls where the irregular shape and size of each piece is often accentuated by pointing of contrasting colours. On a recent shopping trip there I photographed this section of a newly built wall that had been treated to raised pointing. This isn't my favourite style of pointing, but with the multicoloured stone it certainly caught my eye.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100