Abandoned coal trucks

Part of the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site is the Big Pit National Coal Museum. This was a working coal mine from 1880 until 1980. In 1983 it opened as a a place that the public can visit in order to experience the industry that was pivotal to the industrial revolution and part of the life of all who lived in South Wales. The pit was closely connected to the Blaenavon iron works which is also open to the public. Visitors to Big Pit can go down the mine, explore the ancillary buildings of the site and see exciting audio visual displays. And they can also see some of the detritus associated with mining that was, presumably, left where it was when the pit closed; such as these mine trucks and bogeys.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Bracken and horizons

The ascent to the summit of Sugar Loaf takes the walker through an area of bracken with grass tracks criss-crossing it. On the day of our climb the unseasonal weather contrasted with the brown of the fading plants. However, it did make for great skies and successive, beautiful and subtly graduated horizons. I took this shot from about half way up and included my wife and grand-daughter for scale and as a point of interest.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Hanging on to summer

With wife, oldest son and oldest grandaughter I climbed Sugar Loaf in the last week of October. We set off in the morning carrying jackets and as we ascended our exertions made us remove the outer layer leaving single, summer-weight garments. However, once we had clambered up to the summit, looked around and taken some photographs we replaced our discarded layer and donned jackets to eat our lunch. What had looked and felt like summer soon changed to autumn chill as the wind struck. The photograph shows nothing of this. Only the brown of the bracken and the tints of the trees give away the season.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

River Avon and Pulteney Bridge, Bath

These days I'm very much an "incidental" photographer. What do I mean by that? Well, the OED defines it nicely, thus - "Occurring or liable to occur in fortuitous or subordinate conjunction with something else of which it forms no essential part; casual" In other words photography is secondary to the main purpose at the time. A visit to Bath involved us looking at some of the architecture that we last saw about forty five years ago. It also involved regular showers of rain and dark skies alongside sun, the latter being something that I particularly like in my images, and which prompted this shot of the River Avon and Pulteney Bridge.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

A wet street

Bridge Street, Crickhowell is an unexceptional narrow road. It winds down from near the centre of the small town to the longest stone bridge in Wales, a thirteen arched structure that spans the River Usk. As with many such narrow streets a majority of the buildings are colour-washed to reflect light in an attempt to brighten the rooms of the houses. On the day I photographed it a heavy shower had recently abated and the puddles and wet surfaces bounced even more light around, elevating this modest thoroughfare into something of greater visual interest.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Odeon Cinema, Weston-super-Mare

When the Odeon cinema was built in Weston-super-Mare in 1935 (architect T. Cecil Hewitt) it must have looked like the future had arrived. Its size, its Art Deco/Streamline aesthetic, its presence on the street corner, and the virtual absence of ornament, all marked it as different from most of the buildings being erected around that year. Only some of the blocky "Moderne" houses with their flat roofs, horizontal windows and glazing bars, and their stark white paint could compete. The Odeon still looks great today. The faience tiles in basket weave pattern have lasted well, as has the original windows and glazing and the lettering on the tower. The crowning glory (literally) is the tower with its twelve short columns and flat roof, the climax of a necessary vertical accent among all the horizontals.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Knightstone Island, Weston-super-Mare

Knightstone Island was originally connected to the mainland at Weston-super-Mare by a natural pebble ridge that was submerged at high tide. in 1824 the owner built a causeway above high tide and a low pier for boats. In subsequent decades successive owners built hotels, swimming baths, a theatre and other buildings on the island. The whole development struggled in the second half of the twentieth century. The main Pavilion closed and plans for leisure developments came to naught. However, in 2006-7 the whole island was redeveloped, old buildings were refurbished and many flats were built to complement the commercial properties. Today it is an asset to the town.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Birnbeck Pier, Weston-super-Mare

The sad sight seen in this photograph is the slowly collapsing Birnbeck Pier at the northern end of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. It was built in 1867 and is the only pier in Britain that links the mainland to an island. Unusually, it has a jetty that projects from the main pavilion that was used by ships bringing day visitors to the pier from towns along the Bristol Channel. The pier was initially popular but suffered steady decline over the years, despite successive attempts to revive it. It finally closed to the public in 1994. A lifeboat station used the pier for much of its life but this closed in 2015. The Grade 2 listed structure is, unsurprisingly, on Historic England's "Heritage at Risk" register.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Clevedon Pier, Somerset

One of Britain's most attractive piers, and the only protected by Grade 1 Listing, is Clevedon Pier on the Severn Estuary in Somerset. It was opened in 1869 as both a tourist attraction and a point at which ferries could tie up to take on rail passengers going to South Wales. It is 312m (1024 feet) long and has eight elegant, arched spans, the feature that distinguishes it from more utilitarian structures. The tidal range of the estuary is the second highest in the world (15m, 48 feet), and consequently a number of platforms are available to ensure ease of embarking and disembarking boat passengers.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Grand Pier, Weston-super-Mare

The piers of the British Isles give visitors a feeling of being at sea without leaving dry land. They also offer a range of seaside entertainments. However, their location makes them subject to damage by stormy seas, and their lightweight structure means they are susceptible to fire. Many have been lost and seriously truncated by such events. Weston-super-Mare's Grand Pier was opened in 1904. In 1930 the seaward end, including the pavilion, suffered a major fire. It was restored at a cost of £60,000. Rebuilding took three years. In 2008 the seaward pavilion was again destroyed by fire, and once again it had to be rebuilt, this time after only two years, but at a cost of £39 million.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Westward Ho

The village of Westward Ho! (including exclamation mark) near Bideford, Devon, was developed as a holiday destination in the 1860s. The developers took its name from Charles Kingsley's popular 1855 novel of that name which was set near Bideford. It subsequently became a popular name for a number of British sailing and powered boats. The small ferry in the foreground of this photograph was built in 1987 in Ardrossan, Scotland, and it was used on Cromarty Firth until 2010. In 2012 it was bought for use as a pleasure boat taking tourists from Weston-super-Mare (where it lies above) to the nearby islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm, and renamed, Westward Ho (no exclamation mark). Interestingly the deck of the ship can be modified to carry 10 tons of freight or a single vehicle. This feature makes it Britain's smallest car ferry.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Boats, Weston-super-Mare

The Bristol Channel at Weston-super-Mare is wide enough to feel like the sea rather than an estuary. This feeling is enhanced by the presence of two islands, piers, a fine promenade and a scattering of boats. The fact that the beach is very shallow and hence the water is distant at low tide means that most boats are small and the larger vessels are presumably in nearby marinas. This colourful trio caught my eye at both low and high tide but looked better, photographically speaking, without the sea.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Smearsett Scar

The "scar" landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales (called "Karst landscape" in wider geological circles) are much loved walking areas. The grey outcropping rock and the short grass studded with wild thyme, mountain pansy, bird's-foot trefoil, rock rose, scabious and more are a magnet for those who enjoy exploring the uplands. Many consider them unspoilt and natural, but in fact they are artificial, the product of sheep grazing, and missing the much wider range of plant and animal life they would support if not so heavily cropped. The relative paucity of bird life on a recent walk taking in Settle, Giggleswick, Feizor, Stainforth and Langcliffe reminded me of what I used to see by way of birds in these areas fifty and more years ago. The change is dramatic and tragic.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Ribble Valley near Stackhouse

One of my earliest memories is living in a house in the group of buildings largely hidden by the trees in the centre of this photograph. It is a hamlet called Stackhouse, a small collection of houses and a farm. We were recently on the limestone scars above Stackhouse and I took this photograph to remind me of what my infant self considered to be the whole world. The mountain on the horizon is Penyghent, one of Yorkshire's "Three Peaks", and the flat-top on the right is Fountains Fell, named after its one time owners, the monks of Fountains Abbey.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Eagle feathers...

...of a sort are common in many English churches. However, they are made of brass and come in the form of a lectern holding a bible that is in the shape of a brass eagle on a stand. These occasionally date from the medieval period, are sometimes seventeenth or eighteenth century, but most often are Victorian and feature a dedicatory inscription. Such lecterns are usually below and to one side of the chancel arch and make a fine focal point during a service when a passage is read from the bible held on the wings of the eagle. The feathers above are coloured by the reflected surroundings in Great Malvern Priory, Worcestershire.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Rosie and Jim

Rosie and Jim were, in the minds of most British children, two rag doll characters in a T.V. programme. They lived on a canal narrow boat called "Ragdoll" in Birmingham, and each episode centred on their travels. The first two series were written and introduced by John Cunliffe (author of "Postman Pat"). It's no accident that two of the canal boats belonging to an excursion company in Skipton have adopted the characters' names.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100