The Holy Grail in stained glass

In the early twentieth century the story of the Holy Grail became a subject for church stained glass. It usually features the Mallory telling of the tale in which Sir Galahad is the finder. This example can be seen in St Giles, Goodrich, Herefordshire. It is a commemmorative window made in 1928 by the stained glass artist Archibald John Davies (1877-1953). Davies studied at the Birmingham Municipal Central School of Art, set up his studio in Moseley c.1900 and moved to the premises of the Bromsgrove Guild in 1906. Here his work shows the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement. The glass in the panels at the top of this window (out of shot) show nearby Goodrich Castle and the River Wye.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

The Malvern Hills toposcope

Go to any notable viewpoint and you're quite likely to find a toposcope. You may know it by a different name: perhaps topograph or orientation table. Whatever you call it the device will probably be circular, show the points of the compass (or just North), and will have pointers and labels for nearby visible features (hills, rivers, settlements, buildings etc). Sometimes, much less helpfully, it will show the direction of towns and cities over the horizon or even in a different country or continent. Today's photograph shows the toposcope at the summit of the Malvern Hills (Worcestershire Beacon), and the view to the west, across Herefordshire, to the county's high point and  boundary with Wales at the Black Mountain.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

The branch in the pond

In time every tree branch that falls into water loses all its leaves and bark. Where the branch is below the water it goes dark with the water-logging. The part of the branch that remains above the water tends to become weatherd and bleached. This branch has followed that path. The reflection that produces a line of symmetry at the water level appealed to me. However, on the pond bank and through my viewfinder I only appreciated it in three dimensions. When I got it up on my computer screen the form in two dimensions jumped out at - it's a fish swimming left to right. You can even see its mouth!

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Christmas baubles past and present

When I was young I particularly liked Christmas tree baubles of the type shown in today's photograph - a ball with a deep indentation. I suppose they seemed to offer more than a plain sphere, looking as they do, somewhat like a model of the earth with a glimpse of the hot core. In those days baubles were made of glass but today safer plastic is favoured. However, the example shown is glass, one of several indented baubles we bought several decades ago. Every few years one of them is dropped and it breaks and eventually we will have none left. But until that time I'll enjoy how they look and how they are a tangible reminder of festive seasons past. Merry Christmas!

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

Scullers on foggy River Wye

Ross on Wye has a rowing club that holds an annual rowing regatta. From my casual observations the club is enjoyed by both competitive and recreational scullers, and sculls of varying size can be regularly seen on the river. This couple's dress and their leisurely motion suggested they were engaged in recreational sculling and the warmer clothing was appropriate for a foggy morning (though the fog was beginning to lift even as a I fired off a few shots.)

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Ledbury superstore at dusk

Recently, as we were walking back to the car in Ledbury when the light of the day was being replaced by darkness, I began to wonder. Is the period between the setting of the sun and the time when the sky has no remaining light from the sun properly called "dusk" or "twilight"? A quick search through the OED revealed that the words are almost synonyms, with dusk cited as "the darker stage of twilight", and being used only in connection with evening whereas twilight can also refer to the morning. So, which word is most appropriate to describe the scene above? The title of the post shows my preference.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Bird photography backgrounds

How does the background of today's bird photograph fit with the idea of two basic backgrounds that I mentioned in the previous post? Well, it does show the habitat of the moorhen, though not very well: water is only a part of what a moorhen needs. However, I haven't posted this photograph because it is an exemplar of that style, but because it is a discomforting, almost semi-abstract, example of that genre. It's the sort of shot I can't not take!

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Pied wagtail and backgrounds

There are, it seems to me, two classic bird photograph backgrounds. One shows the habitat of the bird in the image while the other deeply blurs the background to focus the viewer's attention solely on the bird. Both approaches have their advantages but the second is the easiest to achieve by far. I photographed this pied wagtail as it searched the outdoor cafe area, where we were sitting, for crumbs. In the shot it is perched at the corner of a wooden table and beyond is paving.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Mandarin drakes under the branches

The mandarin duck is a perching duck, closely related to the wood duck or Carolina duck. It is an introduced bird in Britain but one that has become an established breeding species to the extent that there are as many or more than in most of the eastern asiatic countries in which it is indigenous. In the Forest of Dean they are common, particularly at Cannop Ponds where the tree-surrounded pools offer an ideal habitat. These birds were enjoying the shelter of the bankside trees. Through the viewfinder the muted colours of the water and branches next to the strong colours of the drakes reminded me of the  compositions of some Japanese art.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Old pub advertisement

The Queen's Arms at Newhall Street, Birmingham, is a pub designed by the architect, Joseph D. Ward, who worked for the brewers, Mitchells & Butler. It dates from c.1870 and has been extensively modernised twice, the first occasion being in 1901 and the second in the late C20. The tiled advertisement on the corner of the pub must date from the 1901 remodelling and has suvived remarkably intact. It employs a cassical egg and dart border (awkwardly broken by the name at the top, a cartouche with gold medal awards from the C19 and a style of lettering frequently seen at the turn of the century.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Forward Together

I like the idea of public sculpture better than the reality. Why? Because really good public sculpture, it seems to me, is quite hard to find. So much of it offers too little in the way of interest or challenge, or is gimmicky, or weathers in a way that changes its essence. So, when I come across a piece that I appreciate I'm both surprised and pleased. A recent example is "Forward Together", a piece by Luke Perry in Victoria Square, Birmingham. It is a representation of people literally pulling together on a chain to achieve a goal. The figures seem to be made of CNC-cut metal and based on high contrast photographs. It is, I'm sure, a sculpture that will repay several visits.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Looking up in Ludlow

The Shropshire town of Ludlow has many interesting old buildings with a cluster of them visible in this photograph taken from Broad Street near its junction with the High Street. From left to right they are: The Butter Cross, a classical-style market hall of c.1746; No.1 King Street, a plain, brick-built late Georgian (c.1829), former house, now with a ground floor shop inserted; the tall and imposing C15 crossing tower of St Laurence, the parish church of the town; and Bodenhams, an ornate, timber-framed shop and dwelling of c1462.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Look up to see the past

On 5th January 2006 I published an early blog post entitled, "The best is often over our heads". The theme of the piece was that the original architecture of commercial buildings has often been replaced by cheap, plain, fashionable work and that if we wish to see the best of what remains we must look at the upper storeys. I was reminded of this when looking at the timber-framed upper storeys of the Boots shop in Ledbury. The ground floor is C20 corporate in style with the late 1500s work exposed above (the sash windows excepted: these are C18 or C19). But, I now ask myself, is this what was on show in 1600? It could well have been covered in stucco quite soon after construction and the woodwork revealed centuries later. Many Herefordshire buildings have timber framing hidden under later modernisation. Incidentally, these upper storeys can be seen in this photograph of the High Street

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Hollins memorial, St Paul in the Square, Birmingham

The Georgian church of St Paul in Birmingham is located in the city's last remaining eighteenth century square. It has a number of interesting features but on our visit to the building what caught my eye was a stained glass window flanked by a portrait bust on one side and carving in the splay of the other side. The dedications are to the architect-sculptor, William Hollins (d.1843), his wife Catherine (d.1831), and their children. These are decorated with beautifully carved vines and is the work of William Hollins' sculptor son, Peter. I don't recall ever having seen carved memorials in window splays before. The way the light caught the carving was very appealing.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

The Cathedral of the Forest

The village church of All Saints at Newland, Gloucestershire, is known as "The Cathedral of the Forest." It was given this name due to it being one of the biggest and most ornate churches to be found in the Forest of Dean. Construction began just before 1216. Much of the main structure dates from the C13 and C14.

The most notable work of the C15 is the pierced tower parapet and the ornate pinnacles. The photographs also show a preaching cross. Its base of five steps was rebuilt in 1864. It was presumably at this time that the column and cross were added. The sun dial on the exterior was donated by villagers to mark the millennium.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

High Street and The Homend, Ledbury

Ledbury's town centre main street has two names, the High Street and The Homend, the change coming at Bye Street, a side street by the clock tower across from the Market House. High Street is one of the two most common road names in England (the other being Church Street). However, The Homend is the only such named street that I can find, though the name is used by a cottage in the nearby Herefordshire village of Stretton Grandison. The Victoria County History says this about the probable derivation: "The name of The Homend is first recorded in 1288 derived from an Old English word 'hamm'  or 'hom' probably meaning ‘land hemmed in by water or marsh’, or perhaps ‘river meadow’. Interestingly, the other end of the High Street connects with a road called The Southend.

 The first photograph shows the Market House and part of the north side of the High Street. The second shows the Market House and The Homend.

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

The Shell Store, Hereford

During WW1 the government built around 240 "national factories" for the manufacture of munitions, of which about 20 were engaged in the filling of, mainly, artillery shells. One of the latter was at Rotherwas on the outskirts of Hereford where a very large building engaged in this work was called the "Shell Store". These buildings were, understandably, built very quickly.

The Shell Store took only four months. At the end of the war most munitions factories were closed. Rotherwas was one that was retained, and with the onset of WW2 it once again filled shells and bombs. In the years following the war these buildings were either demolished or used for light industry. The Shell Store lasted longer than most but eventually became derelict.

Recently it has been the subject of a major renovation costing over £7 million and is now ready to undertake its role as an incubator site for small businesses. We went to see it recently and got these photographs of the exterior.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Zip wire - no hands

The Forest of Dean has two commercial "adventure" climbing sites for children and adults. After having been clipped on to a wire so that falling becomes impossible, people can traverse various kinds of pathways through the tops of coniferous trees. The experience ends with a zip wire ride that takes the participants back to ground level. Some of the most intrepid undertake the ride using no hands. On the day we were there I had my small Sony camera, not the one I'd have chosen for this subject. However, it acquitted itself quite well, helped in no small measure by the complementary colours of the rider and the background of trees.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Plastic Pavilion, Forest of Dean

"Plastic Pavilion" is the name of one of the new exhibits that have been added to the Sculpture Trail in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. It is, to quote the official description by the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust, "an undulating, 16-square metre canopy made of 1,600 recycled plastic bottles. Filled with coloured water, the bottles glisten in the sunlight and sway in the breeze. Inspired by stained glass windows, the multi-coloured mosaic transforms public space into a serene oasis, encouraging people to slow down and enjoy a sensory experience." The artist is Seyi Adelekun, who says of her work: "My installation takes a lot of inspiration from the natural world, so it is an amazing opportunity to be part of this commission. I am so excited to install Plastic Pavilion in the mystical Forest of Dean this summer. I find a lot of solace being in nature, so I hope it provides people with a space for mindfulness underneath the floating cosmic eye."

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

Walking disused railway lines

Disused railway lines can be found across much of Britain. The rise of the motor car led to fewer people using the railways and the politicians' answer to the problem of funding lightly used lines was to axe them. Many became cycle paths and footpaths. They were a welcome addition to the web of public rights of way, although they do have one disadvantage. Because they are straight or gently curved to accommodate trains, and have no sudden change of altitude or direction, they can be visually quite boring. Today's photograph shows dog walkers on a disused line near Ross on Wye, Herefordshire. This track stops where it used to cross the River Wye on a bridge (which is now gone): another drawback of disused railway lines.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

View from the Devil's Pulpit

The village of Tintern stands on the west(Welsh) bank of the River Wye where it cuts through a narrow valley. A bridge built for the now disused railway line takes a footpath across the river to the east (English) side where it begins its steep climb up to a limestone outcrop that holds a viewpoint called the Devil's Pulpit. From this vantage point Tintern with its ruins of a Cistercian abbey, made famous by a poem by William Wordsworth, can be clearly seen. Legend has it that the Devil used this place from which to taunt the monks below.

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

Sylvan Great Malvern

The Worcestershire spa town of Great Malvern expanded greatly in the nineteenth century to accommodate both visitors who came to "take the waters" and well-to-do people who wanted to live a genteel life on the tree clad slopes of the Malvern Hills. Today there are Victorian houses and hotels in abundance in the town, often with large, tree and shrub filled gardens that give the town a sylvan character. I spotted the tops of these buildings among the trees as we looked up the hillside. The mixture of evergreens and deciduous trees is quite typical of the area and means that greenery in profusion is still on show in the winter months.

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

Lime and beech trees

Two of the most colourful native trees in an English autumn are the lime and the beech. Of the two, I would say that the lime is the most reliable, always changing its summer green for bright autmn yellow. Beech, to my mind, is somewhat less dependable in terms of depth of colour. But, in a good year its oranges and yellows outshines the lime by quite a margin. This year seems to have been a good one for the beech and this pairing of both lime and beech shows both trees off to great effect.

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

Autumn rivulet, Llanfoist

Is a water course as small as the one shown in this photograph eligible for the name "stream" or should it be called something different? I tend to think of streams as a something more substantial than this, often being features that attract specific names. Perhaps this is a rivulet, a rill, a runnel or even a streamlet. It flows down from the Blorenge at Llanfoist, near Abergavenny in Wales. The Ordnance Survey 1:25000 doesn't give it a name but it may be called something in the locality. It was running briskly when I photographed it, catching the plentiful autumn leaves dropping on it from overhanging trees.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Cherry tree leaves

One of the houses we have lived in had several cherry trees. Most were ornamental species and if they did produce cherries they were mostly small fruit. One tree sometimes had larger cherries to the delight of the local blackbirds. However, what all of them did produce in abundance was colourful autumn leaves. The depth of the autumn colour reflected the weather of the growing season, but more often than not they had leaves of a brightness rivalled only by the acers. Walking through the park in Great Malvern recently we came across a cherry tree with deep red, orange and yellow leaves, probably as bright as they ever get.

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

Shadows and reflections

November is the first of the months in which I relish the low sun and longer shadows. All through that month, December, January and February these two factors go some way to mitigating the darkness of the winter period. Recently, walking past a small industrial estate in Abergavenny, I noticed a car standing in a large puddle, the result of recent heavy rain. The deep morning shadows from nearby buildings accentuated the sunlit side of the car and the puddle doubled the effect. This combined with the sheen of the metal and the red of the light made a semi-abstract composition that immediately appealed to me.

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

View from Raglan Castle

After a walk around Abergavenny we stopped off at Raglan Castle on our drive home. The afternoon was one of blue skies, fast moving white clouds, and a temperature somewhat lower than recently. The remains of the castle are quite substantial (see photographs below and here) and include a spiral staircase up to what must have been something approximating the highest point of the building As we stood looking north-west at the summits of The Blorenge, Sugar Loaf and The Skirrid we could see the patches of light and the clouds' shadows moving across the fields. I took my photograph more in hope than expectation of capturing this effect and I'm quite pleased with the result.

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

Fireworks display

 "Remember, remember, the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot". Thus begins the old rhyme, and remember it we certainly do at the annual Bonfire Night. Every 5th November fires are lit across the country, fireworks blaze in abundance, and people (well some) recall the attempt in 1605 by Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators to blow up the House of Lords and kill all within. Quite a few bonfires still feature a figure or effigy of Guy Fawkes but this aspect of the celebration seems to be declining. Large, spectacular fireworks displays, however, are becoming ever more popular. The photographs above are a composite of a few I took at a fine display in Ross on Wye, Herefordshire.

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

More autumn acers

Gardeners generally call the Acer genus of trees and shrubs by their Latin name: to the layman they are more often "maples". The distribution of the 132 species extends across Asia, Europe, North Africa and North America. Only one species is found in the southern hemisphere.

 In the UK the most common Acer or maple is a the sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), a tree that foresters often describe as a weed species. However, such is the popularity of the ornamental acers they can be found growing in the wild having escaped the confines of gardens and country estates. The examples in this post were photographed at Westonbirt National Arboretum in Gloucestershire.

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

Late October view of Goodrich

Coppett Hill is an area of common land above the Herefordshire village of Goodrich. It is owned and managed by a Trust of local people that bought the land in 1985. On a recent walk we looked down from near the summit (201m, 659 feet) at the rabbit-cropped grass, over the autumn-brown bracken to the houses and church below and then across the south Herefordshire countryside. The ploughed fields, pastures and the fast-appearing winter wheat framed by green, brown and yellow hedges and trees told the story the advancing season, as did the showers and intermittent sun that dogged our brief walk.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Shovel Bugs

As part of the celebration of thirty five years of the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail several new exhibits have been added to the walk. We came across these "Shovel Bugs" on a slightly damp family trek through the trees. They are the work of Atelier LandArt and are made of re-purposed garden hand trowels. The bright red colour of the fifty metal creatures caught our eye as they scuttled up the tree trunks.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Autumn acers

The Acer family of trees are renowned for their colours in spring and autumn. Consequently they have been the subject of breeding programs that have sought to extend and deepen the range of colours that they can produce and also broaden the shape and size of their leaves. The three photographs today were taken at Westonbirt, the National Arboretum near Tetbury, Gloucestershire, that has a fine collection of these trees.

 

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

Teasels

The dried heads of teasels (Dipsacus) have always fascinated me ever since I learned the origin of their name. It derives from the Old English "taesel" meaning to "tease". That isn't tease in the sense of "to poke fun". Here the derivation is from "to tease" meaning "to separate or pull apart". The dried, autumnal heads with their spikes and hooks were used in the textile industry to raise the nap on woollen cloth to make it feel softer and warmer.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Late September view from the Malverns

To my mind autumn advances quite slowly in England. It is a period that we think of as embracing the months of September, October and November. However, early September is usually indistinguishable from summer and even late September can appear and feel very summer-like. This view of Ockeridge Farm and beyond, taken on the 27th, from near British Camp, an Iron Age hill fort on the Malvern Hills, shows trees that have only slight autumn tinges, and can only be placed later in September by the extent of ploughed fields.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Broad Street, Hereford: a different view

Many towns in Britain have a street called Broad Street, a road that is noticeably wider than others in the location. Frequently they were used as the site of a weekly market and for that purpose they were closed to through traffic. I can find no evidence of such a use for Broad Street, Hereford. However, it does seem to have been used in the nineteenth century as the site of cattle sales. This is the second photograph I have posted of the street. The first can be seen here. Today's is taken from near the other end. I liked the contrast between the overcast October day after rain with the bright and sunny April day of earlier in the year.

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

Reflections, Centenary Square, Birmingham

Plaza water fountains, also called pavement fountains - a grid of individual fountains that rise, fall and stop altogether - have become something of a cliche in cities across the world. There are multiple examples in Britain such as this one in Peterborough and this one near King's Cross, London. We recently came across a further example in Birmingham in Centenary Square. Unlike others, when this one stopped a large area remained covered in a shallow film of water. I don't know whether this was intentional or not but it certainly provided good reflections of passers-by.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Queen Victoria and cranes

The cranes in my photograph of the statue of Queen Victoria are, to use a phrase of the computer age, "a feature not a bug". That is to say, I deliberately included them and they were not unavoidable. Why include them? Because the centre of Birmingham was something of a building site when we visited the city, and this photograph reminds me of that fact. Appropriately enough this statue can be found in Victoria Square overlooking buildings old, new and still emerging. It dates from 1901 and is the work of Thomas Brock. Or rather it doesn't and is - sort of! The statue was originally of white marble and was recast in bronze in 1951 by William Bloye.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Witley Court fountains and conservatory

The Perseus and Andromeda fountain at Witley has been restored to working order. However, the original water pressure system has been replaced by a modern mechanism and during opening hours it comes to life every hour on the hour.

The east front of the house has formal gardens and a further fountain that is unfortunately no longer working. It is also based on a classical story, in this instance Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers and spring.

One of the finest pieces of architecture at Witley is the remains of the conservatory. It is Quattrocento Italian in style, with rounded arches and delicate, slender columns.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Witley Court

A first glance at Witley Court, Worcestershire, gives the impression of a massive mid-Victorian country house. A second look reveals the absence of roofs, windows and areas of stonework. A closer examination of the remaining shell shows evidence of seventeenth century, eighteenth century and Regency remains. Until a great fire wrought havoc at Witley Court in 1937 the house was a grand building whose nineteenth century owner, Lord Ward (created Earl of Dudley in 1860) lavished enormous amounts of money. Now it is an interesting ruin in the care of English Heritage who have undertaken sensitive restorations, including bringing the Perseus and Andromeda fountain back to life every hour on the hour.

The first photograph shows the main south front of the house with the restored fountain in full flow. The second image shows the east front. The clock tower that can be seen above the south front belongs to a splendid Baroque church immediately next to the house, that was relatively untouched by the fire.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300