Summer sun at the seaside

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I was recently on the promenade at Weymouth, Dorset, wondering whether there was ever a time in my life when I was happy to sit on a beach in the summer sun. Back came the answer, pretty quickly, "No". For most of my life the coast, as I prefer to call it, has been a place for walking, thinking, talking, looking and photographing. That's not to say that I haven't spent time on the beach as one part or another of a family group, where being there together was the intention and the reason itself. As I took this photograph on a sunny June day I had to recognise that most of the people there seemed to be enjoying sunning themselves and partaking of the traditional seaside activities. Which just goes to show that, as they say, "It takes all sorts".

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Hand in Hand fire insurance plaque

In the late C17, after the Great Fire of London of 1666, insurance companies were set up to provide fire protection for building owners. For an annual premium the companies made available their own fire service of men and machines to deal with fires at their insured buildings. In the early 1700s the companies began to mark their buildings with a "fire mark" or "fire plaque". These were made of thin copper plate, tinned iron sheet, or cast iron. The plaques made insured buildings more readily identifiable to the fire brigades and were a form of advertising. The Hand in Hand company was an early company founded in London in 1696. It was very successful, securing clients across the country. In 1905 it was incorporated in the Commercial Union Group. The plaque shown above is on an eighteenth century building in Monmouth.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Berberis thunbergii

In our garden are two Berberis (Barberry) shrubs that came with the property when we bought it. They represent the two main types of this plant i.e. Berberis darwinii and Berberis thunbergii. Given a choice we would not have had them in the garden. But, they are there, are well established, and look fine. Given that, you might wonder what our objection is to the plants. Well, both need an annual trim to keep them manageable and to promote flowering. And both of them feature wicked prickles (see two in the photograph above) that make this, and the disposal of their clippings, a very unpleasant task.

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

Red Crane, Portland Bill, Dorset

Red Crane is a hoist on a disused stone loading quay on Portland Bill, Dorset. The quay was used to serve the nearby Bill Quarries. This was active in the nineteenth century and the last loads of stone were hoisted onto ships by Red Crane in 1893. Fishermen took over the crane as a convenient means of launching and recovering their boats on the rocky shore. Steel cranes replaced the wooden structures in the late 1970s. On the day of our visit the only visible fisherman was using a rod and didn't seem to be having much luck.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Potentilla nepalensis "Miss Wilmott"

In the UK the usual plant referred to as a Potentilla is a small bush sometimes known as Shrubby Cinquefoil. However, there are also less well-known perennial herbaceous potentillas called simply, Cinquefoil. This plant is easy to grow if planted in poor to moderately fertile, well-drained soil in full sun. It carries its blooms on long stems and can flower from late spring to early autumn, particularly if "dead-headed" and watered through any dry spells. The variety we grow, shown above, is Potentilla nepalensis "Miss Wilmott".

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

Colourful quayside houses, Weymouth

This terrace of houses on the quayside of Weymouth harbour shone in the light of the summer evening, and revealed details that suggest they date from the early nineteenth century. The bowed oriel windows, the fanlights and open-book keystones, the parapet hiding the low-pitched roofs all say early 1800s. The colour wash does too, though not the royal blue and turquoise - they are painted after the fancy of someone nearer in time to us.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Shoes

It occurred to me many years ago that if I look twice at something there may be a photograph in what I've seen. So it was with today's image. We were sitting on  a bench by a small lake, one where in the past I've found quite a few photographs. However, it wasn't the sparkling water, leafy trees or ducks and their young that attracted my second glance, it was the colours, textures and shadows of our legs and footwear against the dry, dusty ground.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: iPhone

Wall-hung floral display

The flowers in this photograph decorate a wall in the town of Monmouth. Pots filled with begonias and contrasting leaves are placed in rows up the wall and allowed to grow so that the wall and pots cannot be seen. The effect is very striking and has been the preferred summer display at this location for a few years to my knowledge. 

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Architectural fins

Decorative architectural fins first came to feature in architecture during the Art Deco period of the 1930s. In the UK their most frequently application was on the facades of cinemas and factories where they added a very "moderne" look to buildings. In the later twentieth century and twenty first century they re-appeared periodically as decorative and functional additions. The example above is the 1 Poole Street extension of the Gainsborough Studios apartments in Hackney, London. Here they add sleek, shiny verticality as well as acting as barriers between apartments to give greater privacy to the residents.

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

Beautiful tiny gardens

This terrace with cottage-like fronts is on an urban street in Ledbury, Herefordshire. I've often walked by it and enjoyed how so much has been made of so little. The small canopy porches break up the essentially flat facades and give a focal point to the exterior of each dwelling. Rather than fill the space between the public pavement and the house with solid material - stone, concrete, gravel etc - a very modest garden strip, about two feet deep, has been created and the owners have used it for conifers, annuals, perennial, shrubs, climbing and rambling roses, and pots with plants. This has transformed the buildings and given them a pretty, homely, almost rural character that is a pleasure to behold.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: iPhone

Martello tower, Pembroke Dock

Britain's Martello towers are small, self-contained forts designed to prevent French (or other) invaders from landing troops from ships on the coast or in estuaries. A string of these towers can still be seen, mainly on the east coast, with some along the south coast. They are usually rounded structures and are faced with brick or stone. On and inside were mounted large guns capable of sinking warships and troop transports. Most were built in the Napoleonic era between 1804 and 1812.

The example above is one of two later towers dating from 1848-51. It is at Pembroke Dock, Wales, and was designed to protect the navy dockyard. These buildings had a short life, being decommissioned in 1881.

 photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Love in a mist

Love in a mist is the English name for this widespread cottage garden flower. The flower itself, usually blue, white or pink/purple is the "love" and the bracts that surround it are the "mist" that is more obvious when the flower forms a large clump that is seen from a distance. A single bloom more aptly shows off its alternate name, Devil in the bush. The plant's Latin name, Nigella damascena, describes one of its countries of origin, Syria. I find this plant a fascinating subject for photography (see here, here and here) and fortunately it grows quite readily in our garden.

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

Unisex toilets, Weymouth

Public toilets have many names in the UK. It's almost as if we are so embarrassed by their existence that we must cast about for a word or words that causes least offence. The most basic names identify them by the gender for whome they are intended, and "Unisex", as on these nautical-look beach front toilets at Weymouth, Dorset, is considerably less common than the widespread "Ladies" and "Gentlemen". For more on this subject, and a reasonably comprehensive list of UK toilet names, have a look at my post of 2006 on PhotoReflect entitled "What do you call it?"

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Portland Bill lighthouse

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Portland Bill is a tip of land at the south end of the Isle of Portland. It sticks out into the English Channel and is the southermost point of the county of Dorset. Portland Bill's low, rocky limestone cliffs have long been a danger to shipping and the Romans used beacons to warn vessels of their presence. The first permanent lighthouses built there date from the early 1700s. In 1844 an obelisk daymark was erected and is still there. The tall red and white painted lighthouse we see today shone its light for the first time in 1906. It remains active today, though is fully automatic rather than permanently manned.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Acer keys

Acer trees are planted mainly for the beauty of their leaf colour that is an attraction particularly in autumn. For some, however, it is the many variations of their leaf shape that appeals. What doesn't figure in people's choice of acer, as far as I know, is their winged keys, technically known as "samaras". When I looked at them on our acer the other day I was struck by their delicacy and colour, and was motivated to photograph this small cluster.

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

Corfe Castle

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Corfe Castle is the name of a village and of the ruined castle to be found there. The village was an area of occupation c.6000 BC and was probably still so c.50AD during the Roman occupation. It is an area of limestone in the Purbeck Hills, Dorset, and many of the the village buildings and roofs are made of this stone. The castle we see today was founded shortly after 1066AD. In the Civil War of the C17 Corfe Castle was a Royalist stronghold and after hostilities ended Parliament ordered that it be "slighted" i.e. deliberately wrecked with explosives. What we see today is the remains following the slighting with further damage by local people who saw it as a useful quarry for building stone. It was my misfortune to see it on an afternoon when the sky was virtually cloudless.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5