Coleridge's mariner, Watchet

The poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (1772-1834) was inspired, it is said, by the harbour town of Watchet in Somerset, to write "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Whether or not this is true, the town features a sculpture of the seaman with the albatross that he killed. In addition, the rear of the painted sea-wall features historic episodes in the town's past that includes an illustration of Coleridge. The herring gull obliged me by appearing above the poet as I framed my shot.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

East Quay, Watchet

One of the answers to renovating a location that has lost its raison d'etre is to build an eye-catching visitor attraction. The placing of something new alongside something old, it is thought, will drag up the latter and offer something original with the former.

 East Quay at the tiny harbour town of Watchet on the Somerset coast is just such an enterprise with its gallery, artist studios, education space, restaurant and accomodation pods. The shiny, blocky buildings look like a child's building bricks  casually tossed down. It is not without interest and I hope it has a long and productive life.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Rhenish Tower, Lynmouth

The Rhenish Tower on the pier at Lynmouth, Devon, is thought to have been built around 1832, perhaps as a beacon for ships entering the harbour. It was originally a squarish tower built of rubble stone. In c.1852 brick balconies with turret-like machicolations were added to make the plain tower more attractive. It acquired the title, the Rhenish Tower, because of similarities with towers by the River Rhine. A further use was made of the tower in the C19 when bathing water was collected there and piped to the nearby Bath Hotel for "therapeutic" sea-water bathing.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Reservoir, Dunster Castle

The highest point within the walls of Dunster Castle is, essentially, a lawn encircled with flower beds, shrubs and trees. However, hidden underground and entered by a door is the former reservoir of the castle which supplied it with water. It was built in 1870, one of a number of improvements made at the time by the owner, and held 40,000 gallons. In 1897 the water was being supplied to houses in the village, quite a luxury for rural dwellers at this time. Today it is empty and features an audio-visual presentation. The photograph shows my wife on the installed stairs. We had popped inside when a light shower of rain appeared (hence the rain hat).

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Watchet harbour light

click photo to enlarge
What looks like a lighthouse at Watchet, Somerset, is, properly speaking, a harbour navigational mark (or aid). A lighthouse has a flashing light: the light at Watchet is constant green and it marks the entrance to the harbour. It stands on the west pier that was completed in 1860, a time when iron ore was the main commodity exported from the town. The harbour light is 22feet (6.7m) high and is made of cast iron painted red and white. It was designed by James Abernethy and made in 1860 by Hennet, Spinks and Else of Bridgwater, Somerset at a cost of £75.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Dunster dovecote

The dovecote at Dunster, Somerset, is probably medieval in origin, perhaps built by the monks of the Benedictine priory. Its circular shape with no windows, an entrance door, and entrance from above for the doves, is widely used in such buildings, and this form was retained through the rebuildings of the C18 and C19.

The interior has 501 nest holes and it was from these that the newly hatched nestlings (called squabs) would have been collected to provide fresh meat. During winter the older birds were gathered to provide meat at a time of year when it was scarce. The rotating ladder called the "potence" allowed easy access to the holes.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: iPhone

Drawing Room, Dunster Castle

A drawing room is not what it seems: it is, in fact, a "withdrawing room". In a country house, or even a smaller house (though with pretensions) ladies and/or gentlemen went there for entertainment after a meal had ended, or for a greater degree of privacy than was available elsewhere. In England such a room began to appear in the plans of larger houses in the mid-seveteenth century and remained popular into the twentieth century. This drawing room at Dunster Castle, Somerset, appealed to me and prompted a photograph because of the pleasant light from an adjoining garden room.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: iPhone

Yarn Market, Dunster

The design of market houses varies from county to county. Dunster's is a fairly common shape - octagonal - but is quite small and has dormer windows. It has a central stone column with a lean-to roof of stone slates supported by timber columns. The design is topped off with a weather vane. In medieval times Dunster was a focus of the local Somerset wool trade, and this market house would have been a centre of buying and selling. The building we see today was probably built by George Luttrell, the owner of Dunster Castle, c.1589. It is known to have been repaired in 1647 after being damaged in the Civil War.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: iPhone

Coast near Lynmouth, Devon

click photo to enlarge
British local authorities are notoriously poor at creating small, roadside, "viewpoint" lay-bys. A place for road users to pull in briefly to admire a view. Driving on the coastal road near Lynmouth in Devon recently we took advantage of one of these rareties that had been created. It gave us a fine view of the steep coast and the small bays at its base. It appears to be called Sillery Sands.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Jubilee Gardens cafe, Minehead

A white-painted timber cafe with union flags a-plenty next to an elaborate "crazy" golf course somehow seemed to epitomise one aspect of British seaside leisure. That it was located in gardens built to commemorate a jubilee underpinned the archetypal nature of the scene. But which jubilee? If I had to guess I'd plump for Queen Elizabeth II's 1977 Silver Jubilee.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

A view of Exmoor

 

click photo to enlarge
Exmoor is a hilly area in the south-western counties of Somerset and Devon. It is a designated National Park covering 267 square miles (692 sq. km.) that is topped by open moorland. The highest point is Dunkery Beacon at 1,703 feet (520m).  Today's photograph shows a view of Exmoor from Selworthy church (see previous post). The lower areas are mainly pasture and woodland and the moorland can be seen at the top of the image.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

All Saints, Selworthy

The church of All Saints at Selworthy, Somerset, sits on a steep slope with fine views to the south. It has a tower that seems to be of the 1300s but the remainder is largely of the sixteenth century, with the date 1538 on a column capital. It is unusual for a relatively elaborate, rural church to be whitewashed, but here the decorative elements of the stonework - window tracery, crenellations etc - are unpainted, and the treatment works quite well. The location makes the usual photographs that are possible with churches completely untenable.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Dunster, village and castle

Dunster in Somerset is one of the many UK villages and towns that grew up below the walls of the adjacent castle. Today many of these castles are derelict, having suffered during or after warfare. However, the castle at Dunster was remodelled and extended over the centuries and transformed from a predominantly military structure to a large, private house. Since 1976 it has been in the custody of the National Trust and welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Dunnock

The dunnock (Prunella modularis) is one of the many "small brown birds". It acquired its commonly used name around 1475 (donek) and it had settled on the current spelling by 1824. Country names abounded often including the word "hedge", and it was called "hedge sparrow" for a couple of centuries. It stopped being grouped with sparrows when it was realised that it fitted the accentor family. In the UK its is a bird of both rural and built up-areas. This bird was on the massacred hedge of a small block of flats towards the end of May, singing its heart out.

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

Building 02B

On a small industrial estate in Ross on Wye, Herefordshire, are a number of modern, metal, cuboid-shaped industrial buildings. Each one has been marked with a unique designation comprising a letter and number that is the most prominent feature of its exterior. So overpowering is this alphanumeric designation that it often dwarfs the name of the business within - as is the case in the photograph above. I took my photograph at a weekend and the absence of any workers or their vehicles, along with the sparse weeds at the base of the building, gave the scene something of the look of a "ghost-town".

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