Paragliders at the Blorenge, Abergavenny

On our circuit of the Blorenge near Abergavenny we came upon a group of paragliders lining up to take off. They seemed to be waiting for just the right updraft. When it arrived they walked into the wind which inflated their wing. A few steps forward made everything taut and with that they ran of the mountain and into space, flying over or around the town of Abergavenny some 1400 feet below.

 We saw one paraglider carrying two people. The preferred landing space for most seems to have been Castle Meadows and a nearby field.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Royal Coat of Arms

When Henry VIII declared himself to be the head of the church in England it became customary for the royal coat of arms to be displayed in churches. It is quite common to come across examples of these today. They were often painted on square wooden boards by a local person and the quality of the representation depends heavily on the skills they brought to bear. They don't seem to have been changed with every change of monarch: it's my impression that most record the various Georges and Victoria, and I recall seeing examples from the time of Charles I and II. The example above can be seen in the abbey church of St Mary, Abergavenny, so it must have been an order that applied in Welsh protestant churches too. The letters A R (Anne Regina) and the date 1709 show it to be of the time of Queen Anne. The year 1707 is when, following the Acts of Union, Great Britain came into being.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Abergavenny seen from The Blorenge

click image to enlarge

The Blorenge is a summit at the south-eastern edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park. It is one of the most accessible peaks in the Park, with a minor road zig-zagging past the high-points. The area around the top gives fine views of the town of Abergavenny, the summit called The Skirrid and the distant Severn estuary. There is something satisfying about looking down on a town from above, trying to correlate what you know from ground-level with the very different experience of seeing it from on high.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Dark skies - a second shot

 
A minute or so after my photograph of trees against a dark sky (see previous post) I had the opportunity to photograph this row of houses in the same light. I've phototographed the houses before, taken by the colours that are quite atypical in this part of the world. The dark sky strongly accentuated their colours. At this point the clouds were low enough to brush the summit of Sugar Loaf behind the town.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Dark, threatening skies

I do like dark threatening skies that co-exist with sunshine. The contrast between the well lit subject and the dark backdrop make for a theatrical effect that is very appealing. Over the years I've photographed buildings, a church, a manor house, Tower Bridge, London and an old walnut tree in this kind of lighting. Recently I had another opportunity as we crossed Castle Meadows by the River Usk at Abergavenny. Often these dark skies turn to rain. Here it seemed to be associated with the high ground behind the town and cleared shortly after I'd got my shot.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

An Abergavenny tomb

The Gwent/Monmouthshire edition of the Buildings of Wales describes the collection of medieval monuments in the church of St Mary, Abergavenny, also known as Abergavenny Priory, as "one of the outstanding series...in the British Isles". The photograph shows the memorial to Sir Richard Herbert of Ewyas who died in 1510. This canopied monument has been mutilated and restored over the years but much of the original structure can still be seen. The main figure shows a bare-headed, armoured knight, his legs straight rather than crossed, and at his feet a lion. Under the arch behind him is an albaster Coronation of the Virgin. A headless Sir Richard and his wife kneel in adoration at her feet. To left and right of Mary are the couple's six standing sons and two kneeling daughters. Monuments from this period are not too uncommon though quite a few suffer from over-restoration. That is not the case here and the structure is all the better for it.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Painted houses

Painted houses are not unusual in the UK. White, cream, pale blue, pink, ochre, green, primrose, dark red, and other muted colours are reasonably common. However, houses painted in what I consider strident colours are rare. So when I saw the acid yellow of this house in Abergavenny I went "Ouch!" Presumably it pleases the owner, although its not unusual to hear of people applying colour that looks different when on walls compared with how it looked in the can. The photograph shows the back of the terrace of houses that overlooks the fields adjoining the River Usk. The frontages are next to a road. The summit rearing up behind the houses is Sugar Loaf.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Figure, War Memorial, Abergavenny

The sculpted WW1 soldier on the war memorial on Frogmore Street, Abergavenny, is the work of Gilbert Ledward. His "Tommy" rests on his Lee Enfield rifle, looking tired and worn by conflict. The monument, with its bronze figure, was unveiled in 1921, a tribute to the 374 men of the 3rd Battalion of the Monmouthshire Regiment from the town and surrounding area who died in WW1. Remarkably, 311 of those fell in Belgium in 1915 during the second battle of Ypres. Today the memorial is the focus of the town's annual Remembrance Service.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Return to Llanfoist Wharf

Our first visit to Llanfoist Wharf near Abergavenny was last November when the canal-side trees were displaying magnificent colours. We thought it was time for another look at the canal and, this time, take a walk along it to a nearby village. We began our walk at the Wharf and I took this photograph from a more distant point than previously, including part of a narrow boat that was moored nearby. The sunny day notwithstanding, the colors are much more subdued than in my earlier photograph.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Alabaster tomb effigies

When the Puritan iconoclasts took their hammers to the carved tomb effigies of the parish churches of Britain they must have been particularly pleased to come upon those made of alabaster. This soft, slightly translucent stone, a marble-like variety of gypsum, would yield very easily to their blows, and noses, hands and any other decorative protrusion would easily be detached. You can visit churches throughout the land and find examples of this kind of assault. Sometimes restorers have rebuilt that which was lost: elsewhere the vandalism remains for all to see. The photograph shows two such effigies in the Priory Church of St Mary, Abergavenny. They are Sir Richard Herbert of Coldbrook d. 1469 and his wife, Margaret. They can be found in the Herbert Chapel alongside six other tombs dating from the early C14 to the late C17.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

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

View of Sugar Loaf

Quite a few peaks across the world attract the name "Sugar Loaf". The best known is perhaps the one in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Its shape is a quite good approximation of the shape of an old loaf of sugar i.e. rather like an artillery shell. The Sugar Loaf on the edge of the Brecon Beacons above Abergavenny, Wales, is a less spectacular example and one that doesn't accord too well with the sugar loaf's shape, resembling (from some angles) the flattened cone of a volcano. In fact it is not made of igneous rock but is a ridge of sedimentary Old Red Sandstone. My view is taken from an adjacent, slightly lower peak, The Skirrid, made of the same rock.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Tree of Jesse

The Tree of Jesse is a pictorial representation of the lineage of Christ through the growth of a vine. It has been a popular subject in stained glass since medieval times. The example shown above from St Mary's Priory church, Abergavenny, is much more recent, having been completed in 2016 by the artist Helen Whittaker. Her example follows the traditional scheme of Christ and The Virgin in the centre with the subsidiary characters surrounding them. A departure from convention is the use of overlapping circles and the resultant double pointed shapes (vesicas) as a unifying device. You can read more about the design and iconography here.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

The Tailor of Taste

The men's clothing retailer, Burton, began life in 1903 when it was established by Montague Burton in Chesterfield. By 1929 it had over 400 stores as well as factories and mills, and was a FTSE 100 company. Today it is a brand name subsumed under the banner of the Arcadia group. The tiled sign that was part of the advertising wrapped around the store in Abergavenny may well date from those heady days in the late 1920s when the company was a familiar high street presence. The lettering is an interesting mix of the flamboyant and the spare and the sign itself was made to last - which it has done, remarkably well.

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

Old barn, new staircase

The conversion of old buildings to new uses is a common phenomenon in the UK today. And, regular occurrence though it may be, it still presents the owners and architects with a dilemma: should new additions mimic old examples, should they be contemporary solutions that acknowledge the building, or should they be new designs that pay no heed to their location. I always favour the second option, and that seems to be the most widely adopted approach too. Today's photography shows the staircase inserted in the medieval tithe barn in Abergavenny, Wales. Its sharp modern angles and steel are dissonant notes but the glass allows the old material to show through and the wood echoes one of the original building materials. My photograph required a strong silhouette to make the composition work better, and my wife obliged.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100