Self-portrait in old mirror

Georgian country houses often feature rooms with large and/or plentiful mirrors. Sometimes these mirrors have holders for candles. The reason for this is to magnify the candle light which was the only source of indoor light at that time. A visit to a country house also reveals that many of these mirrors (and those from the Victorian period) have deteriorated and no longer reflect as well as they did. The photograph above shows me at Berrington Hall, Herefordshire, photographing a bronze figure in one of these old mirrors.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Front and back

There are not many houses that have more money spent on the back elevation than on the front. They do exist but buildings with more elaborate fronts than backs are pretty much the rule. That is even the case with Britain's country houses, i.e. the houses that were (and to a lesser extent still are) erected by the country's wealthy.

 Berrington Hall near Leominster, Herefordshire, was built in the late C18 by the architect, Henry Holland, and though he took care with, and spent money on, the rear elevation, it has service buildings - kitchens, stables, a laundry etc, and an open courtyard, that would always have impinged on a more opulent rear elevation. Today these utilitarian buildings make useful locations for the cafe, toilets, bookshop etc that visitors to the now National Trust owned property can use.

photo 1 © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300
photo 2 © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Hop syringing machine

We came upon this ancient piece of garden/agricultural machinery in the buildings of the kitchen garden at Berrington Hall, near Leominster, Herefordshire. Had there been no recently written sign to explain what it was we would have been completely clueless. It is a Victorian-era hop syringing machine made by the Chelmsford company of Coleman & Morton. The sign helpfully explained that it had been used up to the 1980s to spray fruit. From that information I assume it was used to apply either herbicides or insecticides or it was a means of achieving good fertilisation of the hops or fruit. Apparently the machine was a £10 prizewinner at the 1871 Royal Show.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Inside the gardeners' shed

In their heyday large country houses employed an army of gardeners. Their job was to grow flowers for display in the big house, to grow fruit and vegetables for its table, and to maintain the grounds around the house in a manner befitting a place of high standing. The gardens and grounds at Berrington Hall, Herefordshire, are maintained by volunteers and employees of the National Trust, in whose care the house now rests. In a long garden shed they have placed a collection of old tools that the house's original gardeners would have used. I particularly liked the old wooden wheelbarrow and made sure it was prominent in my photograph.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

House martins, Berrington Hall, Herefordshire

A few weeks ago, in early August, we visited the National Trust-owned Berrington Hall near Leominster in Herefordshire. This Georgian mansion is set in typical landscaped surroundings including gardens and lawns, a ha-ha, then acres of pasture with specimen trees and a lake. What struck me most on this visit (that was made at a time of year we hadn't visited before), was the flocking of house martins around the pediment of the house's main elevation. There were dozens. Many had clearly fixed their mud nests to the undersides of the architectural mouldings, and most had raised young which were now flying. I had never seen such a density of house martins before, and was particularly surprised to see an albino bird among the navy blue and white of the majority.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Contre jour

When it comes to driving the low sun of the winter months makes for distinct difficulties. Glare obscures vision and the detail of the deep shadows is hard to identify, making caution necessary. But as far as photography goes the low sun opens up opportunities for contre jour shots that make a virtues of the vices that confront the driver. It was an optimistic kitchen staff at Berrington Hall, Herefordshire, that left the cafe furniture in the courtyard on a bitterly cold, crisp and clear day. But the tables and chairs served my photographic purposes quite well.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100