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

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

Goodrich, Herefordshire

September is a good time for photographing agricultural landscapes. The cereal harvest is in and those fields have a sandy hue, dark or light depending whether they have been ploughed or are still stubble. The pastures often have a slightly yellow tinge in September, but where a second crop of hay or silage has been taken from a meadow they can be very pale green. Other fields, rainfall permitting, are frequently deep green. And, of course, the hedges of the field boundaries are deep green with few autumn colours yet evident. So the land was when we looked down on the village of Goodrich from nearby Coppett Hill, its church spire prominent among the clustered houses.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

A May landscape

On one of a recent series of unseasonally hot days we visited a number of places in and near the Forest of Dean. A bright blue sky, the absence of cloud and a significant haze encouraged me to point my camera down. A location at the top of one of the ruinous walls of Goodrich Castle near Ross on Wye provided this photograph of an oak tree in a field of wheat, the carefully tended crop contrasting with the pasture, trees and woodland beyond.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100