The Old Nunnery, Dunster

This building is a terrace of three dwellings. The ground floor walls are made of stone and the two floors above are timber-framed. The roof is slate covered and the first and second floor walls are finished with slate hanging - an uncommon feature in the UK. The name fixed to the ground floor wall calls it "The Old Nunnery" though there is no evidence of it having such a purpose. However, in 1346 the site was granted to the Abbot and Convent of Cleeve by Hugh Pero of Oaktrow, and there is speculation that the building was an almonry or guest house attached to the priory. Dendrochronology shows the of roof timbers were felled between 1453 and 1489.

 photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

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

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

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

Minehead harbour

The first pier at Minehead in Somerset was built in 1610 when the harbour became an important export and import location. Today the the harbour is still in use but commercial traffic has gone to bigger ports elsewhere and pleasure craft far outnumber the few engaged in fishing. Unusually, this harbour is, and always was, at the edge of the built up area of the coast, and today it is a popular destination for a walk from the centre of the town.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Steps, Cleeve Abbey

Cleeve Abbey, near Minehead in Somerset, was founded in 1198 by the Cistercians. The religious buildings no longer exist, but some domestic buildings still stand including the dormitory, refectory and cloister. My photograph shows some steps lit by a window. The weathered stone and plaster hint at the lost magnificence.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Vicars' Close, Wells

The vicars of Wells were minor officials of the cathedral. The street shown in the photograph housed them and was built as early as 1348. It is 456 feet long and most of the twenty seven residences (originally 44) are identical. The front gardens are an addition of c.1410-20. Improvements and modernisations have been applied to the buildings of the Close during every century between their initial construction and today. Despite this, it is considered to be the oldest purely residential street in Europe.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

West front, Wells Cathedral

I haven't had much luck photographing at Wells Cathedral. On the last but one visit to the building it rained making outside shots difficult or impossible and interiors a lot darker than I would wish. On my most recent visit, a few weeks ago, we were about to step over the threshold and enter the building when the fire alarm sounded within and everyone came briskly out into the close. A wait of twenty minutes or so was only enlivened by the arrival of a fire engine and finally the all clear at a false alarm. This time I did the inside shots first - fewer people! Then went out  and took this photograph of the west front and its impressive tiers of canopies, many with medieval carved figures.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Gothic Revival at Tyntesfield House

Tyntesfield House, in Somerset near Bristol, is a Gothic Revival country house designed in the 1860s by the architect, John Norton. It cost £70,000, a large sum that could be well afforded by the owner who has been described as "the richest non-noble man in England."

 Pevsner describes the south elevation (photo 2) as "an object lesson in the technique by which a High Victorian architect endeavored to keep balance while avoiding symmetry." Money was lavished on every elevation - see east elevation,  photo 1 - as well as the interiors. The chapel, on the right of photo 2, was added in 1875, the design of the architect, Sir Arthur Blomfield. It has been likened to the chapels of Oxford colleges. The house became the property of the National Trust in 2002 and the public were first admitted ten weeks after purchase.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Pier pavilions, Clevedon

Piers offer something of the feeling of being at sea without the discomforts of wind, spray, and the rolling motion that brings on sea-sickness. In the UK the great era of pleasure piers was the Victorian period. Those that survive from that time help visitors to capture something of the simple pleasures that accompanied a nineteenth century day out at the seaside. The architecture of piers is designed to withstand wind and water whilst providing visitors with shelter on inclement days. The September day of a recent visit to Clevedon Pier on the Severn estuary near Weston-super-Mare, was everything a visitor could hope for and we lingered a while admiring the views and metalwork of the 1869 structure.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Knightstone and Steep Holm

The Bristol Channel between England and South Wales has a number of small, rocky islands. Today's photograph shows Knightstone and, in the distance, Steep Holm. The former is now attached to Weston-super-Mare by a permanent causeway rather than the original shingle bank. Steep Holm is today a bird reserve with no permanent human residents but has been at various times a place for sportsmen, a defensive site with cannons, and part of a chain of fortified sites designed to impede invasion.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Montacute House and south lodge

Montacute House in Somerset was built c.1598, a time when the main influence on English architecture was changing from Gothic to Renaissance. The west elevation, above, and the flanking walls have classically-inspired columns and an overall symmetry but the prevalence of the principal orders of architecture cannot be seen. The windows look backwards rather than forwards, and the Dutch gables show the influence of Flanders rather than Italy. When Montacute was built this was the entrance elevation and instead of a lawn there would have been a carriage turning circle.

A large house such as this needed gatehouse lodges and the South Lodge is a marvellous example of how the grandeur of the main house could be announced by the imposing architecture of the ancillary buildings.

  photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Nave, Wells Cathedral

The nave of Wells cathedral in Somerset dates from the late 1100s and is an example of the Early English style of architecture. For anyone who has visited other English cathedrals of this period the main piers of the nave arcades, each with its twenty four columns and lively stiff-leaf capitals further enlivened by birds and other creatures, offer visual delight but hold few architectural surprises. What does immediately catch the eye, and instill awe as well as surprise, are the enormous scissor (or strainer) arches that brace both the tower arch facing us and the arches facing the transepts (not visible above). These were inserted shortly after the construction of the tower in 1315-22. The builders could have chosen other methods of bracing but decided on this elegant, uncompromising solution that must have impressed when it was built, and continues to do so today.

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

River Avon and Pulteney Bridge, Bath

These days I'm very much an "incidental" photographer. What do I mean by that? Well, the OED defines it nicely, thus - "Occurring or liable to occur in fortuitous or subordinate conjunction with something else of which it forms no essential part; casual" In other words photography is secondary to the main purpose at the time. A visit to Bath involved us looking at some of the architecture that we last saw about forty five years ago. It also involved regular showers of rain and dark skies alongside sun, the latter being something that I particularly like in my images, and which prompted this shot of the River Avon and Pulteney Bridge.

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