A Tewkesbury house

Tewkesbury is a town with many fine, old buildings. It is particularly rich in domestic houses, most of which are unique in design: few houses on the main historic streets have neighbours that look the same as they do. The town has many timber-framed dwellings and the example above on Barton Street is a good indication of what can be seen.

It consists of three jettied storeys above the ground floor. These feature a C17 remodelling of a C16 structure. The only jarring note is the Victorian shop front window on the ground floor. Pride of place on the elevation is the first floor oriel window with its leaded lights. The bottom of the window is supported by C17 carved brackets (see photo 2).

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

Mill Avon fish belly sluice, Tewkesbury

The River Avon joins the River Severn in the town of Tewkesbury. A branch of the Avon, known as the Mill Avon, is a stretch of water that formerly turned the mill wheels of the Abbey Mill in Tewkesbury. Today it a haunt of small pleasure craft.

 In the 1990s the two old sluices at this location on the Mill Avon at Tewkesbury were replaced by a single "fish belly sluice". When in the "up" position this forms a weir: when "down", during a flood, water can flow freely. The control room for the new sluice was mounted on legs above the footpath that crosses the Mill Avon at this point.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Flooded Severn Ham, Tewkesbury

The Severn Ham is a piece of pasture in a loop of the River Severn at Tewkesbury. During the dry months sheep are kept on the Ham. However, when the rivers Severn and Avon that flow through Tewkesbury burst their banks it becomes a shallow lake with none of the pasture visible. Today it is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) with protection afforded to the flora and fauna that thrive on this interesting piece of land. On  a recent visit to the town we found the Ham under water. This photograph was taken from a slightly higher area of the pasture, looking back at the town and its abbey.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Yarn bombed bus shelter

Yarn bombing - the decoration of street furniture with with knitted objects, sometimes themed, sometimes not - has really taken off in recent years. I've grown accustomed to seasonal and event-themed displays appearing across the year in the market town where we live. On a recent visit to Tewkesbury we saw some more yarn bombing but I couldn't tell what had promted it. The largest piece was a glass and metal bus shelter where the seat and its sheltering canopy was colourfully decorated (above). Those waiting for the bus probably appreciated the warmer, cushioned bench. What seemed a less good idea was the yarn bombing on the seat of a slatted metal bench just out of shot to the right of the shelter. It occurred to me that any rain that fell on it would linger, making the bench unusable until the wool dried.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Abbey Mill, Tewkesbury

 

Abbey Mill (also known as Fletcher's Mill) stands on the bank of the Mill Avon, a watercourse that connects downstream with the River Severn. The earliest mill on the site was built in 1190 by the monks of nearby Tewkesbury Abbey. The building we see today dates from 1793 and accommodated 4 water driven wheels. It ground corn until 1920 when the owners found they could no longer compete with the bigger, more modern Borough Flour Mills (also known as Healings Flour Mills) upstream from the Abbey Mill. The Borough Mill now stands empty and the Abbey Mill has been converted into flats (apartments). I have photographed this mill on several occasions with this photograph from 2011 being the best of the crop.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Reflections on the River Avon

The meaning of the word "reflections" includes "thinking about" and "mirroring". I employed both those meanings when I sat down to process this photograph of the reflections in the River Avon of the Borough Flour Mill, Tewkesbury. I reflected that the name "Avon" is one of the most common river names in the British Isles, is an ancient word meaning "river", and hence the River Avon is "River River". I also noted that the surface of the water reflecting the windows and brickwork had been beautifully disturbed by passing mallards making it worthy of a semi-abstract photograph.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Abbey Cottages, Tewkesbury

This continuous, curved row of twenty three timber-framed cottages has been called "one of the earliest surviving English examples of uniform medieval town development". It is on Church Street in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, near the Abbey, which can be seen on the left of the photograph. The row is not perfect; a couple of inserted facades and buildings do mar it, but what remains gives us a good idea of the kind of street frontage that must have featured in many medieval towns. Today it is called Abbey Cottages and that may have been its original name since it was built in the early 1500s as a speculative venture by the abbey's monks. See a further image of the end of the row here.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Dutton Surf amphibious car

If you were a photographer walking alongside the River Avon in Tewkesbury, or perhaps a duck swimming along that water course, what is one of the least likely things you would expect to come across? Somewhere in your list of improbables may be a bright yellow Dutton Surf amphibious car. And yet that's precisely what I saw chugging along, scattering mallards as it made its way upstream.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Narrow boat on River Avon, Tewkesbury

The original narrow boats were commercial boats carrying heavy goods designed for Britain's eighteenth century canal system. To fit the narrow locks they had to be less than 7 feet 2 inches in width. Today's narrow boats are purpose-built leisure craft that copy the form of the commercial boats and are usually 6 feet 10 inches in width. Owners of modern boats often paint them in the style that was popular on the original narrow boats, with large names, flowers, wreaths, borders and other decorative details. Red and green are predominant as the background colours. The "Chedoona" with, presumably, Bob and Mary aboard, is seen pulling into a berth on the River Avon at Tewkesbury.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Abbey Mill weir, Tewkesbury

The weir at Abbey Mill in Tewkesbury is a "fish belly" sluice that can be raised and lowered according to whether the river is at flood level or not. On the day of this photograph the sun was shining, the temperature was high and flood levels had been absent for several months. What was interesting, however, was the contrast between the water speedily rushing over the weir and the seemingly calm, reflective quality of it before it began its fall.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Disturbed reflection, Tewkesbury

Tewkesbury's Borough Flour Mills, also known as Healings Flour Mill and Warehouses, stands derelict by the River Avon. The buildings date from 1865 but an earlier mill in the seventeenth century stood at this location, and it is certainly possible that the two mills recorded in Tewkesbury's entry in the Domesday Book (1086) may have been situated here. So, perhaps other people have stood where I stood the other day and enjoyed watching the reflected image of the mill being disturbed by the passage of a drake mallard.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Holy Trinity, Tewkesbury

The church of Holy Trinity, Tewkesbury, was consecrated on 30th August 1837, a couple of months after the succession of Queen Victoria in June of that year. The architect was Ebenezer Trotman, son of Daniel Trotman, Tewkesbury's Baptist minister. The brick building with stone dressing takes Gothic forms and assembles them in quite novel ways, especially on the west front (seen above). A west door is traditional but doors in the flanking aisles are not. A large west window is also traditional but here the arch does not contain tracery or glass but opens onto a recessed blank wall with a clock: church clocks are usually on a tower The narrow, symmetrical composition of the west front is placed opposite a street that leads to the High Street and is an eyecatcher visible to anyone passing by.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

St Mary's Lane, Tewkesbury

The Gloucestershire town of Tewkesbury has more than 380 Listed Buildings, that is to say, old buildings subject to legislation regarding how they may be modified. The purpose of Listing is to preserve notable examples of of our built past. Many of Tewkesbury's Listed Buildings are timber-framed. On a recent visit we walked down St Mary's Lane and came upon this view as we were about to exit on to Church Street. The combination of aged timber, old brickwork, painted wood and plaster, and the fact that none of it had been insensitively restored, gave us something of a feel for how that thoroughfare might have looked five hundred years ago.

And what do you see when you walk out of the end of St Mary's Lane?A fine collection of old buildings each one pretty much built with no regard for its neighbour. And none the worse for that.

 photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Illustrated front doors, Tewkesbury

On the basis of a couple of recent walks around Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire I have come to the conclusion that the fashion for painting an illustration on your front door is spreading. The leftmost door above has, to my recollection, been painted for a couple of years. However, the rightmost appears to be recent - or at least I haven't noticed it before. On the day I photographed these two doors I saw another newly painted example featuring a couple of silhouetted giraffes against an orange sky. Is this a local phenomenon or is it country-wide? Or even world-wide?

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Window sill planters

This house opens on to the public pavement on Barton Street, Tewkesbury. It dates from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and has a plain, though not unattractive, brick facade laid in Flemish bond. I photographed it for the way the owner had decorated each window with potted box shrubs. It's a device that adds to the interest of the facade, and is all the better for featuring just one type of plant rather than many.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

A quiet street, Tewkesbury

The Covid-19 lockdowns and the restraint shown by many people during the pandemic has produced many weeks of quiet streets where the only people visible are essential workers, people shopping for food or those taking some daily walking or cycling exercise. I took this photograph in Tewkesbury on one such day. It shows the corner of Gander Lane and Church Street. The main building is the end of a unique curving row of twenty three late 1400s timber-framed dwellings, probably constructed as a speculative undertaking by the monks of the Abbey.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

The cold light of (almost) winter

 

A necessary visit to Tewkesbury found us, in the early evening, on the bridge over the canalized River Avon looking towards the dark, derelict bulk of the Borough Flour Mill. The cold colours of the sky and its reflection caught my eye, and as I studied the composition in my viewfinder I noticed the pleasing contrast of the leafless branches. In the bright light and colours of daytime in spring and summer this view has only a little to commend it. But in these almost monochrome conditions of late November the silhouettes of the same view are much more appealing.

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

The Severn Ham

The Severn Ham at Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, isn't a culinary dish but rather is 170 acres of common land, low lying pasture, in a bend of the River Severn with the River Avon as its border on the other side. The word "Ham" occurs in a number of English place names and derives from an old name for a piece of land located in this manner which often floods. The Severn Ham spends most of the year growing grass and a wide variety of wild flowers, as well as providing habitat for birds such as lapwings and curlews - it is a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest). Parcels of 30 acres are rented out for the grazing of sheep. For the rest of the year the Ham is covered to a greater or lesser degree by water that might otherwise cause damage to the town. When this happens the common takes on the appearance of a large lake with only the line of telegraph poles that cross it indicating the water's temporary presence. The Abbey Mill and sluice control room (see previous post) can be seen on the left.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Abbey Mill sluice control room, Tewkesbury

In the 1990s the two old sluices at this location on the Mill Avon at Tewkesbury were replaced by a single "fish belly sluice". When in the "up" position this forms a weir: when "down", during a flood, water can flow freely. The control room for the new sluice was mounted on legs above the footpath that crosses the Mill Avon at this point. My photograph was taken during moderate flooding in mid-January 2020.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

River Avon, Tewkesbury

The subject of today's photograph is one that I have returned to on several occasions over the years. Here, here, and here are just three shots that illustrate my previous attempts to get the best from the riverside scene. For this one the cow parsley provided a different foreground, the narrow boats an interesting middleground, and the Abbey Mill the usual background. However, the sky didn't co-operate quite so well as it might have done.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100