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

Pen y Fan seen from the Blorenge

During a recent family walk on the Blorenge, a summit overlooking Abergavenny, we were favoured by warm, sunny weather with a light breeze. Visibility was quite good too and shortly after we set off on our walk through the heather and bilberry we stopped to look at the distant Pen y Fan (886 metres, 2907 feet), the high point of the Brecon Beacons. In the photograph it is the rightmost of the two sloping peaks on the central horizon, the lower summit being Corn Du (873m). In the foreground of the photograph is an old farm surrounded by small fields edged with tumbledown dry stone walls.

River Dee seen from Pontcysyllte Aqueduct

The Llangollen Canal follows the valley of the River Dee for many miles. My photograph shows a view of the river as it flows under the Cysylltau Bridge (also known as the Pont Cysyllte or the Bont Bridge). It was taken from the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct that carries the canal across the valley. Cysylltau Bridge is a sandstone structure built in 1697 and extensively rebuilt in the eighteenth century. Though it has only a narrow single carriageway six feet wide it is still used by vehicles travelling in both directions.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

River Dee at Llangollen

In its 70 miles the River Dee rises in Snowdonia and passes through England and Wales, marking the border in places, before discharging into the Irish Sea. This photograph was taken from a bridge in the Welsh town of Llangollen and illustrates its rocky passage through the settlement. The outcropping limestone in the valley made it easier to erect a bridge over the river at this point, and the town and its castle grew up around the crossing.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Portable pier and St Catherine's Island, Tenby

When we visited Tenby in Wales we saw a few boats offering offshore trips. Embarking at low tide presented something of a problem but the owners of the "James Noel" had the problem beat. They were using this portable pier that was moved around by a tractor on Castle Beach. Behind the portable pier in this photograph is St Catherine's Island. It can be reached on foot at low tide but at high tide it is only accessible by swimming or by boat. The building on the island is a fort constructed in 1870, the only one of several that were conceived in 1859 and envisaged to oppose any threatened landing by French troops.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

View from Tenby Harbour

click photo to enlarge

This view from Tenby harbour looks north from near the slipway and the yacht club. At high tide the small pleasure craft, yachts and inshore fishing boats were all afloat or at sea. The sunny day and clear light made the most of the colours near and far, including the brightly painted hotels and apartments overlooking the sea on the High Street and the road known as The Norton.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Tenby harbour

 

click image to enlarge
The town of Tenby in south-west Wales is a settlement of long standing. It is first mentioned in a poem of the C9. During the medieval period it became the site of a castle and had town walls and towers built around it. It grew to prominence as a fishing port and a significant centre of import and export. During the late C18 and C19 tourism became important to the town and it remains so today. A visitor to Tenby who parks near North Beach gets the above view as they walk into the town. The pier, slipway, lifeboat stations, Castle Hill and the colourful buildings behind the harbour's edge make a fine composition at high tide or low.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Shire Hall, Monmouth

The administrative headquarters of English, Welsh and Scottish regional government is (or was - some have acquired different uses) the Shire Hall or the County Hall. These usually date from the eighteenth, nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Monmouth's Shire Hall is quite a typical example. It is an imposing Baroque-style limestone building of 1724 - quite a late date for this particular look - that was built on the site of its 1571 predecessor. The architect of the main elevation was Fisher of Bristol. Work in 1828 by Edward Haycock remodelled the courtrooms and added rear stairs. The Shire Hall lost its purpose in 1974 when the county of Gwent was created and the courts were moved to Abergavenny. The building hosts Monmouth Town Council and is currently in the process of accommodating the exhibits of the town's museum which was formerly housed in the old market hall of 1837-9.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Puzzle on Hergest Ridge

The puzzle on Hergest Ridge is this: why is there a 3X3 grid of monkey puzzle trees (Araucaria araucana) on top of the upland hill? It is unusual to find this tree, also known as the Chilean Pine, outside of gardens, and its presence on this exposed, wind-swept summit on the border of Herefordshire and Wales is a conundrum. They are likely to be there on a landowner's whim, and are perhaps associated with the former horse racetrack whose oval can still be seen. The tree was not widely known in Britain until around the 1850s, and I remember reading that one of the Victorian houses below the Ridge had a driveway flanked by them. Perhaps that is the connection. 

photo © T. Boughen     Camera:iPhone

On Hergest Ridge

We recently made our first visit to Hergest Ridge. This 1394 feet (425m) hill is on the Herefordshire-Wales border. Its summit is notable for piles of local rock, gorse, small pools of water, semi-wild Welsh Mountain Ponies, an odd stand of trees (see later post) and quite good views. People of a certain age, or with a relatively deep interest in popular music, will recognise "Hergest Ridge" as the title of Mike Oldfield's second album of 1974, following his very popular "Tubular Bells (1973). The composer/performer bought a house near the Ridge where he composed his music.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

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

Blorenge - a rhyme with orange

I remember being told, many years ago, that there is no word in English that rhymes with orange. There were, apparently, half-rhymes such as lozenge, but no full-rhymes. The OED, however, does contain a single full-rhyme word. It is "sporange", an old alternative word with the same meaning as sporangium. So, when I moved to Herefordshire, and we began taking trips into nearby Wales, imagine my delight in coming across a proper noun that rhymes with orange. Near Abergavenny is a high hill called Blorenge. We recently, for the first time, did some walking there and visited its summit (561m, 1841 feet). We will go there again but for now here is the only shot I got that I think qualifies for the blog. It shows the heather moorland and outcropping rock near the summit, with Sugar Loaf in the distance.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

View from Raglan Castle

After a walk around Abergavenny we stopped off at Raglan Castle on our drive home. The afternoon was one of blue skies, fast moving white clouds, and a temperature somewhat lower than recently. The remains of the castle are quite substantial (see photographs below and here) and include a spiral staircase up to what must have been something approximating the highest point of the building As we stood looking north-west at the summits of The Blorenge, Sugar Loaf and The Skirrid we could see the patches of light and the clouds' shadows moving across the fields. I took my photograph more in hope than expectation of capturing this effect and I'm quite pleased with the result.

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

Shell hood, Castle Hill House

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries shell hoods were a fashionable enhancement of a main doorway. They were not used on the biggest houses but did find favour on smaller town houses and those where the main door was on or adjacent to a street. They were seen as giving stature to the house by drawing the eye to the entrance. The example above, at Castle Hill House in Monmouth, is on the street that leads to the grandest house in the town which is next to the remains of the medieval castle. The "shell", very typically, rests on console brackets above the transom light and the door. These hoods can never have provided much protection against rain: ornamentation was their main purpose.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Climbing Pen y Fan

Recently, with one of our sons and a grand-daughter, we walked to the top of Pen y Fan, a mountain in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. Pen y Fan, at 886m (2,907 feet) is the highest mountain in the southern British Isles. It is a relatively accessible peak though the walk from the car park is pretty much "up" until the summit is reached. When we left the car the temperature was 22⁰ Celsius with a relatively gentle breeze. At the top we had to break out jackets and hats to counter the very strong wind and the temperature of 12⁰ Celsius (it felt much colder than that).

The late afternoon light benevolently hung around until we were well into our descent and we managed to capture a few reasonable photographs.

photo 1 © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Self-portrait in cafe window

Periodically, during the time I've fed my blogs, I've included a self-portrait in an image. These aren't explicit "warts and all" images of me. In the main they are photographs that include my reflection and are usually accidental inclusions that I notice rather than deliberate components of the composition. The example above was taken in Hay on Wye on a very hot and bright day - note the sun hat - and shows me in the mirror-like glazing of a cafe.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Ghost advertisement?

On a recent visit to Monmouth I noticed this "ghost advertisement", the residue of an old advert of, perhaps, Edwardian or Victorian origin, that had been uncovered by a later workman and kept for its historical interest. It reads: "Support Home Industries, J. Hillman Milliners, Extra Quality Silk Hats, Unequalled for Hard Wear, Always in Stock". The time when people required a silk hat at all, never mind one that is hard wearing, is long past, so I presumed the advert was quite old. An internet search, however, revealed something different. Apparently it dates from 2004 when BBC TV was filming a "Doctor Who" episode, "The Unquiet Dead" in the town and presumably needed to make the location fit the year 1869 in which the story was set. Not a real ghost advertisement and not old at all!

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Naval Temple at the Kymin, Monmouth

Near the Roundhouse at the summit of the Kymin (see previous post) is the Naval Temple. This is a memorial structure, with classical details, built as a commemoration of the second anniversary of the Battle of the Nile. It was erected by the Kymin Club in 1800, probably to designs by T. Fidler, and additionally commemorates sixteen British Admirals who were responsible for significant naval victories up to that time. It was visited by Lord Nelson who made admiring comments about it during his visit to Monmouth in 1802. Other writers of the time were less complimentary.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Sugar Loaf and the Skirrid seen from the Kymin

On a recent visit to the Kymin, a hill that overlooks the Welsh town of Monmouth I put a long lens on my camera and photographed the distant summits. On the left is Sugar Loaf, looking like (but it isn't) an extinct volcano. The long "whaleback" of the Skirrid, dotted with trees, is next. On the right is, I think, Patrishow Hill, though that may be incorrect. The day was sunny, with a chilly breeze, but warm enough for a haze that gave something of a blue tint to the far off hills. Such things can be "corrected" in software these days with a haze filter but what's "correct" about rendering a scene so that it doesn't look like what is seen?

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Shepherd on horseback

During our visit to Llanthony Priory we could hear a shepherd directing his dogs and moving sheep on the high ground above us. The sheep were, for the most part, being sheep and dutifully proceeding in lines across the brcken covered hillside. We couldn't see the shepherd, nor could I hear the sound of a quadbike - the usual method by which shepherds travel overland in these upland regions. Then a figure did appear on the horizon.

When I extended my lens to its maximum magnification I saw that it was the shepherd on a horse or pony - a sight I have never seen before in Britain. Today's photographs are technically inferior. But in terms of the subject they are proof that the old ways continue and, at least for this shepherd, remain the best ways.