View from Table Mountain, Crickhowell

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This photograph shows the ESE view from Table Mountain (also known as Crug Hywel) above Crickhowell in the Brecon Beacons. It is a rather grand name for a fairly minor bump at 451m on the side of the higher summit of Pen Cerrig-calch (701m). However, the "bump" is not without interest. It is the site of an Iron Age hillfort built on a landslip that created an almost level site that was then fortified with ditches and stone walls. The remains of these workings can be seen in the foreground of the photograph. The highest distant summit is Sugar Loaf.

 photo © T. Boughen     Camera: iPhone

A view of Exmoor

 

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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

Sky, water and mud

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Today's photograph shows a view across the River Severn seen from near Lydney Harbour. The main subjects of the shot are sky, water and mud - the tide was out. It's fair to say that a couple of buildings and a riverside horizon also intrude, but not to a great extent. The sky make the shot and shooting into the sun gives the image a little more drama than was evident to the naked eye. I like this kind of photograph. Sometimes I prepare for them: other times I'm just grateful when I come upon them. This photograph is one of the latter.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

View over Herefordshire

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On a recent walk on the Malvern Hills I was reminded how sunlight and clouds can enrich a view of the landscape. Not only do they make it feel more three-dimensional, they focus the viewer's eyes on elements that might otherwise offer less interest. On this shot they also make the foreground, the main subject, feel separate from the bluish, hazy distant landscape.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Return to Speech House Lake

Three years ago I took a photograph from approximately this point on the edge of Speech House Lake in the Forest of Dean. On a recent walk that went by the lake I took another photograph in the same area. The reflections of the small islands of pines were better this time and the presence of clouds improved the shot considerably, as did the seasonally yellow tinge of the light. I had hoped to make more of the flock of mandarin ducks on the water but they quickly fled and were soon barely visible  (centre right).

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

A dead tree

There are more dead trees to be seen than I recall seeing in my younger years - and that's a good thing. Dead trees add to the diversity and richness of habitat required to make our natural surroundings support the widest range of animal and plant life. In the days when a narrow range of trees were grown like cabbages - i.e. plant, tend then crop - dead trees were seen as failures taking up the space that could support a thriving specimen. Today foresters think beyond these narrow confines and plant for wildlife as well as timber, intermingling, selectively cropping and even returning to "old ways" through coppicing and other methods. The example in the photograph shows a dead parkland specimen tree in the grounds of Chirk Castle near Wrexham. I wouldn't be surprised if it was home to woodpeckers and a larder of life for birds and insects.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Portland Bill lighthouse

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Portland Bill is a tip of land at the south end of the Isle of Portland. It sticks out into the English Channel and is the southermost point of the county of Dorset. Portland Bill's low, rocky limestone cliffs have long been a danger to shipping and the Romans used beacons to warn vessels of their presence. The first permanent lighthouses built there date from the early 1700s. In 1844 an obelisk daymark was erected and is still there. The tall red and white painted lighthouse we see today shone its light for the first time in 1906. It remains active today, though is fully automatic rather than permanently manned.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Tenby harbour

 

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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

Looking across Herefordshire

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One of our favourite views of Herefordshire is the prospect seen as we look back when climbing to the summit of Worcestershire Beacon on the Malvern Hills. The wooded nature of the county is evident as is the undulating landscape overlaid with the ancient network of hedged fields. The mixed agriculture of sheep, cattle, arable and fruit can be discerned as can the small villages and farmsteads. On the distant horizon are the western hills leading up to the Welsh mountains. This larger than usual photograph was taken on 25th April 2023, a time when a late and colder than usual spring was beginning to make itself felt.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Photographing Hereford Cathedral

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A British cathedral is, for the most part, a very big church. It can be situated in a city or a town and sometimes has an open space around it. This space - called a "close" - can vary tremendously in size and for that reason can be helpful to the photographer (a big space) or not so helpful (a small space). The big space makes it easier to compose a shot that includes the whole of the building. Hereford Cathedral has a small space around it which includes several big trees, and beyond this space the buildings of the town press close. The unavoidable consequence of all this is that photographers must search for views from afar that feature just a part of the cathedral. One such is from the beech avenue through Bishop Meadow across the River Wye. But, it is only available when the trees are not in leaf - hence this recent photograph.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

The first snow of winter

The first snow of winter fell on us recently. There wasn't a great quantity but what there was did linger due to the temperature registering below zero, sometimes substantially so, for several days afterwards. As is often the case in our part of the world, the snow was enough to please the children but not so much that it significantly impeded movement. The first falls of snow were also enough to tempt me to go out with the camera. Our walk coincided with children, parents and sledges heading for a much used local hill.

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photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Late afternoon pond

The pond in the photograph is one that we regularly walk past. Like many such features its appearance changes with the time of day, weather and season. It is also favoured by three groups of  birds - residents that can be seen all year round, and summer or winter visitors. This shot was taken on a late afternoon in December. At that time of year it can be all but obscured by fog or rain. On this occasion a very cold day with a cloudless sky had prompted the trees to shed a mass of leaves that had been hanging on for an unseasonally long time. Combined with the low sun they have produced an image that looks much warmer than it felt.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Wet autumn woodland

We recently had a walk in the Forest of Dean after quite a bit of rain had fallen. The trees had given up more leaves to the deluges but, nonetheless, more remained firmly fixed to branches than is usual for the time of year. It was slippery underfoot and water droplets twinkled in the sunlight that pierced the tree canopy. The dead and dying bracken looked bright orange as we walked towards the sun but the tree ferns remained resolutely green. Our route took us through Nagshead Plantation, an area that includes an RSPB reserve. Everywhere we looked it seemed there was a competition between the oak and the beech for which had the best leaf display. For me the beech was winning.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Gilwern Hill and industrial landscapes

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The views of Gilwern Hill from the Blorenge are dominated by a telecommunications mast of the twentieth century and limestone quarries of the early nineteenth century and later. Tracks with man-made gentle inclines tell of horse-drawn tramway systems that moved the quarried stone. Dilapidated drystone walls mark out, as they have done for decades (probably centuries) improved grassland claimed from the heather and bracken. Old and derelict buildings and grassed over undulations can be seen, the latter the only remains of the village of Pwll-du that was demolished in the 1960s after the quarries closed and its inhabitants relocated to nearby valley villages including Govilon and Llanffwyst.

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Today the area offers walks for hikers as well as holidays and courses built around outdoor pursuits. On the day of our visit the cloud was rising from the hills and mountain tops but still lingered on distant Pen y Fan, the highest peak in the Brecon Beacons of south Wales.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Ross on Wye from Brampton Abbotts

The clarity of summer seemed to extend well into autumn this year but now that season's mist is regularly upon us. Hard outlines have become softened, strong colours muted and distant objects reduced to outlines. It's a time of year when I like to take landscape photographs with long lenses, stacking up the scene's layers in the image. Today's photograph shows a view of the town of Ross on Wye, with its prominent spire of St Mary, taken from near Brampton Abbotts church.

 photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Edge of Herefordshire views

The topography of the county of Herifordshire is often described by analogy with a saucer i.e. lowlands in the centre with hills and mountains at the edge. That's not wholly accurate but the western rim where the land rises to meet the east of the Brecon Beacons fits that picture. Our recent walk took us up the rocky ridge called the Cat's Back (from its profile) (see first photograph) onto the mountains that are often hidden under low cloud.

The views on clear days are magnificent with the field boundaries of the ancient countryside looking like a net or latticework stretched across the terrain. As our walk progessed the cloud came and went then eventually rose completely. Many views resembled the scene out of an aircraft's windows as it makes its descent. The third photograph shows the Olchon Valley, the Cat's Back and a view across Herefordshire.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

View of Pen y Gadair Fawr

When you walk along the ridge that includes the highest point in Herefordshire (and Southern England) you have good views to the west and east. In the easterly direction is a panorama across the county of Herefordshire. To the west are some of the higher peaks of the easternmost Welsh Brecon Beacons. The notable prominence on the skyline in the photograph is Pen y Gadair Fawr, a peak of 2,625 feet (800m). The name translates as "top of the large chair". During our walk we had intermittent low clouds that   looked threatening, but as the day progressed they all but disappeared.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Herefordshire's highest point

We recently undertook a strenuous family walk to the highest point in Herefordshire. This lies on the border with Wales on a mountain known by two names, Black Mountain and Twyn Llech (hill of stone or crag). The summit is on a wide ridge 2,306 feet (703m) above sea level and is the highest point in Southern England (there are higher summits in Wales). This location comes as a surprise to many who do not know the area and assume that Southern England's highest point is on Dartmoor at High Willhays which is 2,037 feet (621m). The most southerly summit in the North of England that surpasses Black Mountain is Great Whernside near Kettlewell at 2,310 feet (704m).

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Views from Hergest Ridge

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A road closure involving us in a detour down muddy, single-track roads, followed by a bank of cloud that appeared over Kington and Hergest Ridge, nearly caused us to look for a different destination than our planned walk on the famous hill. But we overcame and accepted the impediments and were rewarded with an interesting (if very windy) walk and some reasonable views. Here are two taken when the clouds admitted pools of light. They show the cultivation of the lower valleys and the uncultivated steep slopes and tops of the outcrops.

 photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

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