Hop kilns near Ledbury

What are known as oast houses in Kent are, apparently, called hop kilns in Herefordshire. The photograph above shows two hop kilns (one behind the other in this view) adjoining Kiln Cottage near Frith Wood, Ledbury. The purpose of oast houses/hop kilns was to dry the hops grown for beer-making which are then sent to the brewery. Today this is done in machines and the distinctive buildings that formerly punctuated the landscape in hop growing areas have fallen into disuse or been converted into additional living accomodation. The examples above are now picturesque parts of a cottage that may well have originally been a functional building associated with hops. The spring woodland is showing a variety of subtle colours and the prominent mistletoe ball, above the cottage's gable end, that has been revealed all winter will soon be hidden by leaves.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Pediments and mistletoe

The pediment, the triangular shape above windows and doors that derives from ancient Greece, is common throughout Britain. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the popularity of the classical styles of Greece and Rome ensured that columns, capitals, balusters, and classical moulding of antique origin proliferated. This facade, in late afternoon sunlight at Ludlow, Shropshire, is quite typical of those years. What is less typical in this photograph is the balls of mistletoe visible in the leafless tree nearby. This is very common throughout the Marches but quite unusual elsewhere.

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