Hatchments

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"His means of death, his obscure funeral -
No trophy, sword nor hatchment o'er his bones"
said by Laertes in "Hamlet" (Act 4, Scene 5) by William Shakespeare

For the layman the sight of hatchments hanging inside a church, on the wall of the nave or on inner east face of the west tower, is something of a puzzle. They are heraldic, like the commonly seen royal coats of arms, and like them are painted on a square board that is placed point upwards. But whose coats of arms do they show and why are they found in churches?

"Hatchment" is an Anglicization of the French, "achievement", and therein lies the clue to what they are. Medieval noblemen had their armour, weapons and heraldic colours displayed in church on their tomb during their funeral. In later centuries this was formalised in the custom of the family coat of arms being painted on a square board that was hung, lozenge-wise over the main entrance to the family home during the period of mourning. After the funeral the board, now called a hatchment, was often moved to the church and displayed there on a longer-term basis. Some of these have survived and adorn our churches still.

By the eighteenth century many conventions had grown up around hatchments. For example, if the wife lived on after the passing of her husband then the sinister side of the background (left from the point of view of someone holding it like a shield but right as we view it) would be painted white (see top example above), with the reverse (dexter side) indicating that the husband was the survivor. The status of women as unmarried or married was marked by the former's arms being decorated by gold cord and the latter with a golden, winged, cherub head. The last of a family line was indicated by a skull and cross bones painted under the coat of arms. It's regrettable that names and dates were never put on hatchments (though they are on royal coats of arms) and that considerable detective work has been necessary to work out who it is that they commemorate.

The parish church of St Wulfram in Grantham, Lincolnshire has six fine hatchments and two royal coats of arms (one dated 1586, the other some time before 1701). In recent years these have been grouped for display purposes and they make a fine sight spot-lit against the stone of the ancient walls.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.3mm (33mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Normal service is about to resume

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Unusually for this blog it's been on autopilot for a few days while I've been at home and I haven't attended to it at all. We've had a family Christmas with children and grandchildren staying, and that has been my alternate focus over the festive period. But, they've now headed off to their respective homes so here's a short post to keep things ticking over. Normal service will be resumed from tomorrow - I think.

After the colourful Christmas-themed post of bells, baubles and glitter balls I felt a need for a contrast; something simpler, starker and more restful. So, here is a photograph I took a week or so ago when we stopped off in Barton upon Humber having returned from the part of Yorkshire just over the river. It shows a rather utilitarian (and uncomfortable) chair on an equally utilitarian floor next to strictly functional walls made of painted blocks and glass bricks. On the face of it not the most inviting of rooms. However, the light through the glass wall emphasised the lines and shapes very nicely, silhouetted the chair, and gave the whole scene a luminous quality that looked like it would convert to black and white very well. And so it did. Or at least I think it did!

I've written elsewhere on the blog about how I like the effects that glass bricks produce and how I wish they were more widely used. I'm pleased to say that appears to be the case. I've seen quite a few more of them in new buildings in recent years, though I'm sure I can't claim any credit for that!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Lumix G6
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm (48mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bells, baubles and glitter balls

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I'd hate to be a professional photographer. The idea of taking photographs to order would, I am sure, remove all pleasure for me from the act of photography. In fact I revel in the ability to point my camera at whatever I like, whenever I like, and compose pictures just as I like. My photography is entirely selfish.

However, now and then I do take photographs to order though not for money. I once shot a wedding for a couple who couldn't afford a pro. I've photographed events for people as a favour, and I've done some portraiture on the same basis. My wife likes us to send birthday cards that feature one of my photographs, but I generally select these from my stock of existing shots. And, she likes our Christmas card to have one of my photographs on it too. But, selecting something appropriate for this purpose is much harder. It's on the run up to Christmas that I experience a hint of the external pressure to perform that I would resent were I a full-time photographer. The fact is, a few snow scenes and appropriate stained glass windows excepted, my photographic output doesn't usually include many shots that sit easily on the front of a Christmas card. This year's card was, once again, a stained glass window; rather a  nice one as it happens, featuring "The Flight into Egypt". It was only when we had produced and distributed the card that I came across the photograph above, a shot that I took in early December as I sat waiting for a meal. The centrepiece on our table was a basket with lots of metallic bells, baubles and small glitter balls in a variety of colours. When I filled the frame with the subject I quite liked what I saw, and I'm rather glad that I unearthed it from my pile of rejects. Maybe it will do for next year's card and save me the anguish of the frantic search for a suitably festive subject as 2014 comes to its end. Merry Christmas!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A sign of the times 2

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Walking through London one recent evening I came upon a No Entry sign that had been "artistically augmented". To the white edged red circle with its white central bar someone had added what I took to be a traffic warden. This figure was either looking over or slumped on the central bar and two red hearts were either coming from him (or her), or were the object of his (or her) attention. Clearly the person responsible for the "artwork" was trying to say something but I couldn't for the life of me see what. As far as I was concerned the would-be artist had failed, though I did think that could have been because I wasn't part of his target demographic. Nonetheless I took a photograph of the sign, and, over the past few days, I've wondered a little more about it. But to no avail.

Then it occurred to me to turn to that modern fount of all knowledge that is the world wide web for some enlightenment. So, I typed "London no entry sign graffiti" into an image search box and came up with photographs of the same subject and different "augmentations", perhaps by the same person. They included the white bar as stocks through which a head and arms poked, the white bar as a surf board under someone's arm, a figure in the process of sawing through the white bar and the white bar as an actual bar at which people were drinking. Seeing my example alongside the others it was clear that no deep meaning lurked behind the graffiti, WYSIATI (what you see is all there is), and the highest aim of the artist was whimsy. Banksy has a lot to answer for!

Why have I given this blog post the title, "A sign of the times 2". Well, I was obliquely reminded of another sign that I blogged about in 2009, one that that was unintentionally humorous, to which I'd given the original title.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 23.6mm (63mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Thames Cable Car

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There has been something of a kerfuffle in the UK because a supposedly independent body has suggested that members of parliament should receive an 11% pay rise and the great majority of MPs think they deserve it. On the face of it the suggestion is reasonable since the parliamentarians haven't taken the pay awards that have been offered in past years and their pay is relatively less than it was. However, the proposal comes at a time when public sector workers are in the middle of a multiple years pay freeze (imposed by MPs), and when the pay of other sectors (the City, directors of companies, senior management excepted) is either declining, stagnant or barely rising. Opponents of the MPs' pay rise rightly point out that they are public sector workers and that unlike most other state employees they are able to take on a second job -  say, a nice non-executive directorship or "adviser" to a company - and that they are in a line of work for which there is no shortage of applicants.

I have a lot of sympathy with the opponents of the pay hike. To their persuasive arguments I would add that the MPs' suggestion that their pay should mirror and be linked to the pay rates of "other professionals" such as GPs (family doctors) is risible: our elected representatives are not professionals. They have no formal training for the job, need no qualifications to secure it and are not subject to regular scrutiny by a professional body, factors that distinguish most professional occupations from others. The government and opposition leaders who are rejecting the advice for the pay rise are doing so for public relations reasons, worrying how it would play with the electorate; it would be better if they refused as a matter of principle. I was reflecting on this when I rode on the Thames Cable Car recently. This £60 million plaything, subsidised by the budget under the authority of the mayor of London is a colossal waste of money, the most expensive cable car system in the world, and the sort of vanity project that you might expect from amateurs - which is what most politicians are. The current incumbent of the mayor's post is famous for his extra-mural jobs, and is reported to have little of the detailed knowledge needed by someone in his position. Moreover, he is widely believed to want the job of prime minister. It was a disaster for the capital when he became mayor of London; it would be a catastrophe for the country were he to achieve his greater ambition.

So, did I enjoy my ride on the cable car. I did! I'd rather it had never been built, but I'm not immune to the delights of being transported over the River Thames at maximum height of 295 feet (90 metres). Not least because it offers opportunities for some great photographs. It's just a pity that money was spent on this fairground project that currently runs at 10% or so of capacity, rather than the much needed pedestrian and cyclist bridge between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf that has been suggested by Sustrans.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 21.5mm (58mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1250 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Night photography

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When I used a film camera the photographic day was shorter than it is now. By that I mean the film that was widely available wasn't at its best when light levels started to drop away. If you used a tripod with a static subject you'd got a chance of a reasonable shot, but hand-held it was a different matter. So, I rarely shot in the early morning or in the evening after sunset. And, of course, those are the times when you can make some great photographs.

That slowly changed with the arrival of digital. As sensors improved we started to use ISO numbers that were unheard of with film. From a film-days maximum of ISO 400 or so we soon progressed to the point where 800 and 1600 were regularly used to good effect. The arrival of in-body and lens stabilisation allowed us to hand hold these numbers quite comfortably at speeds down to 1/15 or 1/8 second despite the fact that often the lenses were not as bright as the 50mm 1.8 or 1.4 that we routinely used with film. Then technology moved on and ISO 3200 and 6400 became viable. Today we see cameras offering 12800 and even 25600.

Consequently, when I'm in London I think nothing of hand holding my camera for night-time shots. Sometimes, if I'm away from street lights and strongly illuminated buildings, I'll brace the camera against a wall or on some railings. I never - thankfully - need to consider carrying a tripod because the results I get hand-held are quite acceptable. We passed Canada Water Library the other day. I first photographed this striking Piers Gough/CZWG designed building at the turn of the year during daylight hours. The night offered a different take on the structure and the opportunity to use highlights on the adjacent water of the old dock.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Travelators and the future

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I've commented elsewhere about how the twenty-first century future, as predicted in the forward-looking 1960s, hasn't worked out quite as forecast. We aren't yet eating our meals from toothpaste-like tubes, routinely travelling in our flying cars, wearing jump-suits (despite the passing fad of onesies) or holidaying in space. Of course, much that wasn't foreseen has come to pass in the form of ubiquitous hand-held computers, the world wide web, the resurgence of interest in crafts and hand-made objects etc.

However, every now and then I have felt that those seers of fifty years ago hit a few bulls-eyes. In fact, I experience it each time I use the travelator (a horizontal escalator) between the Jubilee and Northern Line platforms at Waterloo on the London Underground. During the 1960s my idea of what the future held tended to come from children's comics, films or TV programmes set in the future, or "Tommorrow's World", a weekly series looking at inventions, that began on the BBC in 1965. Travelators were frequently presented as the future of city centre transit. However, on my most recent visit to London, when we once again used the travelator, I didn't have that feeling of experiencing the future. Why? Because a few weeks ago I discovered that the only other travelator on the London Underground, at Bank tube station, began running in 1960 and had its fiftieth anniversary in 2010. In the 1960s, as far as Britain goes, travelators (then spelt travolator) in the 1960s were the cutting-edge present, not the future! What wasn't predicted at the time was that airports would be the place where travelators would find greatest use.

Today's photograph shows the converging lines of Waterloo's 140 metres (460 feet) moving walkway. It also shows a favourite game of parents and children when using the system - a race between the small child on the moving travelator and their parent walking along the non-moving central section.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec
ISO: 320
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Otherworldly photographic colours

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I was looking at some competition-winning photographs online recently. Those judged the best were chosen by the popular vote of the particular online community. As I went from category to category - landscape, still-life, travel, etc - a recurring thought kept popping into my head: "Which planet were these shots taken on?" The reason for my query? The colours of many of those selected were so heavily saturated, so unnatural looking, so "otherworldly" that they were unbelievable as images of planet Earth.

This penchant for bright, deep, fantasy colours has, I think, grown with the rise of digital. Sometimes it's down to the preference of the photographer. On other occasions "vivid", "saturated" or some other synonym is the default setting of the camera, chosen by the manufacturers in preference to "natural" or "standard", because the they know these stronger colours will appeal to buyers. Deeper colours can also be a deliberate or perhaps even an unwitting manipulation of the saturation slider by the photographer who makes that choice because they feel that's how "good" photographs now look or how they must look in order to win photographic competitions. Then there's the influence of HDR, Instagram and all the other "effects" that are so easily applied digitally. Well, I wish it would stop. I wish that photographic colours would look more like they do in life.

However, there are three more reasons why saturated colours abound. Two causes are hard to deal with and the other should be left alone. The first is the inability of camera sensors to accurately record all colours in all situations. Colour film couldn't do it and neither can digital. If you want total accuracy you've sometimes got to adjust the hues the camera records to a closer approximation of what your eye saw. And that's not always easy. Then there's the fact that monitors are frequently not colour calibrated. Consequently there is often a mis-match between the way the colours of a particular photograph are seen on different computers and devices. Finally, there's the fact that sometimes, in some lights, the natural colours of the world are saturated in a way that makes them look unreal. A few weeks ago I pointed out a pasture to my wife that was so intensely green it looked like it had been spray painted. It probably had been sprayed, but with fertiliser and herbicides. Then, more recently we saw dozens of small clouds at sunset that were a vibrant salmon pink against a glowing cyan blue sky. On this occasion I actually said to my wife, "A photograph of this sky would look like it had been heavily manipulated in Photoshop." Where otherworldly, unusual colours occur naturally there's nothing that needs doing to change the photograph. Today's shot has something of these qualities because the colours look unreal or manipulated. I took it near the River Thames in London, and it's as it came out of the camera, the colours fairly close to what we saw in what was the second best London sunset I've ever seen. For the very best London sunset of the past few decades, one that was widely acknowledged as such, see my photograph here. Note - I did use a graduated neutral density filter for this shot.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: crop of 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Advertising and happiness

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Modern advertising has always intrigued me. One of my early blog posts, in 2006, was called "Gullibility and advertising". I returned to the subject via product names in 2010 in the post, "Silly brand names and pier views". In 2012 "Underpants, celebrities and gibberish" found me reflecting on no less than David Beckham's boxer briefs, and in April of this year the sight of people volunteering to stand under artificially created rain while fake thunder and lightning crashed and flashed about them prompted "Advertising puzzles me". Advertising is so ubiquitous and, it must be said, often so clever, that we often fail to register it at a conscious level. However, at a subconscious level it feeds on us like a tapeworm, gnawing away at our very being, influencing what we buy, why we buy it and changing our perception of just what a product can do for us.

Many years ago I came to the conclusion that one of the main aims of advertising was to obscure the distinction between pleasure and happiness. We see this in the cliche of a new car being sold through a film of a young couple driving down an empty road in beautiful, sunny countryside, smiling beatitudinously, as though blessed with all the happiness that it is possible for life to confer upon them. Buy this car, the subtext says, and you will be like them. Or buy the wrist-watch that George Clooney advertises and you'll be like him. Or happiness is yours if only you wear this or that brand of clothing, eat at our restaurant, or live in our exclusive residential development. The fact is, that advertisements rarely give you straightforward, factual information about the product they are trying to sell. Instead they tell a fictional story about achieving happiness, pleasure, status or a life-changing experience, in which you are encouraged to see yourself as the main character, the person who is transformed by something as simple and easy as a purchase. At the heart of much advertising, it must be said, is dishonesty.

That thought was sparked the other day when we were in London. We were heading for Waterloo tube station one evening and passed the British Film Institute's IMAX cinema, a large circular building with illuminated, wrap-around advertising. The word "Honestly" was part of an advert for I know not what. And, as I raised my camera to photograph the building with a cluster of London Transport double-deckers below it, I wondered whether honesty figured anywhere in the pitch being made to we passers-by.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24.1mm (65mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Crystal, Royal Victoria Docks, London

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I returned yesterday from a visit to London and, as I sat looking through the photographs that I'd harvested during my time there, I fell to thinking about the metaphors that have been used to describe our capital city. The political reformer and farmer, William Cobbett, called it "the great wen" in his book, "The Rural Rides" that was written in the 1820s and published in 1830. A wen is a sebaceous cyst and Cobbett saw its rapid growth and the way it attracted people and money as detrimental to the country as a whole. For a couple of centuries centuries the city has colloquially been called "The Smoke" because of the amount it generated from its houses and industries. Economic geographers frequently refer to it as a "magnet" for capital due to the way it sucks in national and international investment.

What prompted these thoughts, and why was I pondering "black hole" as another suitable metaphor and rejecting it (there quite a bit that I like about London)? Well, it was something my son said as we walked past a shiny, angular, new building standing on the edge of the Royal Victoria Docks across the Thames from the Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena). He commented that in most British provincial cities "The Crystal" - the building's name - would be a noteworthy, feted structure used to draw visitors, whereas here it was just another such building, one of so many in the London, that he'd never been in. It has been built as "a sustainable cities initiative exploring the future of cities". I imagine it's also a so-called iconic building intended to help with the regeneration of this area of former docks. The Crystal's origami-like appearance made me wonder whether Terry Farrell had a hand in its design because it put me in mind of his aquarium in Hull, "The Deep". But no, this building is the work of Chris Wilkinson of Wilkinson Eyre who says that its "crystalline geometry" is inspired by nature. There can be few natural objects that share this building's faceted exterior but I suppose some quartz formations do. For a photographer the building provides some striking shapes and reflections, and as my companions went to watch some wake-boarders using a fixed line at the edge of the old dock, I circled the building with my camera putting together a few semi-abstract compositions as well as one or two more conventional photographs.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 19.1mm (51mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Melton Ross chalk quarries

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The popularity of Joseph Wright of Derby's paintings or those by Philip James de Loutherbourg of the industrial revolution in Britain stems, in part, from a paradox. On the one hand there is the fascination, excitement and money-making potential of processes, machines and large new, landscape-moulding developments that have never been seen before on such a scale before - forges, furnaces, bridges and tall chimneys, big factories, mines, new workers' housing etc. But there is also a feeling that the new industries, whilst clearly being the future and progress, also mark a change from a gentler, more natural, essentially agrarian Britain to one where the forces of industry and finance are being let rip and their rapid march is stamping all over the traditional, the loved and the familiar. The appeal of paintings such as Loutherbourg's showing the Bedlam Furnaces at Madeley Wood, Coalbrookedale in Shropshire, is in part because of this kind of ambivalence towards large-scale industry and its consequences.

As a photographer I recognise something of that when I photograph wind turbines or electricity pylons that have been dumped, like metal monsters, into rural or offshore locations, places that either haven't changed much, or have changed slowly, and which represent the nearest we get to continuity in a fast changing world. As a subject for the camera both turbines and pylons can offer something striking that even the most ardent protector of rural Britain must recognise. It's a feeling that I felt again when I stood just outside the gateway of Melton Ross chalk quarries in north Lincolnshire and photographed the buildings and machinery associated with the extraction and processing of lime. Ugly? Undoubtedly. Grim? Certainly. But also imposing and visually interesting. I liked the tyre tracks the lorries had left on the wet ground, the bright colours of the safety signs and their reflections against the earth colours of the buildings and conveyor belts, and the dark, threatening clouds flecked by the white smoke from the works' chimneys, that promised more rain.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon 5D Mk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Getting to know the willow

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It wasn't until I had willow trees growing in and adjoining my garden that I really got to know them. One of the first expansions of my knowledge of Salix alba came about when I looked out of my bedroom window one morning and saw that overnight winds had brought down a huge branch. It was flattening a section of ten feet high conifer hedge, had bent a bay tree down to the ground, crushed a shrub border and gouged the lawn. It took four of us most of the day to cut it up with a chainsaw and remove it. Prior to that event I had heard this tree called "crack" willow: now I understood why it had been given the name. The countless small leaves had acted like a sail in the wind that had forced the limb from the tree where it forked. Evidence of the rending crack could be seen on its trunk.

But, the fact is, the willow tree has many endearing habits and I like it. In winter its slender new branches glow reddish-orange in the yellow-tinged light. In March it is one of the earliest trees to come into leaf, a real sign that spring is on the way. The sight of the branches of a willow swaying in the summer breeze, like tresses of long hair, is an arboreal phenomenon that is hard to beat. Birds, large and small love willow trees for the nest sites it offers and the insects that abound in it. As a garden screen the willow tree has few deciduous equals because it carries its leaves for such a long period of time. However, that advantage brings with it some of the tree's disadvantages. It loses leaf through most months of the year so if a tidy garden is your idea of a good garden then it isn't the tree for you. Moreover, the leaf loss is accompanied by long, slender, whippy twigs so composting the gathered leaves becomes more difficult. And then there is that late leaf drop in autumn (or rather early winter). A couple of weeks after you've cleared up most of the deciduous leaves from lawns and flower beds in late November the willow decides its time to shed its leaves too. This is usually in early December. In fact, after completing this blog post collecting up the carpet of willow leaves brought down by yesterday's high winds is my next job!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17.8mm (48mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Britain's oldest houses?

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It's not easy to determine which are the oldest houses in Britain. We can reasonably discount the caves that were inhabited by prehistoric man because a house surely implies a man-made, rather than natural, structure. But then the question arises of just how much of the house needs to exist before it can be considered a house? The post marks found in soil that show where, for example, Iron Age timber and turf houses were built are clearly insufficient. But what about the low, circular, stone walls, on Holyhead Mountain, Anglesey, the remains of possibly Neolithic, but probably Iron Age, dwellings? Or the stone footings of Roman houses in the military settlements along Hadrian's Wall such as Housesteads and Vindolanda? Perhaps they qualify as such.

However, in my mind, it is the very few remaining Norman houses of the twelfth century that are the oldest houses in the country because, despite restorations and additions there is sufficient original work remaining outside and in for us to easily imagine what they looked like when they were first built. The small cathedral city of Lincoln is fortunate in having two of the best examples of Norman town houses, and the not too distant village of Boothby Pagnell has the best small Norman manor house. The so-called Jew's House (leftmost building above) at the start of Steep Hill in Lincoln has a facade with ground floor and first floor walls that date from the late 1100s. The arch over the doorway and the two arched upper windows (one with its dividing column long gone) exhibit carving of that period. The two string courses and the chimney breast are also contemporary. All the ground floor windows are, of course, much later in date, as is the rectangular one on the first floor. Inside are three original twelfth century doorways. Though the pantiled roof looks old the Norman roof would probably have been straw or reed thatch, split stone tiles or wooden shingles. The building adjoining is called Jew's Court. The lowest courses of its facade appear to be similar to its neighbour but everything above dates from the seventeenth century and later.

Britain abounds in houses of the eighteenth, seventeenth and sixteenth centuries. Fifteenth century houses are not unusual, but buildings earlier than that tend to be churches, castles etc and houses of earlier centuries are much rarer. Consequently it's a privilege to be able to view a house such as the one shown above, and remarkable that it still finds a use in the twenty first century, over eight hundred years after it was built.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bracken and silver birches

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The other day, while walking in the vicinity of Woodhall Spa, we passed Highall Wood. Not unusually for woodland in that area of Lincolnshire the two dominant species were bracken and silver birch. I stopped to take a photograph of the pale, flecked trunks of the slender trees rising out of the blanket of brown bracken, plants that only a couple of months ago would have been a sea of green. A few pale, yellow leaves still clung to the thin branches of the trees, though as I write this, a couple of days later, I suspect the recent stronger gusts have brought even those stragglers down.

As I child in the Yorkshire Dales I loved bracken and played in it on the hillsides. We liked the way the individual fronds uncurled and the fact that it grew taller than children making it ideal for hide and seek. But, ever since I discovered that the plant has carcinogenic properties I've viewed it in a different light. Apparently the relatively high incidence of stomach and oesophagal cancers in Japan and Korea may be connected to a liking by those countries for the plant as a foodstuff. When I read this I wondered if I needed to be concerned by the plants' air-borne spores too. I'm not aware that bracken has ever been eaten by people in Britain, but I do know it was used here for thatching cottage roofs, as bedding for humans and animals, as fuel for the fire and as a floor covering. Today it is generally seen as an invasive pest that takes over pasture, something to be controlled and eradicated. In the wood above it appears to be growing wherever it likes. As I walked on I wondered whether the way in which it carpeted the woodland floor led to its roots reducing the already short lives (in tree terms) of the silver birches.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17.8mm (48mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On