A Ledbury view

click photo to enlarge
The market town of Ledbury in Herefordshire is a place I visit fairly frequently, and over the past few years I've collected quite a few photographs of the place, only a few of which please me. This one was taken in early March on a cold, cloudy day. It attempts to encapsulate the town in a single photograph. That's isn't something that is easy to do, and my image doesn't do it to my satisfaction. However, as a streetscape it isn't a complete failure, with visual interest across the frame.

The photograph shows the main street where it widens to accommodate the weekly market. It shows the unwelcome intrusion of cars and the shoppers and tourists attracted to the visually appealing independent shops that flank the route. The black and white, timber-framed structure is the Market House, the town's most prominent building. It was begun after 1617 and completed after 1655. Herefordshire is an area where timber-framed buildings dating from the 1400s through to the 1700s are relatively common, and Ledbury has several such of which this is the most prominent. The first storey rooms are raised on posts of local Spanish chestnut and the space below was designed to give market traders some shelter. It is still used for its original purpose today.

The other prominent building on the left of the photograph is the Barrett Browning Memorial Institute and Clock Tower. It dates from 1892-6 and is the work of the Brightwen Binyon. Pevsner doesn't pull his punches, describing it as "really terrible", observing that though it acknowledges the local timber-framing it does not harmonise with it. He's right that it isn't a great building but it is a tall, visual punctuation at this part of the town.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Market House, Ledbury, Herefordshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (36mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.2
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

British Camp, Malvern Hills

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Many years ago I came across a second-hand copy of "The Relative Hills of Britain" by Alan Dawson. The premise of this fairly slim volume is simple but interesting. It lists all of our island's hills that are high relative to the surrounding land - the qualification for inclusion in the book is that there must be a drop of 150 metres (492 feet) or more on all sides of the summit. Britain doesn't have particularly high mountains - Ben Nevis at 4,409 feet (1,344 metres) is the tallest. Nonetheless, there are many British so-called "walking enthusiasts" who consider it beneath them to climb anything below 2,000 feet (610 metres), the height at which a hill becomes a mountain. What this book helpfully does is list the "relative hills" on a regional basis and directs the attention of walkers to many "lesser" peaks that are significant and worth climbing.

I was reminded of this on a recent visit to Herefordshire as we walked up Black Hill, Pinnacle Hill and Jubilee Hill, three of the "saw tooth" peaks of the Malvern Hills, a low range that features in its pages. As we did so we looked back at Herefordshire Beacon, another of the "teeth", that is topped by the Iron Age hill fort called British Camp. The September sun was picking out the detail of the earthworks, paths and a couple of people on the grass-clad summit above the tree-line. We have walked to the top of the Beacon a couple of times and I've posted photographs I've taken from the top. On this occasion we were looking for different views over the surrounding countryside and more distant prospects of the ancient earthworks.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0
Image Stabilisation: On

Popular house names

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In 1988 the Halifax Building Society concluded from a study of its computer database of 15 million investors that the most common house name in Britain was "The Bungalow" with 4,485 properties carrying this very boring designation. In second place was the equally uninspiring, "The Cottage", with 4,049 references, and third was the slightly more colourful, "Rose Cottage", with 2,936 properties given that name.

Tradition weighs heavy in the name that houses are given, and once given they tend to linger. I have the complete list of the 150 or so most frequently used names, and I have to say that I must have seen most of them at one time or another and none are surprising. Such names tend to be descriptive in one way or another. "The School House" is fourth in the list and always refers to a house that was formerly the abode of a teacher or headteacher when such jobs came with living accommodation."The Vicarage" (in 12th place) is a name that arose in similar circumstances though that name usually implies that the local cleric still uses it as his (or her) home, with "The Old Vicarage" usually indicating a former vicar's residence, often sold because it was too large and too expensive for the church to maintain. Trees abound in house names - "The Hawthorns", "Oak Dene", "Beech House", "Conifers" and "Holly Cottage" are just a few arboreal names found in the list. The building's location is another favoured hook on which to hang a name - "Windy Ridge", "Brookfield", "The Mount", "Fair View" and "Corner Cottage" are examples.

Today's photograph could well be from a "Rose Cottage" because properties with that name frequently feature a climbing rose near the main entrance, around a window or on a sunny wall. However, it is a second photograph from my visit to Lower Brockhampton Manor House in Herefordshire. You can see the rose on the left of the main building in my photograph of the other day.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 30mm (60mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographic and architectural contrasts

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It would be hard to find a greater architectural and photographic contrast than is exhibited in the last post and that of today. A large, angular, urban, twenty-first century health centre made of concrete and steel is just about as distant as you can get from a late 1300s, timber-framed, rural manor house with a later fifteenth century gatehouse and moat.

The photographic treatment adds to the contrast. Black and white, I think, suits the modern building. However, when I idly looked at a monochrome version of the shot above it simply confirmed my opinion that I had to stick with colour despite the "chocolate box" character that it gives to the subject. I recently commented on how, when you visit a place for the first and perhaps only time, you have to accept the weather and light that prevails. Here it was shortly after 10.00am on a June morning with scarcely any cloud in sight when we came upon Lower Brockhampton manor house in Herefordshire. Consequently the light was bright and sharp and the colours vibrant. This house is a subject I'd like to tackle on a slightly misty autumn morning with some brightness and cloud. Or perhaps a bright, late spring evening when clouds pick up a yellow tint from the low sun. As it was the strong white of the paint over the timber-framed walls had to be controlled by under-exposure, and a bit of post-processing was required to get the whole scene back to the brightness levels that my eye saw.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 9mm (18mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6 Shutter Speed: 1/1600 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Obelisks

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The obelisk is a monumental form of long standing. This tall, tapering, four-sided monument, capped by a four-sided pyramid takes its name from the Greek "obeliskos" yet it pre-dates the Greeks and is common in Egyptian architecture. My introduction to the obelisk was in primary school when we learned about Cleopatra's Needle. This is an Egyptian obelisk of c.1450BC (far older than Cleopatra) that was brought from Egypt to London in 1877 and in 1878 was erected on the Thames embankment where it remains today. Paris and New York have similar (and similarly named) obelisks. In England obelisks were popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when they were used as memorials and eyecatchers alongside other Greek, Roman, and occasionally Egyptian architectural forms.

The example in today's photograph is an eyecatcher in the parkland that surrounds Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire. My photograph shows a view of it from the Iron Age "British Camp" on the Malvern Hills near Herefordshire Beacon. Its purpose is to enhance the landscape and endow it with classical qualities. Follies, ruins, monumental arches, pillars, temples, rotundas and obelisks were all pressed into service by landscape architects such as Repton and Brown, as they tried to re-create the Romantic views seen in paintings by the likes of Claude Lorraine. This particular obelisk is about a mile and half from the castle on a low summit, a place where it would be regularly seen by the occupants as they walked around their extensive estate.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 112mm (168mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Meliorative murals

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Most towns have a grubby corner, a place where time and weather do their work without anyone fighting back. Grubby, dilapidated buildings, litter, weeds and saplings growing wherever they choose, broken glass, rust and rubble; somewhere that slowly declines and tries to drag the surrounding area down with it.

On a recent visit to Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire I came across just such a place. A site with rusty, corrugated metal buildings surrounded by rusty, corrugated fencing. I have no idea what it was or is - except an eye-sore. However, someone, perhaps the town council, perhaps the owner, perhaps guerrilla artists, had decided that something needed to be done to brighten up this corner of what is, largely, a pleasant town. The answer seems to have been to commission someone to paint murals on the perimeter fencing. And what a good job they have done. On the dark, end of November day that we walked by the fence was positively neon in its impact. I liked the unnatural colours, the contrast with the rust-brown beyond, the way I had to work a little to decipher the images, eventually picking out the people with their umbrellas (or are they parasols?). I've said elsewhere in this blog that I'm generally not particularly keen on murals as a means of brightening up an area. Here, however, I readily concede that they are doing a great job.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17.2mm (46mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Lions sejant?

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I have no time for the social structure that produced heraldry or for heraldry as a social tool; it seems to me to be a self-serving way of differentiating the plebeians from the aristocracy, of binding the so-called "upper classes" together by lineage, and, in many cases, giving a spurious antiquity to the nouveau riche. That being said, you have to admire the gusto with which the whole heraldic apparatus was invented established, codified and embedded in society.

Go anywhere in England and you'll come across heraldry. It's in almost every Church of England building, virtually all civic buildings, on the coinage, on pub signs, affixed to buildings, printed on book covers, an most of all, everywhere in castles new and old.

Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire is a Victorian castle and the builders took great pains to make it look like it has been built up over the centuries, with rooms and details in various architectural styles. It is also dripping with heraldry. The detail above shows part of a panel behind a stream of water that issues from a wall into a pool. It has two lions facing each other, their front legs raised on steps, between them a tree, and above a shield. The position that heraldic animals adopt are circumscribed by rules and special names. I think this pair are sejant!

© Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 95mm (142mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO:360
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Flowers in the window

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A large, mixed bunch of flowers displayed alongside other vessels and objects, such as these that I saw in the window of a house in Ledbury, Herefordshire, always reminds me of the Dutch school of flower painting that flourished in the seventeenth century. Here, however, the slender Georgian glazing bars and the small panes of glass added, to my mind, a touch of nineteenth century Dickens.

© Tony Boughen
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.9mm (40mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Landscapes - with or without people?

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Very little early landscape painting, for example that of ancient Greece or China, showed only natural features. It was much more usual for such work to, somewhere, often in a fairly insignificant way, include buildings or a human figure. As the genre developed down the centuries the place of people in landscape paintings persisted. Artists knew that the inclusion of a figure changed the meaning of the work, gave scale to the depiction and offered a powerful focal point. The fact is, if the human form is present in a work the eye finds it extremely quickly. Only in the work of later painters, and in photographic landscapes, is it common to find work where no human figure is present.

When it comes to landscape photography I often like to include a person somewhere. Frequently I choose the foreground to give the eye a starting point. But I also see the value of a person in the middle-ground or background for establishing a sense of scale. When I was photographing this stand of cedars in the arboretum at Eastnor castle, Herefordshire, I deliberately took one shot without people and one with people to illustrate just that point.

Cedars are not native to Britain. These examples were planted by Victorian collectors and they are widely regarded as the best group and some of the biggest specimens on these islands. For that reason alone I can justify the inclusion of people for the purpose of scale. When you view the photograph without figures it's hard to appreciate the width and height of those big tree trunks.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (63mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:250
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Same lane, different lighting

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One of my regular visits to Lebury in Herefordshire coincided with a bout of minor illness and so my photographic foraging in the area wasn't as productive as it sometimes can be. However, my morning walk to collect my newspaper took me, as it always does, past the entry to Church Lane. So, when I'd collected my "Guardian" I went the few yards back on my route to take some photographs.

Anyone remembering my photographs of this narrow, pedestrians-only, lane that I took in February of this year might wonder what else there is to glean from the location. However, I've always believed that light, time of day, season and weather can make sufficient difference for anywhere to be worth photographing on several occasions. Here, I first took a shot that was compositionally as close as I could get it to the main photograph from my earlier attempt. Then I went back down to the entrance to the lane and took the view from the bollards up to the distant church spire. Late April's early morning light, combined with the position of the sun just to the right of straight ahead, made all the difference. So too did the dynamic range of the Nikon which I'm finding to be pretty good.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm (40mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ballflower ornament

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Symbolism has always interested me. That must account - in part - for my fascination with the history of ecclesiastical architecture. Churches are packed with symbolism and it is sometimes a real pleasure to wander around one of these old buildings decoding the fittings, furnishings and architecture, seeing how artists and craftspeople used ornament to illustrate their faith.

In Christian churches the Trinity is especially subject to symbolic representation: how else can you depict God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost as a single entity? In 2010 I photographed and wrote about a building that is almost entirely dedicated to the symbolic representation and celebration of the Trinity - Rushton Triangular Lodge. However, every church, somewhere or other builds in references to the number three because of its special significance. Three steps often lead up to the altar. The baptismal font is frequently at the top of three steps too. Windows are often split into three "lights", triangular shapes frequently feature in ornament, three-leaved foliage abounds, tracery has trefoils; I've even seen in a very modern church three vertical lines moulded into the concrete above an altar, rather like cricket wickets with the bails missing. Mind you, minimalism of that kind wasn't unknown in the eighteenth century, as this small spire at Little Gidding church in Cambridgeshire shows - notice the three rectangular holes piercing it, surely another representation of the Trinity.

In the period around 1300 to 1325 a particular form of ornament came into being that represents the Trinity. The ballflower is a three petalled flower that encloses a ball: three and one if not quite 3 in one. You can see them in their dozens edging the tracery of this chapel window (above) of the church at Ledbury, Herefordshire. Its a small thing, but heavily repeated so that cumulatively it can't be ignored. I've always been in two minds about its effectiveness as ornament because it turns elegant, smooth, curving stone into stone with an encrusted, almost organic quality. Over the years I've decided that in small doses I like it, but I'm glad it quite quickly went out of fashion.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 34.9mm (94mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photography, rejection and composition

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A large part of photography involves rejection. I'm not thinking of the way your output may be received by others, though rejection by an audience figures with photographs just as much as it does in any artistic or craft undertaking. No, in this instance I'm thinking of the rejection of that which is not needed to tell the picture's story.

When I come to compose a photograph I find that my mind either concentrates on including the parts that I want, or, more frequently, focuses on eliminating those aspects that are not required so that I am left with only the desired elements. Rejection, it has always seemed to me is more important in photography than addition. In painting it is the other way round: the blank canvas is built into the final work by addition after addition.

However, there are times when, even though you've included all you want and rejected all that you don't want, there is a case for refining down further still. That's because, sometimes, a part is more expressive of the whole than is the whole itself.

It was that thought that came to mind when I was photographing Church Lane in Ledbury, Herefordshire, the other day. This narrow, medieval and later street, with the old church at the end, is a fine photographic subject. However, each time I looked at my shot of the cobbled alley, the timber-framed buildings and the stone tower and spire on the camera screen I was less than satisfied with the outcome. After pondering the matter for a while I decided that this was because the essence of what makes the view interesting wasn't coming through in the image. So, as I passed by the location the next day, I switched the focal length from 28mm to 100mm, walked well into the lane, and concentrated my attention on the upper part of some near buildings and just part of the culminating tower and spire. The outcome is more agreeable to me than the wider (though still narrow) vista, though I'm sure there will be those who don't agree with that judgement.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A Ledbury sculpture by the Thornycrofts

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Thomas Thornycroft (1815-1885) and Mary Thornycroft (neé Francis) (1814-1895), were husband and wife sculptors. They met when Thomas was an assistant to Mary's father, the sculptor John Francis (1780-1861). Their work can be seen at many London locations, but like a lot of public sculptors of the Victorian period, familiarity with their work often doesn't bring recognition of the person (or people) who executed it.

One of the best known works by the Thornycrofts (sometimes John was principally responsible, at other times it was Mary) is the group representing Commerce on the Albert Memorial, though George Gilbert Scott, the architect responsible for the overall design of the Memorial, was critical of both the concept and composition. Another prominent London piece is Boadicea and her Daughters, a bronze of the queen of the Iceni tribe in her chariot, near Westminster Pier by the River Thames. The couple received commissions for civic pieces from many cities as well as for the royal family. Mary completed several busts and statues of Queen Victoria's children.

I recently discovered that the Thornycrofts were responsible for a memorial in Ledbury church, Herefordshire. This marble sculpture shows a sleeping child watched over by two angels. It commemorates the death of a child in the following words:

John Hamilton, the beloved infant son of John Martin and

Maria Henrietta, his wife.

Born April 23rd, 1850. Died March 18th, 1851

The work was apparently conceived by Mary Thornycroft and sculpted by her husband. It is a touching piece and one that was thought of a sufficiently high standard to be shown at the Great Exhibition in 1851.

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
ISO:320
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hotels and ratings signs

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There was a time in my life when I walked, cycled and used public transport exclusively. One of my aims was to to avoid car ownership and the environmental destructiveness that is inherent in that form of transport. However, for various reasons, including the birth of a second son and the deliberate vandalising of British Rail by the Thatcher governments, I bought a car and it is now my main means of transport. However, I still cycle and I remain a member of the Cyclists' Touring Club (CTC) for the insurance it offers, the interesting magazine it publishes and to help the foremost body in Britain that supports the cyclist and the cause of cycling. I was briefly a member of the Automobile Association (AA) when membership came as part of the package with a car that I bought. However, I let that lapse because the organisation that claims to be the main voice for motorists in Britain kept making statements in support of motoring for which it had no mandate from its members and which were diametrically opposed to my beliefs.

Both of these organisations produced ratings signs to be fixed to the exterior of hotels, B&Bs etc. In the case of the CTC the winged wheel logo, often made of cast iron or enamel, began to be used from 1887 and denoted an establishment that offered good accommodation and service to cyclists. These early plaques can still be seen on some buildings as can its modern equivalent, a small sticker designed to be fixed to a window. Compared with the CTC the AA was a relative latecomer in the rating and recommending of hotels etc, having begun to award its plaques with 1 to 5 stars only from 1912. The AA continues to be a major player in the inspection and judging of the standards of accommodation, continuing to award stars and offer establishments ways of advertising its rating. However, as with the CTC, quite a few hotels still display an old AA sign that must have been awarded decades ago. I imagine there is some kind of stipulation that these must reflect a current rating - or perhaps not.

I was wondering about this latter point recently as I photographed just such a sign - an illuminated variant -  on the main facade of the Feathers Hotel in Ledbury, Herefordshire. It must date from before 1966 because in that year the AA changed to a sans serif font for its initials and signage. The deep yellow and black of the sign, along with Union flags, window boxes and hanging baskets, gave colour to the black and white of the ancient, timber-framed building, and offered a collection of details that seemed to have the makings of a photograph, so I pointed my camera at it and pressed the shutter.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Adding shadows to the mix

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I've said elsewhere in this blog that I like to use shadows in photographs. It seems to me that they add a dimension that is quite unique. Often their contribution is in the form of a doppelganger - an insubstantial echo of the solid objects or people in or around the subject. They also bring darkness, and with it contrast, that otherwise might be absent. But more than that, shadows inject mood into an image.

I've often wondered to what extent deep, primeval fears and feelings influence how we see shadows. Certainly mankind has woven the night and shadows into many of the myths, legends, stories, songs and other art that has come down the centuries to us. Even today shadows feature in film and TV simply to convey feeling and atmosphere. The success of the Danish TV series, "The Killing", and its sequels would have been much less if it hadn't been set largely at night. And, when I think of some of my favourite films, I notice cinematography that accentuates shadows and darkness figuring large in the list. In a post of January 2011 about black and white photography I said that David Lean's 1946 version of "Great Expectations" was a fine argument for the virtues of the monochrome medium in still photography. It uses shadows well too, of course. However, were I to nominate a film that showcases the value and power of shadows then I can think of no better example than Carol Reed's 1949 film, "The Third Man". Vienna at night, with its bomb damaged buildings, street lights and the shadows of people (and cats) as they scurry about, are magnificently conceived and contribute enormously to the high regard that the film continues to enjoy.

Today's photograph shows part of the facade of a Georgian street in Ledbury, Herefordshire. I liked the way the shadow of the buildings behind and to the side of me threw shapes and darkness across the sunlit composition. The stronger orange and the washed out yellow became more important elements with the shadow's depressing effect, and in my mind's eye I saw the composition as semi-abstract arrangement of shapes and colours.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 38mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation:N/A

The Much Marcle yew tree

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The ancient yew tree shown in today's photograph is estimated to be about 1500 years old. It stands in Much Marcle, Herefordshire, next to the medieval church of St Bartholomew, the oldest part of which dates from about 1230. The tree must have been standing for 700 hundred years when the church was begun, and it is remarkable that it still lives today. Or perhaps not so remarkable when we consider that, in countries north of the Mediterranean, England is second only to Greece in the number of ancient trees (those that are several hundred years old) to be found within its borders.

Much Marcle's tree is justly renowned, not only for its age, but for its girth of 31 feet at a point 4 feet 6 inches above the ground. The tree's trunk, as you can see from the photograph, is hollow, and it is provided with seating that can support several people. In recent years the tree was pruned for the first time in a long time. Six tons of dead and unnecessary timber was removed. When we were there the other day - our third or fourth visit over the years to this interesting village - I noticed a heavy chain wrapped around the tree at a height of twelve or fifteen feet. Its purpose may have been to keep the branches from drooping down to the ground. In a few places it was in the process of being absorbed into the limbs so it must have been there for quite a while.

Ancient yews, particularly those in churchyards have long been noted and revered. In the seventeenth century John Evelyn and John Aubrey wrote about them, and travel writers and antiquarians continued to do so in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the twentieth century Vaughan Cornish's "Churchyard Yews" (1946) and E.W. Swanton's "The Yew Trees of England" (1958) raised their profile considerably. However, it was "The Sacred Yew" (1994) by Anand Chetan and Diana Brueton (leaning heavily on the work of Allen Meredith) that gained the attention of the media. It catalogued 404 trees that were estimated to be more than 1,000 years old. In 2003 the Ancient Yew Group was formed and continued the documentation of the tree. It has noted 837 "ancient, veteran or significant" yews in England and Wales. Further details about this group and much fascinating information of yew trees can be found on their website.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 2500
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Artemis, The Huntress

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"All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?"
from "Monty Python's Life of Brian" (1979)

The Romans have an undeserved reputation for innovation. It's true that they had very good engineering, and that their skills in acquiring, administering and sustaining an empire were formidable. However, as far as actual inventions go their prowess has been greatly exaggerated. The fact is their real skills lay in creative borrowing: taking the inventions of other cultures and improving them. The Romans were more Bill Gates than Alexander Graham Bell.

A single example can serve to exemplify the failings of the Romans when it comes to inventions - or the absence of them. Throughout their period of ascendancy horse power was crucial to the Romans, yet they continued with the same inefficient harness that was used in the Bronze Age. In the second century B.C. the Chinese had horses pulling against a breast strap when they were used with a cart. This allowed them to breath more easily and pull heavier loads. A century later the Chinese had discovered the increased benefits of the collar harness, a device unknown in Europe until many hundreds of years after the Roman empire had collapsed.
 
On a recent visit to Much Marcle in Herefordshire to attend a wedding I was photographing in the snow-covered garden of Hellens Manor, the ancient house where the ceremony and subsequent festivities were to take place. The frozen pond on the south-facing terrace featured a statue of a female hunter. The moss and lichen encrusted figure looked like a good subject for a photograph or two, and so I took some shots showing details and context. This particular view of the garden was taken the day before the main image. It shows the sculpted figure with a snow scarf and cap which had disappeared twenty four hours later. When I came to give a title to today's photograph I had to stop and think whether the subject was Greek or Roman. If Greek, then the statue depicted Artemis, if Roman then it was Diana. When it came to religion the Romans inherited some Greek gods during their early history, came up with some of their own later on, and sought to identify some of these with Greek forerunners due to their fascination with the earlier civilisation. All of which has sown some confusion in the minds of later generations. The sculpture could be Diana, but she looks Greek to me. All of which leads me to think that another thing the Romans did for us was to add a layer of confusion to their mythology that tripped up this photographer when he was a schoolboy, and sometimes puzzles him still.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Kilpeck's remarkable doorway

click photo to enlarge

The other day, in connection with the Anglo-Saxon (Romanesque) church at Barton upon Humber, Lincolnshire, I was talking about architectural exemplars; those buildings that best exemplify the characteristics of a style or period. When it comes to the style that follows the Anglo-Saxon in English architecture, that is the Norman (also Romanesque), the church of St Mary & St David at Kilpeck in Herefordshire is one of the most quoted in architectural textbooks. More particularly, its elaborate south doorway of c.1150 is held up as one that best displays the achievement of post-Conquest architecture.

Yet, when I first saw this doorway I felt sure that an over-enthusiastic Victorian restorer must have had the carving re-tooled, that is to say have a sculptor go over it with his chisels to make it look more like it would have done when first completed. But I was wrong. It seems that the red sandstone was particularly well chosen and has simply survived the centuries much better than most stone. So what does it show? In the tympanum above the door is a stylized Tree of Life with grapes to left and right. It sits on a lintel with a band of horizontal chevron moulding that looks like it has been re-used from elsewhere. The outer order of the arch has medallion like shapes with birds, fish and dragons, joined by carved bands with eyes. The inner order has characteristic beakheads, but also angels and dragons, some devouring themselves. The columns and capitals that flank the doorway are even more remarkable. They have elongated figures (as do the church's chancel arch columns), long dragons, heads and much writhing foliage. The Viking origin of much of this is very clear, and of course the Normans were descended from Scandinavians that settled in France.

Beautiful though the doorway is, one has to question the extent to which it is an exemplar of Norman architecture. There are other doorways and arches of this period that show similar carving: Pevsner cites Shobden's re-sited arches, and he might have mentioned certain cross columns. However, Kilpeck isn't typical so much as a pinnacle of the style, a flowering that is admirable but also exceeds the quality and departs from the characteristics more usually seen.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/25 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Garden photography in dull weather

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It's well known that in the UK the main topic of conversation isn't the state of the economy, the royal family, politics, the achievements of a football team or the goings on in whatever happens to be the favourite soap opera of the day. Not one of these matters of great importance do people dwell on overly long, rather it's the everyday subject of - the weather. In a country such as ours where latitude, the Gulf Stream, the surrounding sea and the proximity of a large land mass - "the continent" - produce a temperate climate with plentiful cloud and, often though not always, several kinds of weather in a single day, the weather is always going to be more of a talking point than it would be in a Mediterranean region, the centre of a continent, or almost anywhere else. And when the changeable weather pattern departs from its normal fluctuations and produces a period of unseasonally low temperatures, persistent cloud cover and very regular precipitation, as it has this spring, then you can be sure that the regular chatter about the weather becomes a grumbling storm of comment, cogitation and complaint.

I've found that this spring's weather has definitely impinged on my photography. Dull days, with little shadow and low contrast give what is often called "flat lighting", something that is often difficult to work with. I say "often" because it seems that this kind of weather also affects your memory. I know full well that there are circumstances and subjects that respond well to overcast skies, but occasionally I forget, and fail to search them out and take advantage of them. I described some of the positives of this kind of light a couple of years ago when I posted a photograph of boats on the shingle beach at Aldeburgh, Suffolk. On my recent trip to Herefordshire I came upon another such subject that worked well on a dull day. It was in Hampton Court Gardens near Leominster. The bright splash of red of the tulips in front of the attractive, timber and brick pavilion, provided the burst of colour that was needed for this overcast scene of greens, greys, brick and dark water. The saturated colours, the absence of contrasting highlights and shadows, and the lack of modelling that the latter two qualities confer, lend a character and mood to the subject that I like.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 65mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sleeping Beauty?

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"Here is an English counterpart to the illusionism which occurs at the same time in Italian painting and German sculpture."
Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), architectural historian

In his book, England's Thousand Best Churches, the author, Simon Jenkins, says of this tomb in the church of St Bartholomew, Much Marcle, Herefordshire, "The effigy might be the original for Sleeping Beauty." It isn't, and he knows that it isn't, but such is the character, delicacy and beauty of this fourteenth century figure sculpture, that this would certainly be the one to emulate for that purpose. The quotation from Nikolaus Pevsner at the head of this piece puts the sculpture into a European context, and at the same time draws our attention to the remarkable - for its time - realism of the figure and its clothing.

Blanche Mortimer was Lady Grandison, the wife of Sir Peter Grandison, and the daughter of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. She died childless, three years before her husband. There is probably no attempt at a likeness in the sculpture of her face, but her clothing, rosary, head dress, and the fall of her gown over the edge of the tomb, are all done with the intention of reproducing the illusion of reality. The tomb would have been painted when new, and the illusion would have been even stronger.

There are many who consider this tomb to be one of England's best from the period. It sits in a church that boasts other fine effigies, including one from the same period as this piece, carved from oak. The Kyrle Chapel has a sumptuously carved tomb from the seventeenth century of Sir John Kyrle and his wife that I made the subject of one of my first blog posts in January 2006.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On