Yorkshire Dales barns

click photo to enlarge

A recent few days in the Yorkshire Dales re-acquainted me with some stone barns that I've known all my life. Some continue in use much as they always have, others have fallen further into a state of dilapidation, and some are in the process of being converted to new uses.

Todays's photograph shows a modest barn near Settle called Far Thornber Barn. Most Dales barns  that are out in the fields have names. Often these relate to the first owner, to the location or have a name whose origins are lost in the mists of time. Sometimes the last part of the name is "Laithe" rather than "Barn", a word that derives from the Old Norse (ON) word "hlatha" meaning barn. This reflects the influx from predominantly Ireland and Norway of Norse settlers in the years after 800 AD. In this area, a mile or so south of Settle, there is a cluster of barns that I know well. The oldest is Brigholme Barn near Giggleswick, by the River Ribble, which apparently dates from the seventeenth century. The last part of its name comes from the ON "holmr" meaning a dry, raised place in wet land - a suitable location for a barn -  and the first may derive from either the Old English "brycg" or the ON "bryggja", both meaning bridge. In my childhood it was piled high with bales of hay. It's now surrounded by newer structures that serve modern farming better, but is still used, cared for and maintained with traditional methods (lime mortar etc) as befits a listed building.

A few hundred yards from the barn in the photograph is the oddly named Fish Copy Barn. A more "architectural" structure than many it has a "porch", carved stone decoration and a late nineteenth century date stone with the owner's initials. For many years it was roofed, and the upper part of the porch was notable for a pile of song thrush nests about six feet high, the work of successive generations of birds each building on the nest below. Now it stands forlorn, unwanted and roofless amid a patch of waste land. By the A65 road the cluster of Cleatop Barns (named after the nearby house and wood) are in the process of being transformed into offices, retail space and a restaurant: a sad end for these distinctive buildings.

I visited Settle in a period of unseasonally hot weather with clear blue skies - not ideal for walking on the limestone and millstone grit uplands or for photography. This shot, however, was taken on the first morning of my stay when some low cloud pierced by patches of sunlight made photography much easier.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 60mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bull bars and inquisitive cows

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The main subtext of motor vehicle manufacturers' advertisements is that buying their vehicle will say something about you to the world. They're pretty much right, but what is said isn't always what they imagine. Take off-road vehicles. When I see a 2.5 ton Land Rover Discovery barrelling along the highway, transporting a mother and child on the school run, I think, "That driver must be a half-wit." If it is fitted with bull-bars I think, "That driver must be a complete and utter half-wit with the cognitive powers of a dead ant." What causes me to have these thoughts? Simply the redundancy implicit in using a vehicle of this sort for domestic travel, the selfishness involved in cocooning yourself in a place of safety at the expense of other road users, and the environmental impact of such transport. As for the bull bars, well, the chances of hitting a bull on Britain's roads is marginally less than running over a member of the royal family, so what's the point? Now I know that my thoughts about the drivers of 4X4 vehicles cannot be right: many must be perfectly pleasant, intelligent people, and those that I know certainly are! The trouble is, a large number of them, through their driving, seem intent on making me think otherwise.

Yesterday, as I was photographing the motte and bailey of the former Norman castle at Castle Bytham, Lincolnshire, it occurred to me that the "petal" lens hood on my Zuiko 11-22mm lens is a pretty useful bull-bar, or rather cow-bar. I was in a field taking my photographs when I was approached by a small herd of young cattle. I took a couple of shots of them as foreground interest for my image of the castle mounds, then turned and climbed over the stile out of the field. The animals followed me right up to the fence and crowded around, seemingly wanting their photograph taken again. As I obliged the boldest of the bunch pushed her wet nose so close that I felt it bump up against the lens hood which, very conveniently, saved the filter on the end of the lens from getting snotty.

Taking a couple more shots I reflected that these were the friendliest cows I've encountered for quite a while. However, when I came to process this shot I revised my opinion. I think what I'd taken for friendliness was pushiness; a lack of the social graces due to being badly brought up. What makes me think that? Well look at the cow in the background cleaning its nose out with its tongue. Ugh! Gross! Didn't its mother teach it anything?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Contrails and cattle

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The more we study global warming the more we come to appreciate the multiplicity of contributors to the phenomenon.

According to the UN the CO2 equivalent (methane) produced by cattle rearing exceeds the CO2 produced by transportation. Add in all the other sheep, goats, pigs, etc, that produce methane and the contribution made by livestock farming to global warming is massive. And, since methane is, by most measures, a significantly more harmful greenhouse gas than CO2, the case for reducing the scale of animal agriculture is compelling.

Consider too the vapour trails (contrails) that criss-cross our skies. Not only are they a pain for the photographer, they also increase the amount of high level cirrus in the atmosphere. This kind of cloud reflects less heat than it traps, and so raises the temperature of the earth by a measurable amount. Studies in the U.S. suggest that aircraft-generated clouds contribute an increase of somewhere between 0.36 and 0.54 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. That being the case, those calling for a reduction in flying seem to have a point.

This photograph of cows walking along the sea bank at Frampton Marsh, Lincolnshire, caused the disparate subjects of methane and air travel to come to mind. The silhouettes of the group of cows and the lone straggler, along with the vapour trails that had been "distressed" by high level winds, seemed a promising combination of the distinct and the diaphanous. In this flat landscape this ratio of land to sky suggested itself.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 76mm (152mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On