Reflections at Oxburgh Hall

Oxburgh Hall is one of the most intriguing National Trust properties in East Anglia.  The whole building is a gem, a Tudor mansion built in warm brick, surrounded by a moat.  The interior is fascinating, with insights into the lives of the Roman Catholic minority in Tudor times, including a priest's hole which you can enter (if you are flexible enough to get round the 90 degree bend!) and embroideries worked by Mary Queen of Scots during her captivity in England: some of the detail on them is fascinating from the point of view of the exotic creatures which are pictured, some obviously from life, and some more from the imagination.
But the day that we visited the attraction for me was the reflections of the castle in the moat.  Much of the fortification is really for show: the house has been altered considerably since Tudor times, but the main gatehouse is still much as it was.
The best view of the gatehouse, paradoxically, is from the back, looking over the low building which replaced the original Great Hall.

It looks more like a keep from this side!
On either side of the low building we are looking over are two square towers.

It's quite strange how the brickwork looks warmer in the reflection than when seen directly.  The last of the "reflection" pictures shows one of the wings of the house, or perhaps side walls might be a better term.  The side ranges are basically one room thick, with a corridor to the inside.

One of the things which seems to have changed over the past few years is the attitude of the volunteers in National Trust houses.  In the past my memory is that they were a little like museum curators, whose attitude as at least as much related to the security of the objects as to anything else.  But tis time the people we spoke to were real enthusiasts for the houses they were showing off, and their friendly and informative attitude added greatly to the enjoyment of the visit.

Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral dominates the fen country in the west of Norfolk: it sits on a lowish ridge but the countryside around is so flat it is visible for miles.

Viewed from the river bank it looks simply massive, as much like a fortress as a cathedral.  It doesn't have a spire, but instead has a unique feature of an octagon shaped tower, with large windows close to the top.

Inside the octagon is a wonderful painting:

The work in the octagon is genuinely medieval, the rest of the ceiling was restored in the nineteenth century.  It's one of the most striking pieces of architecture in any British church, and because the upper stories are full of windows gives the whole cathedral an amazing quality of light inside.  SDG.

In the grounds of Ickworth House

Ickworth House is just outside Bury St Edmunds (of which more later.)  The estate is a classic English landscaped park, originally designed by Capability Brown.  The centrepiece of the estate however looks just about anything but English - except in its eccentricity!

The rotunda behind the tree is the centrepiece of a two-winged quasi Georgian "house", built on an enormous scale so that the Earl of Bristol (who was also Bishop of Derry, but spent most of his time collecting art in Continental Europe) would have an appropriate building to showcase his art collection.  Things never work out as planned, though, and much of it was confiscated by Napoleon.

The immediate surroundings of the house are more Italianate than British, based largely on structural trees and shrubs rather than displays of flowers.

The tree collection is very striking: exotic conifers and cedars predominate, and the general effect is extremely impressive.

The estate also contains a magnificent walled garden, which has been converted into a vineyard.

In many ways this is a much more conventional layout, though the vineyard is relatively recent  The brick used is a particularly attractive shade of warm red.  Part of the walled garden is let out as allotments to local residents.  Currently the National Trust, who own the estate, are engaged on a large programme of tree planting, which will enhance the parkland views, and are also considering whether or not to re-instate, at least partly, the old Victorian kitchen garden which used to occupy the walled area, using the planting books which have been preserved with the rest of the estate documentation.
The outside wall of the garden contains a summerhouse, which overlooks a small ornamental lake.

Ickworth is a wonderful place for a visit, no matter whether you are interested in the art (the collection includes works by Gainsborough and Titian) or the grounds, which offer very varied walks (well waymarked!)

March in October

One of the best things about being somewhere you don't really know well is the way in which serendipity plays a part in what you see.
Whilst in Cambridge we stumbled on the town of March, which was originally a place we were simply going to pass through, but which turned out to be really interesting, even if one of its major attractions turned out to be closed (and we wouldn't have had time to do it justice even had it been open)

March lies on the River Nene, one of the rivers which meander through the Fens on their way to the North Sea (although it meets the Great Ouse first!)  The first picture is of the Town Hall beautifully reflected in the river.

At one end of Broad Street is the fountain erected to celebrate the coronation of George V.

The fountain is very striking: cast iron, and supplied by the Saracen Foundry from Possilpark, Glasgow.  The Saracen Foundry specialised in ornamental cast iron work, although much of what they made has been lost over the last century - the Second World War in particular, with the necessity to reclaim cast iron for the war effort, made great inroads into the monuments that they had supplied.  In the heyday of the British Empire Saracen Foundry products were sold to many cities round the world.  The fountains often follow a fairly standard design - octagonal, and as in this case localised by the addition of relevant shields.  One of the shields in March shows a white stork, which is a little unexpected as even then the bird was really a rare visitor rather than a breeding species in the UK.

A tale of two lighthouses

The head of the Clyde Estuary is marked by two lighthouses.  The more famous one is just south of Gourock, at Cloch Point.

This is the Cloch lighthouse, taken from the Dunoon to Gourock ferry (which takes a much closer course to the eastern shore than on the outward journey.)  The Cloch was built in 1797, designed by Thomas Smith and his son-in-law Robert Stevenson, who became one of the world's greatest lighthouse designers - the Bell Rock is probably his most famous design. Thomas Smith, however, was the first lighthouse designer in the family - he was the first engineer of the Northern Lighthouse Trust, having made his name designing innovative reflectors for the lighting of the New Town in Edinburgh.  Most of the work on the Cloch was done by Thomas Smith.
The light is opposite the Gantocks, a particularly nasty rocky ledge just off Dunoon, and was originally intended to warn ships off them.  Perhaps the Cloch was best known for the foghorn, which was compared to the sound of a cow in acute distress!  It's now a private house, and the light in the tower has been replaced by one on a pole.  The light is fully automated.
During both World Wars there was a coastal battery located here, and the terracing for the guns became the starting point for the caravan park which can be seen behind the lighthouse. The Inner Clyde was protected by an anti submarine boom which ran from the Cloch to Dunoon, coming ashore just below the statue of Highland Mary
The Gantocks now have their own light - properly just a beacon, which dates in its current form from 1898.

The Gantocks are completely submerged at high tide.

Highland Mary

The statue of Mary Campbell (better known as "Burns' Highland Mary") stands overlooking the harbour of Dunoon.  She's looking down the Clyde, either towards Ayrshire or along the route that the ship would take to the West Indies.  The best known version of the story is that she was Burns'one true love, with whom he intended to emigrate to the West Indies, but who died of typhus before they could arrange a passage. There are other versions, which tell a story which is less to Burns' credit.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the story inspired a fine statue.  Mary Campbell was indeed born in Dunoon, but appears to have moved with her parents early on in her life, so the location is a little fanciful.

The detailing of the bronze work, down to the braiding and knots on the shawl, is quite remarkable, especially considering the exposed location and the date of 1896 for its creation by David Watson Stevenson, who also did much work for the Wallace Monument. The blue bar is part of the ferry terminal, and in the background, on the far side of the Clyde estuary, is the Cloch lighthouse. More about the Cloch later.

Kleine Möwe...

Just along the coast from Anstruther and Pittenweem is the small town of Elie.  Rather than images of the town itself today I have two picture of seabirds which were taken at high tide.  The Forth Estuary is an internationally important breeding and wintering location for many species, but the first picture is on one of the more familiar species.

Herring gulls are among the most common of the birds that can be seen off the coast.  The picture was taken from the harbour wall looking into the small bay formed by a small promontory, which is in the background.  The tide is not usually high enough to cover the all the rocky outcrops on the foreshore, and birds use them as refuges.
The second picture, though is of a much rarer species.  The sandwich tern breeds on some of the islands in the estuary, and the one below is just moulting into adult plumage before embarking on the migration to the South Atlantic.

It's found a very small perch.

"Gin ye sud come tae Ainster fair..."

Just along the Fife coast from Pittenweem is Anstruther (pronounced Ainster, as in the song.)  Technically it's two towns in one!

Unlike Pittenweem, though, the harbour (which is really in Anstruther Easter) is much less a working harbour and has a large area for pleasure craft of various sizes. It's a typical Fife town, with the kirk dominating the town when seen from the harbour wall, and pantiled shops and houses on the waterfront (including one of the best chip shops in Scotland!)
The town is also the location of the Scottish Fisheries Museum, and there are a number of historic craft dotted around the harbour as well.

Just to the west of the harbour, across the Dreel Burn, is the smaller town of Anstruther Wester.  The Dreel Burn is not much of a barrier nowadays, but the story is told of the beggarwoman (or possibly a fishwife) who carried a traveller across only to find that the traveller was King James V, roaming the country in his disguise as the "Gaberlunzie Man".  You can still cross by stepping stones, if you wish,

"Lights will guide you home..."

St Mary's lighthouse is one of the major landmarks of the Northumbrian coast.

It is located just to the north of Whitley Bay, reached by a causeway that is flooded at high tide - you can just see the start of the causeway in the picture.  The history of the light goes back many centuries before the current building (which is no longer maintained by Trinity House.)  The original light was maintained by monks.  It's not known when they first settled the island, but the first extant records go back to 1090, when Tynemouth Priory was reconstituted by the Norman Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Mowbray, as a cell of the Abbey of St Alban's. Shortly after that a chapel dedicated to St Helen was built on the site, and the monks kept a candle burning to warn ships of the dangers.  This became known as a "St Mary's Light", and in its turn this gave its name to the bay and the island.
The current building dates from 1898, and was intended to replace the Tynemouth lighthouse, which had been in service since 1664, and was located within Tynemouth Castle.  It was required partly because the light from the Tynemouth light was often obscured by smoke, but more urgently because the War Office wished to improve the defences of the Tyne Estuary: this was after all at the start of the naval rivalry between Britain and Germany which was one of the causes of the Great War.
The current Tynemouth lighthouse sits at the end of the northern jetty that protects the entrance to the Tyne: the earlier one was on the headland above the defences in the background.

On one of his visits to the North of England JMW Turner made sketches of the old castle with the lighthouse on the headland, which later became both a painting (in Blackburn Art Gallery) and was copied as an.engraving: as you can see the priory ruins haven't changed much since his time.

"every fisher laddie's dream..."

Pittenweem Jo was immortalised in the song by John Watt, and although the herring gutters have gone the harbour remains the main fishing harbour in the East Neuk.  The harbour is a classic Fife fishing harbour, extended several times in past centuries (although at least in part to cope with coal transport,) but unlike others it's clear that this is still a working harbour with the emphasis on fish.  Many towns in Fife and the Lothians rely on the "Pittenweem fish van" bringing fresh fish almost to the door, and the fish market (the large building behind the fishing boats) is still a busy place when the ships come in.

Despite its modern appearance the market building dates back over 200 years, but has been kept up to date with each new technological innovation.
The views along the coast are usually stunning.  The day we visited was quite misty, and the effects were magical.

Emerging from the mist behind the cliffs at the end of the "West Braes" are firstly the St Monans windmill, then the church at St Monans, and then more faintly the houses of Elie.  The windmill was built by the Sir John Anstruther to draw water from the sea into the salt pans - like many Fife land owning families their wealth was founded on coal and salt.  It was Sir John who paid for the extension to the harbour, on the condition that his ships had priority over other traffic.  Sir John also had a wagonway constructed to link the salt pans and the coal mines directly to the harbour.  Coal and salt production were closely linked - it took 8 tons of coal to produce a ton of salt. Production in the coal mines stopped in the early 19th century, partly due to a fire in the mine in 1794 which disrupted production, and partly due to changes in the tax regime which made salt production less economically viable.

The houses along the West Shore could almost be the epitome of the Fife fishing village - crow stepped gables, red pantiles, and outside stairs.
There's much more to Pittenweem than the harbour and the fishing, though, but that will have to wait for another day (and a different selection of photographs!)

"You might wake up some morning..."

Perhaps you need to be of a certain age to remember the song I've used for the title of this (you can find the original here (Bob Lind's "Elusive Butterfly") but it came to mind as I was trying to photograph these elusive Red Admirals at Kellie Castle.

They were feeding on a clump of Hemp Agrimony - there wasn't much else in the garden that would attract them, and although the weather was both warm and still, they were extremely nervous and reluctant to settle for any length of time.
Kellie Castle is near Pittenweem, in Fife, and is one of the jewels of the National Trust for Scotland.  Many houses of the same date were unsympathetically restored in Victorian times, but the restoration of Kellie Castle was carried out by the Lorimer family, and has preserved the best of the old whilst adding new touches. The interior has a wonderful mural by Phoebe Anna Traquair in the drawing room.  The garden is a decorative kitchen garden, with a lot of heritage (and local) varieties of fruit and vegetables, including White Melrose apples as bred by the monks at Melrose Abbey, and the produce is on sale at the castle, as well as being used in the excellent cafe. Kellie Castle is well worth a visit; it feels as if the family have just popped out and might be back at any moment, and the friendly and knowledgeable local guides add to the pleasures of the house.
We were very lucky with both the weather and the light, as this last picture demonstrates.

Midst the beauty and the splendour...

After yesterday's postings from an estuary, this picture is from a good way upstream!

The Leaderfoot viaduct is one of the most striking remains of the great age of railway building that can be found in the Borders.  It carried the Berwickshire Railway over the Tweed. The railway was built to connect the East Coast main line with the Waverley line.

Leaderfoot is one of the historic crossing points for the Tweed: this is now one of three bridges within a short distance - the other two are road bridges, and the area has been called "Tripontium" (an allusion to Trimontium, the Roman fort about half a mile away, named in its turn for the Eildons.)
In total there are 19 arches, and the tallest is 37 metres above the river.
The Berwickshire line had its own peculiarities.  An artificial mound had to be built to hide the railway from Drygrange House, and a station was built specifically to serve Marchmont House. The owners of these two estates were of course directors!
Like many other railways, the Berwickshire line was never very profitable (depite the price of tickets - in 1880 a first class ticket from Duns to Edinburgh would have set you back half a guinea!), but it proved useful in the Second World War - a special extension was built to serve RAF Charterhall.
Unfortunately the flooding of August 1948 (yes, there were bad summers even then!) washed away the trackbed between Duns and Greenlaw, and the line was never reinstated for passenger traffic.  Goods traffic continued into the 1960's, but like many rural lines it fell victim to the Beeching axe.  Fortunately the viaduct was preserved, and was restored in the 1990's.
I particularly like the way the arches frame the two trees in the field sloping down to the river.

More from the South West

The Solway Coast is nothing if not varied.  The local proverb is that the tide comes in "with the speed of a galloping horse", and it's certainly true that you need to take great care if you are out on the sands.
Inevitably there have been many stranded ships, and occasionally you can come across the remains.
This one is the "Monreith", wrecked in Kirkcudbright Bay in November 1900 whilst carrying a cargo of stone.

The foreground rocks are typical of the coastal formations of the area.

Further west are the "Fleet Islands", not really true islands, as they are accessible on foot (or more usually these days by tractor.  This one is Ardwall Island.  It was the site of a very early Christian settlement. The visible ruin of the house is much later.  At that time it was almost certainly a true island, and it fits the pattern of Celtic Christianity settlements.  The site was carefully excavated in the 1960's.  There is a similar pattern of building at Abercorn, and that settlement is confidently dated to about 650 C.E.  Ardwall is almost certainly earlier, fitting as it does geographically in the spread of Christianity into Scotland from Ireland, and the settlement may go as far back as 400 C.E.  The full report, in the "Journal of Medieval Archaeology" was written by Prof. Charles Thomas, and is well worth following up.  (http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-769-1/ahds/dissemination/pdf/vol11/11_127_188.pdf)

Almost certainly contemporary with the Ardwall settlement is the "Mote of Mark", a defended hilltop fort overlooking the Urr estuary. It lies between Kippford and Rockcliffe (both picturesque villages, though more so at high tide than low tide.  There's an excellent short circular walk between the two that takes in the hill top, and the view is interesting at all states of the tide!

The main island is called "Rough Island", and the distant one, behind the peninsula is Hestan Island.  Rough Island is now a bird sanctuary.

Caerlaverock Castle

For today's pictures I've picked two of Caerlaverock Castle at sunset.

The castle was one of the major strongholds in South West Scotland - it's about 10 miles south of Dumfries, quite close to the Solway coast.  The red sandstone is the local rock - many of Scotland's finest buildings were built with Locharbriggs sandstone, and the quarry is still active today- every now and then traffic on the A75 is slowed down by a heavily laden lorry.
The castle is surrounded by a moat, which add interest, and the surrounding grassy areas have been turned into defensive ditches and mounds, so finding places to take pictures from is not too difficult.
Sunset is without doubt the best time to see the castle, as the warmth of the light adds to the colours of the sandstone, and it seems to glow.

Clare College in Autumn

Autumn seems to be coming very early this year, so to "celebrate" I have 2 pictures of autumn along the Cam.
Both were taken from the "Backs".

The first is of Clare College Bridge.  It cams as a great surprise to find out just how large the older colleges in Cambridge actually are, and also to find out that at least some of them allow public access through the courtyards and across the bridges over the Cam.  The Clare College bridge is the oldest of them, dating from 1640, and was the only one to survive the English Civil War.  Perhaps due to the slightly chilly weather there are no punts to be seen, which means that the reflections of the trees add considerably to the scene.

The college itself was founded in 1326, but the building in the picture was built between 1638 and 1715: the lengthy building period being caused by the Civil War.  Cambridge was actually on the Parliamentarian side, and the other bridges were destroyed by the Parliamentarian forces to make the town more easily defensible in case of need.

Butterflies by the Lune

During our recent holidays we had a very pleasant walk through Lancaster, along the canal, and then down to the Lune Estuary.  Late summer is always a good time for butterflies, and despite the lack of sunshine we were lucky enough to be able to photograph 2 of them.

Unlike most of its fellows, this small tortoiseshell did stay in one place long enough to be photographed.  Although it's one of the most common butterflies it's very restless. The path went along the top of the dyke protecting the farmland from the high tides, but in parts was almost completely blocked by clumps of nettles and thistles.

Slightly less common is this green veined white (although it was a more docile subject!)

Strathy Point

About half way along the north coast is Strathy Point. It's not quite the most northerly point of the mainland, but it does lie at the end of a peninsula, and you need to walk to reach it - the road is just for access to the lighthouse and the farmer whose sheep graze the fields.  The car park is at Totegan Farm, and the walk is a simple (mostly downhill) stroll along the tarmac road.

The lighthouse, like the vast majority nowadays, is automated, although the outbuildings are still inhabited.  It's not one of the more picturesque lighthouses, as it sits on a rise and doesn't really need to be any taller than it actually is. It's a modern lighthouse, dating from 1958, and was the first one to be built as an all electric station. It filled in the last dark gap on the north coast, and the light can be seen for 26 miles.  There had been a temporary light there during the Second World War, and eventually it was concluded that it was really necessary.
But the lighthouse isn't the main reason for the walk.
If you go across the moor to the left of the picture, to this side of the lighthouse, you come to a small cliff with a view of a small sea arch.

We were lucky: the tide was just at the best height to appreciate it, and there was a small sea running, which really helped pick the arch out from among the dark rocks.  The mass of rock in the foreground is geologically very interesting.  There's a very old gneiss outcrop here among the mainly sedimentary rocks, possibly over 3,000 million years old - although the geologists aren't totally sure!

Stacks of Duncansby

It's a bit of a truism to say that in Scotland you can expect 4 seasons in one day, but the weekend that we spent on the North Coast seemed to prove it.  The day after I took the pictures of Moine House and Ben Loyal the weather changed completely, starting with heavy rain and continuing with a gale force wind that made standing still very difficult, let alone taking photographs.  Nevertheless we made our way (inevitably) to John o'Groat's and found enough shelter to take this picture of the Stacks of Duncansby.

I had been to the stacks before, but on that occasion it had been quite foggy - the stacks swam into and out of vision, so I was pleased to be able to find the visibility much better this time.  

It's a good job that the stacks are so spectacular, because we also included a visit to the nearby John o'Groats, which really seemed to be suffering already from the threatened recession: it doesn't give a good impression to visitors if the most prominent building, the hotel, is obviously fairly permanently closed! But that was the year (2010) that it won the Carbuncle Award for the most dismal place in Scotland. In fairness, they have just (as in about a fortnight ago) started a £6 million refurbishment project which will include a redevelopment of the hotel, and nothing can take away from the scenery!

Moine House

A few miles west of Tongue, on the North coast of Scotland, are the remains of Moine House.  It's in the middle of the Moine, a vast area of peat and heather moor between the Kyle of Tongue and Loch Eriboll, and served as a refuge for travellers.  Behind it is Ben Loyal, which with Ben Hope (behind the photographer) dominates the landscape of this part of Scotland.
Unsurprisingly the main peak of Ben Loyal is called "An Caisteal", or "The Castle".  Much of the bulk of the mountain is hidden below the ridge.  You get a much better view from Tongue itself.

We were very lucky with the light when we were in Tongue: although there had been a lot of rain earlier in the day, the sun came through with quite amazing clarity.Part of the reason that I like the picture of Moine House so much is the way in which the remains of the front which had brought the rain are still visible.
These pictures actually date from last summer - there haven't been many days like this in this summer in Scotland!

Crook O'Lune

 This picture is just downstream of the previous entry.  The trees on the left hand side normally stand well clear of the water.
By this time the Lune has changed course by almost 180 degrees, and is flowing in the opposite geographical direction. Because of the change in the structure of the rocks the current seems much faster, and the colour of the water shows how much soil is being washed downstream.  The hills in the background are the northern edge of the Forest of Bowland, one of the few areas in the North West of England that could be described as wilderness.

Turner's view of the Lune

 JMW Turner visited the North of England on a number of occasions, painting either for later sale or on commission.  One of the views that he painted was this one of the Lune Valley at the "Crook O'Lune".  Just behind the viewpoint the Lune makes a hairpin bend as it cuts through harder rock on its way to the sea south of Lancaster.
It didn't look like this when he visited, though.  The river is normally only about 100 yards wide, and most of the trees you can see are not even near to the riverbank.  You should also be able to see Ingleborough in the background!
The Lune does have a tendency to flood here: the Crook O'Lune restricts the water flow, and the main gathering grounds are not very far upstream.  Fortunately the floods also recede relatively quickly: 12 hours after this picture was taken the water had returned to normal levels.

Butterflies on buddleia

To begin with, a pair of butterflies. These were on a buddleia bush: the air was full of the scent of honey, as you would expect from a buddleia in full sun, and the air was full of butterfiles: peacock's red admiral, and the occasional comma and small tortoiseshell.

It was quite difficult to pick out a shot of the butterflies: it was a little windy, and the bees and hoverflies which were also feeding on the nectar kept disturbing them.  Eventually these two settled on the same spray of flowers for just long enough fo me to press the shutter button.