Month: April 2013
Too Early for Gardens
Buckland Abbey is on the far west of Dartmoor and spring is late this year. It isn’t a garden with herbaceous border, more formal and functional elegance and sweeping grounds. There is an Elizabethan garden and although it’s box hedges have been damaged by blight in recent years, it has been replanted. The National trust have been working to establish a flowery mead since 2001 and its wild flowers attract butterflies and moths. Each September the mead is cut and to maintain the low nutrients in the soil that grassland needs the cuttings are rmeoved. In day gone by these cutting would have been animal fodder and also strewn around the floor in the house for its sweet fragrance.
A quiet spot
Cushion bushes
The Elizabethan garden
Spring is trying its best
Secret steps
A place for quiet contemplation
The dormant flowery mead
Buckland’s Cistercian Barn
Buckland abbey was founded in 1278 by Cistercian monks on land overlooking the tranquil Tavy valley. The monks were responsible for building the great barn, an impressive building which would have been a treasure store of produce grown on the large estate given to them by the then Countess of Devon, Amicia.
The abbey thrived for two hundred and fifty years until the dissolution of monasteries by Henry 8th and in 1541 the monarch sold Buckland to Sir Richard Grenville who converted it into a home, tearing much of it down, but unusually for the time the church was kept to become the main part of the house. Here is the great barn.
It’s far bigger than it looks on the outside!
Towards the entrance
Small shafts of light.
Huge doors were built to allow carts to drive in at one and out at another so that goods and produce could be unloaded in shelter.
The far end.
Wooden vaulting, the exterior would have been thatch.
The barn’s vast interior
An ancient apple press
I’ll be back tomorrow with some photos of the garden.
Buckland Chooks
I love chooks and these were pecking their way around the courtyard at Buckland.
I’ll be back tomorrow with some photos of the Great Barn.
Leading to Buckland Abbey
Today I’ve had the most lovely day out for my friends birthday! We went to a National Trust property across the other side of Dartmoor, Buckland Abbey, once the home of Sir Francis Drake. I think I will probably create several posts about it because I’ve just put 400 photos onto the PC. As I don’t know where to start with Buckland here are some photos of the journey across the moor. In the one with the smoke we were wondering if someone was swailing – controlled burning of heath to stimulate new growth, and now I’ve just seen on the BBC’s website that a few mile north there is a huge blaze covering six square kilometres. They don’t know how the fire started yet, swailing can be done until the second week of April, but with prior arrangement .The land is desperatle dry, I can’t remember seeing it look quite like it did today, so just the tiniest spark is all it takes, and the concern now is for nesting birds.. There are 100 firefighters at Chat Tor and they are being assisted by local commoners beating, I hope the fire in my photo, south east of there is quickly contained.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Colour
Color. Splashed on the walls of cities, in batches of flowers in gardens, in the doodles of students, and on the palettes of artists, color is everywhere: it may represent our mood, and it can affect our mood. In photography, you can use a spectrum of colors to bring a place to life, or focus on a single shade to make a bold statement. Conversely, you can shoot in black-and-white or remove color in editing mode for a different effect.
So says Cherie Lucas over at http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/weekly-photo-challenge-color/ pop across and I’m sure you’ll see some amazing photos!
The Lazy Poets Thursday Poem, Seaside Supper
my favourite ice cream entices me
wrapped in woolly scarf and gloves
on an evening that looks like summer
for a walk to Orcombe by the sea
a hoard of pulled along people
in the charge of manic dogs
young love displayed in the sand dunes
I wonder if they notice the view
of the waves tumbling and rattling
the shingle in their wake
or the gaggle of dark and white geese
resting on barnacled rocks and weed
the board paddling Poseidons hold me balanced
between entertainment and anxiety
as they reach the distant sand bank
then float on the current out to sea
hoping they won’t need the lifeboat
I find shelter from the wind
sit back with my supper from Krispies
the best haddock and chips there could be
Wordless Wednesday
Maybe the Exeter Fountain?
Now I shouldn’t be blogging today but I saw this new sculpture on Friday, learnt a bit more about it today and need a fresh way to procrastinate instead of writing an assignment. Exeter hasn’t had a fountain for several hundred years, since the Great Conduit, an ornate fountain through which water was available to the public was demolished, but there have been whisperings.
Enter Simon Ruscoe, a talented local artist with a passion for public art. Simon has been working on a large scale sculpture collective, for many years hoping that one day it would be on permanent display in his city.
The sculpture below, one of the seven figures hand cut from steel is twenty feet high and it symbolises the difficult times we are living through. If placed in a fountain as Simon hopes, it reflects society’s struggle to keep our head above water, a group united as it strives to survive.
Art is meant to be thought provoking, but the local newspaper reports that this sculpture isn’t getting totally positive feedback. Among the comments are that it is too modern, the city should have a fountain recalling the blitz in 1942 as well as some positive comments. Well I personally love it, and I wish Simon Ruscoe luck with getting it permanently placed, preferably in Exeter. This is our chance to gain an icon as powerful as the Angel of the North or the Damien Hurst’s Verity, currently residing in Ilfracombe. If not, I’m sure that someone with insight and an open mind will welcome it.
Tell me what you think, would you like it in your city centre?
http://www.simonruscoe.co.uk to learn more.
Lucid Gypsy 