monochrome

Ups And Downs On The Broseley Jitties

The Broseley Jitties are quiet these days. On our early evening rambles we meet only a now-and-then walker with their dog. And then perhaps a stray chicken. Or a watchful cat in a cottage gateway. The atmosphere is somnolent; a sense of falling back through time. There’s the subtle scent of cow parsley along the verges, of garden flowers wafting over the walls and hedges.

Yet a hundred/two hundred years ago there would have been no quietness (or cleanly odours) here. Only the shouts and chatter of working men, women and children; rattle of clogs as the folk of Broseley Wood went about their day – to the mines and quarries, to the pot and pipe factories, to the taverns, to the chapels, to the wells.

Botswell Lane Jitty down and up – and as the name denotes, a main route for fetching water from the well in the valley bottom. Hard work fetching washing and cooking water, especially in the winter.

Another water source was the spring on Spout Lane, not far from the bottom of Jews Jitty where the Wolfson family lived and ran their pottery factory. The daughters of the house apparently carried out the ritual bathing rite of mikvah at this spring – a somewhat public spot.

Jews Jitty up…

And Jews Jitty down …

And a final up on Gittings Jitty yesterday evening, the cow parsley in full flourish…

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: steps or ladders

Into the Light On The Mawddach Estuary

The Mawddach Estuary in mid-Wales is one of my favourite places. We stayed there for a few days last October.

On the southern shore there’s a fabulous footpath, the Mawddach Trail that starts in Dolgellau and follows the long-gone railway track. You can walk all the way to the coast and cross into Barmouth via the old viaduct, and then catch the bus and travel back to Dolgellau following the northern shore line. The trail is flat and even and accessible to all.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Vanishing Point

Passing On The Saxon Past: Some Mystifying Fragments

Here’s a fine thing: Saxon carvings some 1,300 years old, but recycled in the 13th century when Wirksworth’s ancient church was being rebuilt. The curious fragments have been popped into one of the main inside walls, a cobbled assemblage of ram’s head, a wolf (or boar?), a leopard-like creature, a horse, and in their midst, a royal couple (?).

It is thought the carvings came from an early Christian building or Saxon cross. Wirksworth, in Derbyshire’s Peak District (England’s East Midlands) was once part of the great Saxon kingdom of Mercia, whose kings and sub-kings held sway over much of England from CE 600 to 900.

Christianity was established there in the mid 7th century as a condition of a peace treaty between pagan Mercia and neighbouring Christian Northumbria. Northumbrian Princess Elchfrida travelled south into Mercia to marry Peada, son of Penda, the last great pagan king of Mercia. She brought with her an entourage of missionary priests, one of whom, Betti, founded the church at Wirksworth in CE 653.

So could the couple be Elchfrida and Peada? We’ll never know. Though we do know from Bede that the real-life Elchfrida later betrayed Paeda, which led to his death and the reassertion of Mercian supremacy under his brother, King Wulfhere.

The church has another mysterious Saxon treasure, known as The Wirksworth Stone. It is a coffin lid dating to around CE 800, found a thousand years later during building work. The lid covered a large skeleton whose burial position under the floor close to the altar suggests a person of high religious status, an abbot perhaps.

But looking now at these curious works, and pondering, too, on my likely Anglo-Saxon origins, I can’t help but think of the opening line from L.P. Hartley’s novel The Go-Between:

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

St. Mary’s, Wirksworth

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: statues, sculptures and carvings

River Of Clouds ~ But Which Way’s Up?

This week Patti at Lens-Artists wants to see shadows and reflections in monochrome. So here’s a cloudy-day view of the Mawddach Estuary in Wales: upright and upside down. Intriguing, isn’t it. It’s making me think of a Rorschach inkblot test.

Lens-Artists: Monochrome shadows and reflections

The Day The Sun Fell Into Henllys Woods And Other Light Shows

It is said that the Druids faced their final battle with the Roman Army on the North Wales island of Anglesey in 60-61 AD. According to Tacitus, things did not end well for them and their sacred oak groves. [See my earlier post Island Of Old Ghosts]. Early on in the invasion of Britain, the island had become a refuge for resisting Celtic warriors, doubtless assuming that the Menai Strait would present an obstacle to the legions. (It didn’t).

But for the Druids – the seer-diviner-lore-keeper-law-makers of the community, I tend to wonder if it wasn’t the island’s more extraordinary characteristics that they drew on. The quality of the light for one, and especially in winter when the sun over sea and strait and mainland mountains creates some mesmerizing effects, even when caught in monochrome.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Light

A Curious Rendition?

Well, it is surprising, isn’t it – to find this Elvis artwork at the head of the grand staircase at Chatsworth House, Chatsworth being one of England’s most prestigious stately homes and the country seat of the Dukes of Devonshire.

Here’s more of the art work. It is pretty surreal, however it comes: whether in the original technicolour or in monochrome. (I’m afraid I omitted to make a note of its creator). But now I discover that the likely reason for its presence is that the late Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, otherwise known as Debo to her friends, was a huge Elvis Presley fan and had a fondly kept signed photo of him on her wall.

Also when the Duchess died in 2014 at the age of 94, he was to play a big part in her simple funeral service, held in the Chatsworth estate church. She had chosen his recording of ‘How Great Thou Art’ to play her out as she was borne aloft in her woven wicker coffin stranded with ivy and autumnal hawthorn berry sprays. A surprising soundtrack perhaps in rural gentrified Derbyshire.

Debo was the last surviving Mitford sister, a notorious brood of five ‘gels’, several of whom, in pursuit of love, bolted from deemed acceptable aristocratic marriages in order (between them) to embrace the full spectrum of political persuasion. Jessica was a communist; Diana ran off with fascist Sir Oswald Mosley; Unity pursued Hitler; novelist Nancy was a socialist and left her husband for a protracted affair with a French statesman; Pamela left her husband to live with an Italian horsewoman, while Deborah, in true English gentry style, married a future duke and spent her life developing Chatsworth House as a premier visitor attraction, including the pioneering of heritage shopping and the marketing of local produce.

You can find her final accompaniment ‘How Great Thou Art’ on YouTube.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: things musical

All About Nature

Sunset foxgloves and toadflax

Winter hedgerow, Townsend Meadow

Sytche Lane Rookery

Teasels over the garden fence

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: all about nature

The Cliff Path At Marloes Sands

Scenes from Pembrokeshire, South Wales.

And the cliffs below:

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: lengthy subjects This week Cee wants to see anything long.

Just About Room For Two

This seat looks to have been created from driftwood and sea debris, with just enough room for two to huddle. It’s sited on the path through the dunes to Harlech Beach (see previous post). You can just glimpse the mountains of Snowdonia in the distance.

There were also some pretty interesting seats In the garden of Borthwnog Hall (where we were spending a few nights back in October). This next one takes repurposed driftwood to a new level. Perhaps a little spooky? Or made specially for dryads.