Travel
Hermitage Castle
Big countryside this, long valleys and high rounded hills with an emptiness that I don’t usually associate with the UK. Some sheep farming and the rest forestry, which looks pretty unattractive when half the valley has been stripped. Straight roads and some impressive corkscrews, for the delight of motorbikers. Note the bikers shivering in Hawick though, they unlike me in a hired Corsa, were getting everything from the weather: sunshine, hail, sleet and just grey.
Hermitage Castle - “Guardhouse of the bloodiest valley in Britain” - was a particular interest to see as it was the northern stronghold of the Dacre family of Cumberland in the fourteenth century. This was the time of the Reivers: robbers and bandits preying in “The Debatable Lands” north of Carlisle. So Hermitage Castle - and its bloody battles - are the part of the medieval history of Cumberland and so, Cumbria. Hermitage Castle keep is an impressive building and a novel design with two large arches. The shell of the building survives, meaning although it changed hands many times, it was never sacked. The location is tactical too, it commands a bend of the river named Hermitage Water, just above the small town of Newcastleton. Maybe it’s a bit fanciful as there’s not a direct metaphor but the fells stripped of trees is reminiscent of the bloody battles of this area of the past.
Precious glimpses from my rail journey in the lockdown to meet with my support bubble mate in Brighton. Familiar to many commuters, these snatched views have a special poignancy at this time when our freedom to roam is suspended and so many are working from home.
Crossing the River Thames at Battersea. Snow and frost on the North Downs, crops germinating under the Balcombe viaduct and the South Downs looming over Hassocks.
Photography note: optical filter used for these photos, Wratten Number unknown but usually referred to as “Southern Railway dirty window”; this gives a pleasing diffusion effect.
Battersea Power Station chimneys as the train leaves Victoria station
View of Derwentfolds and Lonscale Fell from the A66 near Threlkeld
View of Blencathra (868 m.) from the A66 near Threlkeld
Winter scenes in Cumbria seen from the roadsides on a journey essential for my business. The photos are from halts on the A66 towards Keswick.
Oare Creek, Faversham
Faversham Brewery
Faversham is one of the Cinque Ports I’ve heard about but never before visited. It’s famous for the Shepherd Neame brewery, the umbrella factory and the abbey but infamous for its pirates. I could have lingered in Faversham but my schedule needed me to move on. Next, I drove across Graveney Marshes to Seasalter, then Sandwich and Deal on my roadtrip round the Kent coast.
Court Street, Moretonhampstead
St Andrew’s, Moretonhampstead
A particularly pretty Dartmoor summer evening in Moretonhampstead in Devon
