Tag Archives: national trust

Gnaargh!

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So, I’d got this smudge on the sensor, which buggered up a few reasonable photos. I also discovered a downside to the long exposures – the longer you leave the shutter open, the more chance of dust landing on the sensor.
I spent the afternoon at Buscot Park in Oxfordshire, and at one point it clouded over a bit – this shot is a 1 minute exposure and is pretty much everything I wanted to achieve with the 10-stop filter – you get the movement of the clouds and the water smooths itself out.
And a couple of bloody great dust sports.
I really like the picture, but it’s been ruined by dust and the mystery smear.

Bodnant

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Having said that the weather on the Friday was awful, it was in parts. Fortunately we had decided to head to the north coast, and ended up at Bodnant Gardens – the weather had cleared up as we passed (we were originally headed for Penryn Castle because some of it was indoors) so we decided to go in. And what a good decision that was – one of the best gardens I’ve been to. Thoroughly recommended.
It’s made up of several levels. At the top, there’s a fairly traditional formal flower garden

With more butterflies!
Below that, there’s a rose garden, then there’s this lily pond

And below that, there’s *another* lily pond


And then below all that, there’s a path through the woods, with a stream.
And a particularly photogenic waterfall.

Tyntesfield

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In lieu of a “proper” summer holiday this year, I had a couple of weeks off and we pottered about a bit. We had a week in Wales (pics to follow), but started off with a visit to Tyntesfield
The National Trust have done a massive amount of restoration since they acquired the property in 2002, and the whole building is currently covered in a mass of scaffolding. Interestingly, they’ve built a viewing platform, so you can actually go up and see what’s going on. It’s fascinating to be able to look out over the roof!

The garden had an excellent array of flowers in bloom, so out came the Panasonic compact camera in macro mode.
I’m told they’re dahlias. To me, the natural world consists of lilies, roses, tulips and “flowers”.


King Alfred’s Tower

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I’ve been to Stourhead a couple of times before, but have never got round to going to the nearby King Alfred’s Tower.
It’s 205 steps up to the top, so Mother decided against it and sat in the car and snoozed.
When I got up there (wheezing slightly, legs like jelly), it was cloudy and with rain clearly falling nearby.

Within about 20 minutes, it all cleared up, so I was able to take photos of dark skies and blue sky & fluffy clouds within a very short time!

Stourhead

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Mother came to stay for a few days, and while SWMBO entertained her for most of the time (Tyntesfield and Concorde [only open until the end of September]), I felt morally obliged to take a day off work and take her somewhere.

We ended up going to Stourhead, somewhere she’d not been before, and one of the best known landscaped gardens. Fortunately, we managed to avoid the rain – the heavens opened just as we got back to the shop & tea room, which was a perfect excuse for a slice of cake.
I think this is one of the nicest views there is – it looks completely natural, but you just know that a landowner with a firm opinion of his place in history combined with a egomaniacal landscape gardener probably uprooted several small villages and converted a small hill into a substantial lake. He probably then decided that he didn’t like the colour of the water and had the landscaper shot. Or something like that…

The thingy in the background is the Temple of Apollo.

Welsh Wales

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We’ve been spending a few days in Welsh Wales – the weather has been pretty good, but it’s been damn cold. It’s bloody May – it shouldn’t be this flamin’ cold!
First up was Manorbier in Pembrokeshire. We’ve heard how lovely it is – it wasn’t. Might have been something to do with the Arctic gale blowing, but we didn’t hang around for very long. There’s a surprisingly pristine castle, but it’s not National Trust so we were buggered if we were going to pay to get in…

After that, we went to Colby Woodland Garden, which *is* National Trust. Quite nice, with a reasonable walled garden, but nothing desperately exciting.
When we were in Wales in September, SWMBO was trying to find a beach on the Cardigan Bay coast that she visited as a child. We’ve been to about half a dozen of the damn things now, and we still haven’t found it. I suspect that the passage of 30 years has merged bits of several different beaches into is a mythical place that only exists in her memory/imagination.
Today we tried the wonderfully named Mwnt. Nope, that wasn’t the one either. Nice though – probably really nice when it’s warm. Which it wasn’t. National Trust car-park though, so we parked for free! Cheap? Us?

Finally, we went back to Llanerchaeron, near Aberaeron (see post from last September). Yes, it’s National Trust…
The vegetable plots in the walled garden are just starting to get going – blossom on the fruit trees, potato plants just starting to come up, that sort of thing.
I quite like this shot of one of their espaliered apple trees – shot from very low down with the very wide-angle lens.
We went back to see the pigs as well, and they’re much too big to lay in the food trough now.
Are there left-handed and right-handed pigs, based on which way their tails curl?

Llanerchaeron

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The final stop on our Welsh trip was to Llanerchaeron, near Aberaeron – a John Nash house with an enormous pair of walled gardens. These were full of more fruit and vegetable plants than you could imagine.

 

Panasonic FX-37, 26mm equivalent, 1/500 @ f3.5, ISO 100

There is also a working farm, with some particularly inquisitive pigs!

 

Panasonic FX-37, 26mm equivalent, 1/500 @ f3.5, ISO 100

Some of the plants in the walled garden were covered with more bees than I’ve ever seen – I assume they’ve got a hive or two somewhere. There were also plenty of butterflies – I seem to have hardly seen any since I was a child (and that’s going back some way now…). I was surprised by just how close I could get to it with the macro turned on on the compact camera.
 

 

Panasonic FX-37, 26mm equivalent, 1/500 @ f3.5, ISO 100

Having mentioned on a previous post about the fogged infra-red film at Dyrham Park and Croombe Park, I was extra careful with the film I shot in Wales. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the film counter reached 38 that I realised the damn film hadn’t been winding on. Gnaargh! Mutter, damn, blast…
So, not a successful summer on the infra-red front.

Bosherston

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We also visited Bosherston in Pembrokeshire, where three small valleys were flooded in the 1800s to form a large series of lakes. These are full of water lillies, and look fantastic.

Panasonic FX-37, 26mm equivalent, 1/800 @ f5.6, ISO 100

Having walked for a mile or so along the valley, you suddenly come out at Broad Haven beach – completely unexpected and very picturesque. Without wanting to sound rude, you wouldn’t guess it was Wales, would you?

Panasonic FX-37, 26mm equivalent, 1/800 @ f4.4, ISO 100


And on the walk back, we came across this cormorant, which happily sat there for ages while I took photos.

Panasonic FX-37, 130mm equivalent, 1/125 @ f5.9, ISO 200

Croome Park

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This was taken the day after Dyrham Park, at Croome Park near Malvern. It’s one of those big Capability Brown jobs, where the landowner quite happily moved a village out of the way so that he could improve the view.
This is the sort of picture I keep on taking – loads of sky, starburst sun (who needs Cokin Starburst filters?) and some photogenic clouds.

Nikon D200, Sigma 10-20 lens at 10mm, 1/500 @ f11, ISO 100

I did also shoot some infra-red film at Dyrham Park and Croombe Park, but that ended up fogged for some reason. Really infuriating.

 

First lot – Dyrham Park

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So that I’ve got something to show, we’ll start by going back a bit into the summer.
These are from Dyrham Park near Bath, taken when I had a couple of days off in July.
I’m a bit of a sucker for skies like this, especially when combined with a nice building like that.

Nikon D200, Sigma 10-20mm lens at 10mm, 1/125 @ f11, ISO 100
I thought I’d dig out my (not terribly good) macro lens and get in really close to a few flowers. I really need to buy a decent macro, but that will have to wait.
Anyway, a really vivid yellow.
 

Nikon D200, Cosina 100mm macro lens, 1/25 @ f11, ISO 100

 

 

 

 

There were an amazing number of dragonflies buzzing about the gardens. Most of them were small neon blue things, and they seemed to be hanging around in groups, shagging. But, there were a couple of real whoppers as well – totally impossible to photograph in flight, but they did helpfully land on the water occasionally. Just a shame that they landed on the mankiest bit of water…
 

Nikon D200, Nikon 18-200VR lens at 200mm, 1/50 @ f11. ISO 100

 

 

 

 

I absolutely love my 10-20mm lens (15-30mm equivalent in 35mm terms) and use it all the time. There’s just no other way you could take a shot like this.
 

Nikon D200, Sigma 10-20mm lens at 10mm, 1/640 @ f5.6, ISO 160