My Walk this Week – Taste of Gower, Nicholaston Farm

Posted on 18/07/201618/07/2016 by Alastair

My walk this week is the Taste of Gower walk from June. The walk starts at Nicholaston Farm and follows the footpath along the cliffs to Three Cliffs Bay. The walk was led by Steve Lancey who organised it for Gower Landscape Partnership and we had Helen and Charlotte from Gower Unearthed as guides and providers of information on aspects of the walk such as Pen y Crug burial chamber.

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Nicholaston Farm

Taste of Gower walkers at Nicholaston Farm

Oxwich Bay

Nicholaston Walk

Hereford Cityscape – Reviewing the Walk

Posted on 17/07/201611/07/2016 by Alastair

Back at the start of my walk this week and you can listen to the soundscape while viewing the images. The image below shows two parts of the same alleyway – despite the graffiti the walkthrough is kept pretty clean.

Hereford City Walk Soundscape

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city footpath

Hereford City Centre

Church Street

Hereford Cathedral

Hereford in Bronze

Cathedral architectural detail

Cathedral architecture

Sir Edward Elgar

Hereford street wall

Wall Patterns

Seeing the Signs

pipework

Hereford marketplace

Church wall and smoker

subway

Features of the Modern Cityscape

Posted on 16/07/201611/07/2016 by Alastair

Returning towards the starting point of my walk this week I passed All Saints Church of England church (which is also a cafe) and admired the stonework of the architecture. The patterns and textures of old stone combined with the insertion of more recent stone worked well for me. I was going to take a detail shot of some of the patterns and as I was selecting my angle a person slipped into the frame and huddled in the corner of the church for a smoke.

This is a distinct feature of any modern cityscape in Britain today – individuals or small groups of smokers huddling in corners to keep out of the wind or rain – it seems to me to defeat the purpose and is what enabled me to give up after our first child was born. Giving up smoking is not an easy thing to do but going outside every time I wanted a cigarette certainly helped me to do so. Good luck to those of you who are trying.

Church wall and smoker

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All Saints C of E Church

Church wall and smoker

subway entrance

subway

Seeing the Signs and Hereford Marketplace

Posted on 15/07/201615/07/2016 by Alastair

Yesterday I ignored (or cropped) the signs, today I am looking at them. My walk this week around Hereford city centre has returned me to the alley that precedes Church Street and leads out into the city’s markettplace.

Seeing the Signs

I have a soundscape for this walk which, as with the photography, was recorded on my iPhone. The clip below is one I recorded in this marketplace – it was not a market day but there were still plenty of people about.

Hereford City Centre

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NB If you are wondering what is going on in the panorama shot of the market place below, this is the result of using the “pano” facility on the iPhone in a scene where there is movement of people. The camera is panned around to take multiple shots of the scene which are then stitched together by the software. Without any “ghost” correcting, this can be the effect you get – it looks pretty odd but rest assured the pregnant lady has not been chopped in half other than in the image.

Seeing the Signs

walkthrough

pipework

Hereford marketplace

Ignoring the Signs – Walls, Flowers and Brickwork

Posted on 14/07/201611/07/2016 by Alastair

Not so much ignoring the signs as cropping them out – all these photos required me to either choose an angle or make a crop that avoided the inevitable street signs for restricted parking, no entry, and restricted access. I couldn’t avoid the cars and I didn’t want to avoid the peeling paint of the gable end brick wall to this building of formal design that is typical of this part of Hereford City centre.

I like the patterns, colours and textures of the wall at least as much as I do the flower displays.

Hereford Houses

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Hereford street wall

Wall Patterns

Frontage Flowers

Music, Trees and Architecture

Posted on 13/07/201611/07/2016 by Alastair

Walking around the outside of Hereford Cathedral you can find some fascinating views of the architecture. Sir Edward Elgar appears to be enjoying the view but the inscription on the periphery of the base to this statue reads:

“This is what I hear, the trees are singing my music or am I singing theirs?” “Sir Edward Elgar, resident of Hereford 1904 – 1911”

In both shots of this statue I like the other activities taking place in the frame – the woman attending to her child in the pushchair and in the second shot, the men in conversation in the background. These activities seem to fit very well with the pose given to Elgar with his bike, pondering, perhaps, a composition inspired by his cycles around Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

Sir Edward Elgar

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Hereford Cathedral

Cathedral architecture

wooden fence

Sir Edward Elgar

Cathedral in Bronze

Posted on 12/07/201611/07/2016 by Alastair

Reaching the end (or the entrance) of Church Street on my walk this week around Hereford city centre, I took another of many looks at the cathedral. In front of the building is a paved area with a brick mosaic design set into it. While this is interesting, I was much more intrigued by the unusual bronze model of Hereford set on a plinth near the cathedral gates.

Taking a closer look at some of the architectural details of the cathedral could take a long time (which I didn’t have) as the building is so intricate in its embellishments.I wasn’t just taken with the designs created by the stone masons, but also with the patterns and textures of the stones themselves. Presumably these have been produced when cutting the blocks for building.

I’ll be able to take another look at the interior of the cathedral next week, not for the purpose of posting on this blog but for my younger daughter’s graduation from Hereford College of Art – well done Hannah – you can see her work at hannahduncancreations.com.

Hereford in Bronze

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Church Street

Hereford Cathedral

Hereford in Bronze

Cathedral architectural detail

Cathedral stone texture

My Walk this Week – City Centre Walk

Posted on 11/07/201611/07/2016 by Alastair

Sticking with the urban environment, my walk this week describes aspects of a different city centre to last week. This is Hereford City centre and as Hereford has a cathedral, it can legitimately be described as a city. Strange but true (sort of), though I certainly don’t have a problem with Swansea being called a city even if it does not have a cathedral. Actually that is a little simplistic so here is a Wiki article that will explain in more detail.

All photography for this week’s walk was done on my iPhone.