Wells

Nov8

It’s been pretty wet and miserable here for the last few days. This is a photo I took of a rainy day in the beautiful cathedral city of Wells a few years ago. It had been a lovely sunny day, and we’d been for a long walk around the sights – the Cathedral, Vicar’s Close, Bishop’s Palace and the many beautiful secular buildings – and then the heavens opened. We went back to the car and I took this photo from inside through the windscreen as the rain pelted down. I quite like its impressionistic quality.

A rainy day in Wells.

Earlier on had been like this:

Vicar’s Close, Wells. Constructed between 1348 and 1430.

Wells Cathedral. Built between 1176 and 1490.

Wells Cathedral.

and then the rain blew in. I like the fact that we get such changeable weather here – there’s often drama in the skies (apart from when it’s a flat, dull, grey day – not much drama then).

If you’re a film fan, Wells is the setting for Hot Fuzz: the co-writer and director, Edgar Wright, grew up in Wells. The Cathedral was digitally removed from the film though, I think because it was too imposing and took away from the smaller parish church, the Church of St Cuthbert, that featured in the film. Some of the filming took place in the Bishop’s Palace grounds, though.

The progress of autumn at Stourhead

Oct22

The Pantheon at Stourhead underwent a restoration programme last year, and at the end of the project a webcam was placed on the roof, overlooking the lake. It takes an image every 15 minutes. A timelapse film of the advance of autumn was made available by the National Trust yesterday:

and more recent time lapse videos and a live feed can be seen on the homepage of the webcam company.

This is what Stourhead looks like right now:

Stourhead, 11.42 am, Thursday 22 October 2015.

And three days later:

Stourhead, 11.00 am, Sunday 25 October 2015.

and three days later again:

Stourhead, 9.00 am, Wednesday 28 October 2015.

UPDATE Wednesday 28 October: Don’t forget to listen to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme at 5 pm this afternoon – Alan Power, the Head Gardener at Stourhead, will be giving his annual impressions on autumn at Stourhead. Here’s last year’s lyrical offering. Last year Chap and I made our autumn colours visit to Stourhead on 28 October. We haven’t been this year yet – we’d better get a wiggle on. The katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) in our garden has already shed about half its leaves, and as we’re only about 10 miles from Stourhead I imagine progress there is similarly advanced.

UPDATE 2: Here’s Alan Power’s 2015 contribution to PM: piece starts at 50:25.

Quince harvest

Oct18

We picked our quinces today:

As usual, quite a few of them had split on the tree, but it was a good haul. We harvested about two weeks earlier last year.

Now off to find some more quince recipes …

Filming locations: Wadi Rum

Oct9

Chap and I went to see The Martian in 3D the other day. I’m a sucker for a space movie, and I’m also a sucker for deserts. So a space movie set on a desert planet is right up my street. And I knew from the advance publicity for the movie that large parts of it had been filmed in the Wadi Rum in southern Jordan.

The Martian, filmed in Wadi Rum in Jordan.

I have a special spot in my heart for Wadi Rum, which I first visited 30 years ago. Half way through my first archaeological dig in Jordan we had a week-long break, and a group of us took the dig Land Rover and drove all around Jordan (not difficult to do as it’s a small country). We had a ball, visiting the Dead Sea, the desert palaces, driving down the King’s Highway to Kerak, and staying overnight in Petra with a bedouin, Dachlala, and his family (we had special dispensation from the Department of Antiquities – one of the perks of being an archaeologist). After Petra we drove deep into the stunning, massive grandeur of the Wadi Rum and camped there, digging hollows in the orangey red and incredibly soft sand in which to sleep and cooking our food on dried camel shit fires. During the day we went to swim in the coral reefs at Aqaba, and came back to the Wadi to sleep at night. The scale and the beauty of the place, and the absolute isolation, were so remarkable. (Only ten years later, when I last visited the Wadi in 1995, we camped again, but this time we could see the bonfires of other groups all around in the distance).

Location filming in the Wadi Rum for The Martian. Photo by Giles Keyte.

The Martian, starring Matt Damon, filmed in Wadi Rum.

Matt Damon in Wadi Rum. The photo hasn't been 'Marsified' as you can see some small camel thorn seedlings.

Matt Damon in Wadi Rum. The photo hasn’t been ‘Marsified’ as you can see some small camel thorn shrubs and seedlings.

Given its striking visual impact, it’s not surprising that Wadi Rum has been used many times in Hollywood film productions. Perhaps the most famous is, of course, David Lean’s 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia (on the way to the Wadi we drove alongside a spur of the abandoned Hejaz Railway that Lawrence and his tribesmen blew up further along the line).

Wadi Rum in Lawrence of Arabia.

It has also stood in for Mars in other sci-fi movies, such as Mission to Mars (2000), Red Planet (2000) and The Last Days on Mars (2013). Ridley Scott, the director of The Martian, had previously used Wadi Rum as an alien landscape in his 2012 film, Prometheus.

Wadi Rum, 1985.

Camping out in Wadi Rum, 1985. Our second camping spot.

Morning in Wadi Rum, 1985. In the background our trusty Series 3 long wheel base dig Land Rover.

Hannah (or is it Ug the Cavewoman?) cooking on the camel shit fire, wadi Rum , 1985.

Hannah (or is it Ug the Cavewoman?) starting the fire using camel thorn, Wadi Rum, 1985. Pile of camel shit to the left. Hannah’s hair looking wild due to sea salt, desert wind, dust and smoke.

Waking up in Wadi Rum, 1985. Left to right, Hannah, Mick, Fritdjof, Carenza, Bronwen.

Happy days. I’m very lucky.

An elephant up our lane

Sep27

Last Thursday while walking up our lane I saw Alfie, one of the neighbourhood cats, with his nose deep in a sedge plant, clearly on the hunt. I wondered if he was after a mouse or some similar small critter, and bobbed down to have a look. At first glance, from the head of it and the way it was rearing up, it looked like a small snake, but I then realised it was an elephant hawk moth caterpillar (Deilephila elpenor). These are huge caterpillars, and I guess the moths are named after their caterpillars’ similarity to an elephant’s trunk.

800px-Deilephila_elpenor_Weibchen_Saarland_003

Elephant hawk moth. Photo by Orchi.

As a defence mechanism, the caterpillar will rear up on its front legs. It did it to me again as I was holding it: it’s quite impressive! The caterpillars overwinter as chrysalids in leaf debris on the ground, and metamorphose into their adult moth form in May the following year.

The caterpillars feed on willowherbs (Epilobium) and bedstraws (Galium), such as Galium verum (Lady’s bedstraw), and have been known to feed on fuschias as well. None of these grow up our lane so I’m not sure what the caterpillar was feeding on, or whether it was looking for somewhere to overwinter. Interestingly, last year Chap rescued another elephant hawk moth caterpillar from Alfie at about the same spot. Both times we put the caterpillar in among our densely-planted and sheltered flower beds, and hoped that they would be able to successfully overwinter there.

Wildlife Trust information on elephant hawk moths

UK Moths information on elephant hawk moths

The Piet Oudolf garden at Hauser & Wirth, Bruton

Sep22

We had a look round here on Saturday. The old farm buildings have been beautifully restored and altered for use as a gallery exhibition space, and new buildings have been added. My favourite part was the modern cloister, with clever planting. I assume the planting is by Piet Oudolf, who designed the beautiful meadow garden behind the gallery. The gallery and gardens are free to enter. The next exhibition there is one of photos by Don McCullin.

The late summer prairie-style planting was looking spectacular, and the garden was alive with bees and butterflies and hoverflies and dragonflies and damselflies and other assorted bugs and beasties. I think any beekeepers round there must be delighted!

Hauser & Wirth Somerset website

Animals riding other animals

Sep17

News today of another animal hitchhiker: a seal on a humpback whale off the coast of Australia:

A seal hitching a ride on a humpback whale. Photo by Robyn Malcolm.

This follows on from the weasel on the green woodpecker in England:

Weasel on a green woodpecker. Photo by Martin Le-May.

and before that, the Cape Genet riding on buffaloes and rhinoceroses in South Africa:

Cape genet on a rhinoceros.

I wrote a blog post about this last example last year, with more photos.

I think I might have to make animal hitchhikers a regular feature …

Sunday stroll: Down through Dorset

Sep14

Not really so much a stroll as a bimble in the car with a short walk at the end of it. Chap and I headed for the seaside yesterday, taking a long and slow route through Somerset and Dorset’s winding country lanes.

We stopped off at several places en route. First stop was the church of St Andrews in Yetminster. Here we admired the 15th-century painted decoration still surviving on the stonework and woodwork and a reminder of how our mostly now-plain parish churches would have looked in the past. There was a splendid brass monument to John Horsey (died 1531) and his wife on one wall, and another, stone this time, to Bridgett Minterne, who died in 1649. While we were there we were surprised by the church bells, which rang out ‘God Save the Queen’ – very unexpected. Apparently this happens every three hours to remind the villagers of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1897. I wonder if it happens through the night? There are some fantastic gargoyles on the tower, and a beautiful golden weathercock, but my photos of these haven’t come out very well and so don’t do them justice.

15th-century painted decoration at St Andrew’s, Yetminster.

Brass monument to John Horsey (died 1531) and his wife, St Andrew’s, Yetminster.

Monument to Bridgett Minterne (died 1649), St Andrew’s, Yetminster.

The tower with gargoyles and golden weathercock, St Andrew’s, Yetminster.

Next stop was the reservoir at Sutton Bingham. We went for a short walk along the edge of the reservoir through the wildflower hay meadow that is managed by Wessex Water, but as it had been given its annual cut not too long ago there wasn’t much to see. On the water there were mainly gulls and a few ducks, and a heron perched on the opposite shore. Sadly we didn’t see the osprey that are summer visitors here. A few dinghies and sailboats from the yacht club were pootling up and down the water, all very Swallows and Amazons.

A Mirror dinghy on Sutton Bingham Reservoir.

Then down into deepest Dorset and the Marshwood Vale. We stopped at the village of Stoke Abbott, parking near a lovely lion’s-head fountain of spring water with a spring-fed stone trough for horses nearby, both under a mighty oak planted in 1901 to celebrate the accession of Edward VII to the throne following the death of Victoria. We wandered off to look at the church of St Mary the Virgin. There had been a wedding there recently, as the fresh and dried flower confetti lay on the path and the church was still adorned with the wedding flowers. The church is in such a pretty setting, and has a 12th-century font with wonderful carvings.

Lion-headed fountain for spring water at Stoke Abbott.

Spring-fed water trough for horses, Stoke Abbott.

St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott.

Wedding flowers at the porch, St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott.

The 12th-century font, St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott.

Wedding flowers and the simple lectern, St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott. The flowers included agapanthus and Mollucella laevis (Bells of Ireland).

Notice in the porch, St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott.

The sadly sheep-free graveyard, set in the most beautiful countryside, St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott.

A lovely thatched house near the church in Stoke Abbott.

When we got back to the car a family (grandparents and wee granddaughter, we guessed) were filling up a car boot-load with numerous bottles and containers of the spring water, so I assume it’s safe to drink.

After a fruitless search for the cottage in Ryall where my family had spent several summer holidays in the late 60s (Mr and Mrs Kinchin’s B&B), we headed for the sea at nearby Charmouth. The weather was wild and windy, and we had a chuckle over the couple braving it out with their windbreak and deck chairs. We watched a kestrel quartering the top of the landslip cliffs, searched in vain for fossils, walked a short way up the beach and then decided to head home, via Bridport, Dorchester and Shaftesbury. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world.

A blustery afternoon at Charmouth.

No-one in the water, unsuprisingly.

The well-named Golden Cap on the right.

I think they’ve gone

Aug30

I think the house martins (Delichon urbicum) left us today, heading south on their migration to Africa. The RSPB tells me that they leave the UK in September and October, but I wonder whether we saw them leave today. Normally their flight is in loose, open groups, hunting high over the village in a wide open looping flight. At about 10 this morning Chap and I saw something very different, a tight, low flying group of maybe forty individuals flying directly to the south / south-west of us, and not returning. A couple of stragglers followed a few minutes later. I haven’t noticed any over the village since.

House martin. Photo by Ómar Runólfsson.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they have left a bit earlier than usual, as we have had a very cold and wet few weeks, more November-like that August-like.

House martins. Photo by Sean – Martin.

It reminds me of the time some years ago when I watched a group of at least a hundred house martins all settle on the sloping terracotta tiles of the roof of a nearby tall house. I was alerted to them by the terrific noise they made as a group, a lively twttering and calling that went on for a couple of hours. And then they all flew off. And that was that – they’d gone for the year. I’d never seen that behaviour before, nor have I since, and assume they were marshalling themselves before the grand depart.

Sunday stroll: Larmer Tree Gardens

Aug17

Yesterday we headed out to visit the Larmer Tree Gardens, near Tollard Royal in south Wiltshire. These beautiful Victorian gardens have the distinction of being the first privately owned gardens in the UK that were opened for the enjoyment of the general public.

The Larmer Tree Gardens: the Temple on the left and the General’s Room on the right.

The gardens are on the Rushmore Estate, which is in the ownership of the Pitt Rivers family. In 1880 Augustus Pitt Rivers inherited the estate, and started work almost immediately on the gardens, the development of which continued over the entire 20 years that the gardens were open.

Bust of Augusts Pitt Rivers in the Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Bust of Augustus Pitt Rivers in the Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The gardens became a massive attraction, at one point entertaining 44,000 visitors a year. Thomas Hardy visited, and even wrote a poem celebrating an evening spent there. The gardens closed with the death of Pitt Rivers in 1900, and gradually fell into disrepair.

The Lower Indian Room (left) and the Singing Theatre (right) at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The central lawn area is surrounded by various structures and buildings; others are set further back in the gardens, linked to the central lawn by wide grass paths flanked by cherry laurel hedges. These hedges also enclose several small picnicking areas, all part of Pitt Rivers’ design to allow the maximum enjoyment of the gardens by his estate workers and the general public. Around the edges of the garden are woodland areas and a few herbaceous beds. However, it is the buildings around the lawn that characterise this extraordinary garden, though the free-roaming peacocks and macaws are pretty iconic too.

Free-roaming peacock at the Larmer Tree Gardens. In the background are the Singing Theatre (left) and the Lodge (right).

By the entrance gate at the southern edge of the gardens is the Lodge, which now houses the cafe and a private residence. Next to this around the lawn is the magnificent Singing Theatre, with its wooden structure and painted backdrop. The paintwork is peeling and faded, and mercifully the theatre hasn’t been restored from its gently and elegantly ageing state.

The Singing Theatre at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The Funeral of Phocion by Nicolas Poussin (1648), the painting on which the Singing Theatre painted backdrop is based.

Detail of the painted backdrop: you can clearly see the curved boards onto which the painting has been made.

Detail of the painted backdrop: you can clearly see the boards onto which the painting has been made.

Detail of the painted backdrop. There are three doors hidden in the painting: one at the back and one at either side.

Next is the Lower Indian Room, and then the General’s Room. Both of these are traditional Indian buildings transposed to a bucolic English setting.

The Lower Indian Room at the Larmer Tree Gardens, with peahen resting on the front verandah.

The General’s Room at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Detail of an intricately carved window of the General’s Room at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The final building around the lawn is the Temple, a beautiful small stone building in the Palladian style. It has a fireplace and a beautiful floor (including a maze mosaic) and decorative ceiling, and I can so easily picture Augustus sitting there with his pipe, reading a tome or working on his archaeological notes.

The Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens. The reddish hue on some of the stonework is due to lichen.

The white marble fireplace in the temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The maze mosaic in the floor of the Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Domed stone ceiling with carved sun-ray motif in the Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

A steep flight of steps lead down from the Temple to a series of ornamental ponds with small waterfalls, with a small grotto complete with statue of Neptune complete with trident.

The Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

View of the Temple across the ornamental ponds at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Neptune in his flint nodule-lined grotto at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Further behind the central lawn are two small thatched wooden shelters, Band View and Stag’s Arbour, and the corrugated iron-clad Jubilee Hall, built to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the reign of Queen Victoria.

Following Augustus Pitt Rivers’ death, the gardens were neglected, with the cherry laurels gradually taking over and swamping the carefully-maintained paths and small picnic gardens, and the buildings slowly falling into disrepair, with some rotting away all together: the octagonal base of the bandstand is still visible by the lawn, and another building base on the opposite side near the Singing Theatre. The restoration was started in 1991, and the gardens reopened in 1995.

The gardens have a wonderful atmosphere. There are deck chairs available for visitors’ use, as well as a croquet set, apparently. Peacocks roam freely throughout the gardens: the lady in the cafe told us that one of the peahens had two chicks, but we didn’t spot them. The males have lost their glorious tail feathers in their annual moult, but were still very spectacular.

A canny peacock lurking at the cafe garden at the Larmer Tree Gardens. Lovely bark on the Acer griseum tree in the foreground.

My haul of shed peacock feathers.

And we loved seeing the pair of macaws sitting in an ash tree: such an unexpected sight for an English country garden!

Macaws in an ash tree at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

They are totally free to come and go as they please, and apparently are often seen at the nearby Rushmore Golf Course.

An extra treat for children (and the young at heart) visiting the gardens are the eleven fairy doors hidden in the base of trees the gardens. We found three:

Peacock fairy door at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Peacock fairy door at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Scottish fairy door in a Western Red Cedar at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Red fairy door in a yew tree at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Luckily there’s a fairy door trail leaflet to help you find them all.

A little way away from the gardens is a massive and very strange Indian-style folly. We walked over to it: it is in the middle of a field, surrounded by quite a deep ditch, and there is a ride cut through the trees to allow a vista of the folly from King John’s House in Tollard Royal. Pitt Rivers owned King John’s House, a 13th century manor house.

The Indian-style folly near the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The gardens are open at a small charge (currently £4 for an adult). Unsurprisingly they are a favourite venue for weddings, and there are also a couple of festivals held there each year (the Larmer Tree Festival and the End of the Road Festival). Consequently there are often times when the gardens are closed: I have driven to it quite a few times now only to be disappointed. Needless to say it’s highly recommended to check opening days and times online first!

I always think of the gardens being in Dorset rather than Wiltshire, possibly because Pitt Rivers is so inextricably linked with his groundbreaking archaeological work in Cranborne Chase in Dorset; looking at the 1:25,000 OS map of the area I see that the county boundary between Wiltshire and Dorset actually runs along the southern edge of the gardens. Unusual to park our car in Dorset to visit a garden in Wiltshire!

Timeline of the development of the garden buildings:

* 1880 The Temple

* 1881 The Lodge

* 1882 Stag’s Arbour

* 1886 Band View

* 1895 The Singing Theatre; The Larmer Tree studio attached to the Lodge

* 1896 Jubilee Hall

* 1897 Lower Indian Room

* 1899 The General’s Room

Can't resist it: I'm not a grily girl by any strecth of the imagination (I wear a dress about twice a year), but look at this gorgeous dress on a bride at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Can’t resist it: I’m not a girly girl by any stretch of the imagination (I wear a dress about once a year), but look at this gorgeous gown on a bride at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Larmer Tree Gardens website.

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