Boyd's photo diary. |
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Wed 29 Sep 2010
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It was raining for most of the
morning but in the afternoon it eased enough for me to cycle to
Chorley Railway Station and catch the train to Blackpool North
Station. Then I cycled home via Staning, Weeton, Kirkham, Nog
Tow, Tom Benson Way and Penwortham. Its worth going through Nog
Tow just you can say the name. |
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Arriving at Blackpool North Railway Station |
Crossing the River Ribble by the Old Penwortham Bridge. The
bridge dates from 1759 and replaces an earlier bridge which
collapsed. |
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Mon 27 Sep 2010
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at brindle Historical Society for a showing of films taken
around the village over the decades. |
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Sun 26 Sep 2010
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I photographed 2
bridges today. Both built for different purposes. |
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The 2 arched
pack-horse bridge at Wycoller near Colne, Lancs. Probably built
around the 15th century but nobody really knows. |
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Town Lane
bridge over the Leeds and Liverpool canal. This stretch of canal
was opened in 1817. |
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Sat 25 Sep 2010
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The evenings
are much darker now and taking photos on my Saturday evening
walk requires a tripod. I've photographed this scene many times
before but this one is composed of 10 separate images. |
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Mid day at
Astley Hall to return some audio tapes I'd digitised. While
there I tried some test exposures of some of the framed
paintings hanging high on the walls. By photographing them in-situe
and correcting for distortions i was able to get the images
above. |
Katherine Townley-Parker |
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Charles 1st and wife Herietta Maria with sons Charles left and
James |
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Wed 22 Sep 2010
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Mid day
attended the open day at the North West Sound Archive at
Clitheroe Castle. Its been a while since they’ve had one as the
Castle and Museum have been considerably re-furbished over the
past 2 years and the Sound Archice have had to operate out of a
porta-cabin somewhere. It was good to catch up with old contacts
and also make a few new ones. |
The Keep of Clitheroe Castle was built around 1186 by Robert de
Lacy |
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internal view of the Clitheroe Castle keep. |
| some of the many
sound recordings in the archive. |
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Tue 21 Sep 2010
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I caught the
train to Salford Crescent, Manchester with my bike and cycled home via Worsley, Tyldesley, Atherton, Hindley, Aspull, Adlington and
Chorley. I stopped in Atherton to take this picture of St John
the Evangelist Church. Like the picture of St Mary's Penwortham
yesterday it is a merge of 6 separate images. There is some
distortion in the church roof. This is caused by having to
render a very wide view in to a 2 dimensional picture. |
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Mon 20 Sep 2010
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I was out for a
cycle ride this morning in the Penwortham area and decided to
have a look at St Mary's Church. It's chancel dates back to the
14th century. This was my first visit and I'm glad I called in.
The weather was gloomy with light rain but the church and
grounds were still impressive. The photo is a bit of a cheat as
it is 6 separate images merged together so I could get the whole
view in. |
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Sat 18 Sep 2010
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Fri 17 Sep 2010
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As a child I
was abused. I don’t mean in a Catholic Priest way but by a
dentist in Leyland who was eventually caught by the authorities
for fraud. I always wondered why he would drill and fill my
teeth when I was very particular about brushing them every day
and keeping them clean. I was puzzled why regularly cleaned
teeth could go bad and need filling. It turned out that he’d
been abusing many children this way by doing unnecessary dental
work on perfectly healthy teeth. |
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The reason was
greed and to boost his income and swell his bank account. The fillings
eventually started to come out and had to be replaced in later
life. This was inconvenient, painful and costly. Eventually a
back lower molar became infected after its third filling and
today I had to have it extracted by my current dentist. It was
not a pleasant process. After the extraction I came up against
our ridiculous health and safety regulations. I asked if I could
have the tooth. I was told no as it is classified as
hazardous waste! The
dental assistant said she wasn’t even allowed to handle it. The
Dentist was a little more reasonable and as the filling had come
out a couple of weeks ago I was reluctantly allowed to take the
tooth away in a plastic bag with disinfectant in it. |
hazardous waste! |
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Sun 12 Sep 2010
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The Alzheimer’s
Group had organised a series of walks from the Withnell Fold
Sports and Social Club. A long walk of about 12 miles left at
10am, a shorter walk of 6miles left at 10:30 and I was due to
lead a shorter walk of 2 1/4miles at 11am. My walk was to be a
guided history walk to explain the history of the area from
Roman Times to the present day. I started by explaining the walk
while still in the club as it was still raining outside. I soon
realised that I was going to have problems as the majority of
people had no interest in history. 25 people had signed up for
the walk but there were quite a few more there. There were far
too many. Of all those there about 6 were interested in what I
had to say and the rest just wandered about chatting. After all
my research I wondered why I’d bothered. |
After the walk we returned to the Sports Club for refreshments. |
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After the disaster of the earlier
guided walk I returned home then went for a walk along the canal
at the locks where the late afternoon sunshine gave some nice
lighting effects. |
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Sat 11 Sep 2010
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Mid morning
drove to Brinscall for guided history walk by David Clayton. We
walked through woods to look at various ruined farmsteads then
up on to moor to Coppice Stile House, Drinkwaters and Great Hill
Farm. |
David explains the layout of the ruins on Ripping Farm and
about the people who lived there |
We've now reached Drinkwater's Farm and David tells us not only
the history of the people who lived here but has a photo of one
of the last residents. |
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Fri 10 Sep 2010
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I always enjoy
taking pictures from the same viewpoint of an earlier photograph
so comparisons can be made. These are a couple I took this
morning. |
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St Thomas's Square, Chorley. The
Town Hall is the building in the background. |
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The corner of
Market St and West St outside Yates's Wine Lodge. This is where
the buses used to depart. |
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Thu 09 Sep 2010
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First thing I
set off to drive home via the scenic route and stopped again to
photograph the Connel bridge in the early morning gloom and
mist. |
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have a walk around the docks and ferry terminal area. |
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Wed 08 Sep 2010
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After 3 days of
being battered by high winds while walking near Ben Nevis I was
driving to Oban when the weather cleared a bit and gave this
nice view of Castle Stalker Appin with Loch Linnhe in the
background. The castle dates from around 1320. One of its places
in history is being the location of the final scene in the 1975
film ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ |
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After Stalker
Appin I reached the Connel Bridge and left the car to have a
walk across the bridge and look at the rip tide being forced
through the narrow straits. |
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Fri 03 Sep 2010
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I decided to
make the most of the settled late summer weather by going for a
cycle ride over some of the interesting passes in Cumbria. After
cycling to Preston I caught the 7:20am train to Ulverston and
set off through the town to head for Kirkby-in-Furness. I’d only
been going a few minutes before I had to make a detour as the
street I was heading for turned out to be one-way and I met a
no-entry sign. After a few miles I descended through the narrow
streets of Beck Side and emerged on to the main A595 at
Kirkby-in-Furness. At Grizebeck I turned left and continued to
Broughton-in-Furness where I was glad to leave the main road for
a while. |
Ulverston Railway Station |
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the Post Office in Ulpha |
At Duddon
Bridge I turned north to head out in to the wonderful views of
Dunnerdale. I couldn’t resist stopping briefly to photograph the
tiny shop and Post Office at Ulpha. Over the steep climb of
Birker Fell I had views of the big hills but the warm weather
had also brought some haze in. |
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Cycling up
Eskdale the imposing view of the west climb of Hardknott pass
appeared ahead. |
King George IV pub at the Eskdale road junction |
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Ravenglass and Eskdale narrow gauge railway near Boot. |
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stopping briefly to photograph the information plate about the
Roman Fort. |
The climb is
almost a thousand feet of fairly steep ziz-zags but with
sensible gears I didn’t find it too bad. Part way up is the
Roman Fort but this can’t be seen from the road. A couple of
cars passed me near the summit but I soon caught them up and
passed them on the descent. My next climb was over Wrynose Pass
which from this side wasn’t as high or steep. I’d only brought
one water bottle with me and it was now empty. I refilled it at
Wrynose Beck on the descent. |
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information about the Roman Fort (see below for a transcript) |
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HARDKNOTT ROMAN FORT
THE NATIONAL TRUST ENGLISH HERITAGE
To have arrived here, close to Hardknott Roman Fort,
you may have travelled in part along the route of a
Roman road. This road extended from a coastal fort
at Ravenglass running up the Eskdale valley to your
present position before continuing over the
Hardknott and Wrynose passes towards other forts at
Ambleside and Kendal beyond. This fort, on the
flanks of the Hardknott Pass and with commanding
views down Eskdale, would have provided a base for
Roman troops policing the potentially hostile native
population living in the valleys and on the lower
fells.
Built early in the Second Century AD during the
reign of the Emperor Hadrian, the fort seems to have
been initially occupied only briefly and was
probably re-occupied later in the Second Century. It
housed an infantry unit (a cohort) of 500 men, who
we know to have been the fourth Cohort of
Dalmatians. This may be the fort called Mediobogdum
in surviving Roman records.
Extensive archaeological excavations were carried
out in the late nineteenth century and consolidation
and further excavation in the 1950s and 60s.
This work has revealed the remains of the fort's
defences and gateways and parts of- the internal
building arrangement, including the commanding
officer's house, the headquarters building and the
granaries, all of which may be seen today. A little
way outside the main gate lie the remains of the
bath-house, probably one of the few opportunities
for leisure in this remote location. Upslope from
the fort lies the parade ground, an unusual survival
from the period and evidence of the strict military
discipline which governed the lives of the troops.
This monument is managed by the National Trust and
is in the Guardianship of English Heritage. It is an
offence to damage or deface it. The use of metal
detectors is prohibited. Please also see the
National Trusts byelaws on the back of this sign. |
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I was so glad
to be on a bike along the narrow lane through Little Langdale as
passing in a car can be a problem in places. I joined the A593
for a while but turned off before Skelwith Bridge to follow a
narrow lane through dense trees to the Drunken Duck Inn. In
Hawkshead the fine weather had brought out the crowds and I was
glad to leave the place and set off up the climb to Grizedale. I
continued south along the lanes through Satterthwaite, Force
Forge, Bouth to Haverthwaite. My objective was Grange-over-Sands
railway station so I checked the train times to see that one was
due at 13:53. That gave me just under an hour to get there along
the B5278 which is a fairly fast road. I cycled through Cark and
Allithwaite then into the car and people jammed Grange. I
reached the station with about 15mins to wait for the train
which arrived on time. Back in Preston I cycled home via
Penwortham and Bamber Bridge. |
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Grange-over-Sands railway station |
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GRANGE-OVER-SANDS STATION
The Ulverstone & Lancaster Railway was opened through the first
station on this site on 27th August 1857; the first passenger
train ran on 1st September.
The Furness Railway, having absorbed the
U& LR in 1862, commissioned the architect Edward Graham Paley of
Lancaster to design the present station, which was built in
1864-72. The station is listed Grade II and stands in a
Conservation Area.
It was restored in 1997/98 |
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