Brunel Locks

here are some places I keep taking pictures of again and again, building up a time series through the changing of seasons and urban renewal. Not necessarily deliberately, but just because I happen to pass that way regularly.

One of the earliest of those time series was at the Clifton Suspension Bridge, looking south at the Brunel Locks.

Brunel Locks is where Bristol's Floating Harbour flows out into the tidal River Avon. Bridged by the ridiculous 1960s flyovers of the Brunel Way junction, and with the wonderful backdrop of Ashton Vale's three landmark tobacco bonds.

It must be time I went back for the 2012 view.

More pictures in the Floating Harbour gallery.

Edinburgh Castle

I don't go inside tourist attractions of the historic house and castle variety all that often. The occasional objects of interest on display aren't usually worth the effort of wading through the endless antique chair arrangements and the endless lists of lords who have sat in the antique chairs.

Edinburgh Castle has a little of that. The Honours of Scotland (crown jewels), for example, are laid out in display cases on velvet cushions, if you're excited by that sort of thing. But it has something else, too: a fantastic situation.

The Castle Rock is a volcanic plug, left standing after the ice age, when glaciers cleared the weaker rock from around it. The hill has been inhabited for almost two millennia, with the Castle first developing a thousand years ago and Edinburgh Old Town following on the "tail" of the hill.

And that now contributes to Edinburgh having one of the nicest skylines and cityscapes of any British city.

More photos in the Edinburgh gallery.

Cwmorthin

Cwmorthin is one of the many huge disused slate quarries and mines around Blaenau Ffestiniog in Snowdonia, a mile walk up into the Moelwyn Mountains from the town and station.

Most of the workings are underground, in the many miles of mine tunnels that climb and descend inside the mountain, some of them still open to cavers, others now damaged by the attempts to use explosives to aid the extraction of slate in the quarry's final working years in the 1990s.

But there's still lots to see above ground, around the portals beside the lake, Llyn Cwmorthin.

In addition to the huge spoil heaps, which send tentacles reaching out into the lake, the quarrymaster's house is intact, but boarded up and getting scruffy. But the quarrymen's barracks, whose residents had a life expectancy of 44 years, have been in ruins for several decades.

These photos were all taken early one May morning. There's a lot more industrial archaeology in the Cwmorthin valley that I didn't get to see that time — I must go back.

View Larger Map — Ordnance Survey Map

Burst of bicycle couples

A short set of photos I took in the autumn on Zeeburgereiland, one of the artificial islands off Amsterdam's waterfront. Surrounded by all sorts of bridges and tunnels, shipping canals and dams, motorways and tramways, but with these three silos standing alone in a big empty wasteland...

I have added the Netherlands to the site's collection of galleries.

The ruins of St Colmac's

I went to the little island of Bute, in the Firth of Clyde, on the southern edge of the Highlands.

On the road to Ettrick Bay you pass St Colmac's church and graveyard.

Built in 1836 for the second Marquess of Bute, of the nearby Kames Castle.

The award of listed building status in 1971 wasn't enough to preserve the church. Services ceased in 1980, windows and doors broke, and the roof collapsed in 1996.

The burial ground is still growing, but the church itself is being left to turn from derelict mess to picturesque ruin.

I've discovered quite a few Highland ruins over the past year -- they might form a theme. I've already posted on the Moine House.

Winter fogs past

I love those freezing winter nights, when everything condenses into one big fog.

And the light blurs...

And the shapes merge...

Christmas orders

I will be organising a batch of prints and frames next week, on Friday 2nd. If you wish to order framed prints in time for Christmas please get in touch during the next week to discuss requirements. I can take UK orders for prints until mid-December but can not guarantee that frames could be built in time for orders after the 2nd. You can find out more about ordering on the prints page.

Haystacks

Not a big hill by Lake District standards, but a popular one.

Because of its pleasant ascents past the tarns and rock formations.

And the view over Buttermere and the valley.

More on Wikipedia.