Earlier today I went into Nottingham City Centre to photograph the Pride Parade and support the community. I don’t know if numbers have been calculated yet but it certainly seemed like a large turnout, with the parade itself taking over an hour to move around the Market Square with musical performances and dancers along the route and lots of fun costumes, plus some very cute dogs! A few of my photos from the event are below:
George John Vulliamy, the superintending architect of the Metropolitan Board of Water, created these electric lamps that stretch along the Thames in 1870. Although they are referred to as dolphins – possibly because they are supposed to be modelled on dolphin sculptures that are part of the Fontana del Nettuno in Rome – they are actually sturgeons.
After our visit to Canons Ashby we were looking for somewhere to visit to break up our drive back to Nottingham and decided that Rockingham Castle was the perfect choice. It’s still a family home and is only open on certain afternoons throughout the year, so always check the website and pre-book tickets (adult £14.00) if you plan to visit. It’s also worth noting that photography is not allowed inside the building itself.
Canons Ashby Priory was an Augustinian priory founded in 1147. The priory was built in stone in 1253 and the unusual colour of the outside is because of the use of three different types of stone. The addition of the tower in 1350 demonstrates the wealth of the priory; funds for it were largely raised by charging locals for the use of a well on their land.
Representing Boadicea (or Boudica or Boudicca or any other manner of spellings), the queen of a British Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the Romans in AD 60-61, this sculpture can be found by Westminster Bridge opposite Big Ben. It was created by Thomas Thornycroft with help from his son William and was commissioned in the 1850s but not completed until 1898, over ten years after the sculptor had died. It was installed at the bridge in 1902.
The gardens at Canons Ashby present a lovely first impression of the estate. Edward Dryden, beginning in 1908, was largely responsible for the development of the gardens as it looks today. He wanted to create an organised landscape of geometric shapes.
Canons Ashby is a National Trust property in Northamptonshire that we visited over the early May Bank Holiday. I’m splitting the visits into three sections with posts on the gardens and the church to follow in the coming weeks. Ashby is an old word for farmstead so Canons Ashby (note no apostrophe) literally means the farmstead of the canons (priests) from the Augustinian priory that was established in the mid-12th century. Over the years the Black Death and Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries lead to the area falling into disrepair until the remains of the building were bought first by Sir Francis Bryan in 1537 and then a year later by Sir John Cope.
In the 16th century Sir John Cope gave the estate to his son-in-law John Dryden and using masonry from the old priory buildings built the distinctive tower part of the building. The Dryden’s continued to live in the house for the next 400 years, adding and removing bits of the interiors and exteriors which has left it with a rather interesting shape where some of the rooms aren’t really aligned.
The house came under National Trust control in 1981 when parts of the building were close to collapse. They did a significant amount of work to preserve the building and uncovered some real gems that previous generations had covered up. One such discovery was that of an 18th century painted mural depicting scenes from the Bible that had been covered by panelling.
One room in particular with unexpected grandeur was that of the drawing room. Not only does it contain an amazing fireplace but also an impressively decorated plaster ceiling – the drop pendant in the middle would have been where a chandelier was hung.
It’s an interesting place to visit especially to see the way improvements and changes to the house have shaped its appearance today.
On until 28 August this exhibition by Nottingham based architectural photographer Martine Hamilton Knight features buildings from around Nottinghamshire, part of the newly updated Pevsner guide by historian Clare Hartnell. Nikolaus Pevsner came to England from Germany in 1933 and created the Buildings of England series of county guides, still an important go to guide for architectural insights – I often refer to them when I’m researching architectural posts. I always think taking photos of photos is a bit redundant but I did take some at the exhibition, a couple of which are places that I’d like to see in person. The first is from St Mary’s Church in Clifton.
Part of an ongoing series, here are some doors from Liverpool. The first is the door of the Octagon Chapel which dates from 1763.
At the beginning of May we went on a trip to Whipsnade Zoo – one of two zoos (the other being London Zoo) that are owned by the Zoological Society of London, a charity devoted to wildlife conservation. It’s the UK’s largest zoo covering over 600 acres and we were very impressed with how much space the animals had to roam around.
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