At Renishaw stands this old constabulary and courthouse building. No longer an official building, it is now a private residence, although the courthouse was (and may still be for all I know) a military museum open to the pubic for a while. The overgrown frontages can make it seem like the structure is abandoned though.
The building was built in 1904 and the courthouse bore witness to Sylvia Pankhurst, daughter of the suffragette movement leader Emeline, being charged with seditious speech and fined fifty pounds.
People arrested And children of suffragettes Once passed through this place
Foregoing the law of photography stipulating that petrol stations (or gas stations to my trans-Atlantic friends) should be photographed at night, preferably with mist / fog and maybe using re-spooled motion picture film, here’s one shot during the hours of daylight using cheap consumer-grade film in the shape of Fujifilm’s budget C200 stock.
Most of the petrol stations I see hee in the UK are owned by one of the large franchises such as Shell, BP or Jet, or are owned by supermarket chains. I’m not sure how big an organisation Tate Oil is, but I don’t generally see many of their stations while out and about (or at least when allowed to be out and about in a vehicle in these lockdown times), so it’s a bit of a novelty.
There used to be a whole array of smaller chains around – especially when you went out into the countryside and off the beaten track – but many of these seem to have fallen by the wayside. Many of the stations I see when driving through Lincolnshire on trips to the coast are no longer selling fuel and have become forecourts for car dealerships.
Gas stations at night Can seem to be de rigueur Here’s one in daylight
There are a number of these “Tudor”-style houses that I pass on the way to Rother Valley Country Park. They were built in the 80s. Most of them still look pretty well kept, but I wonder if the particular design involves additional upkeep not required by the more standard brick-fronted properties?
Would Tudor people Have lived in a house like this? Something tells me no
I’d planned on a long walk this morning as the weather forecast was for a clear, frosty morning. As usual though, the weather forecast was bullsh*t, and the sky was grey cloud as far as the eye could see with not a hint of frost. There wasn’t even any mist or haze that might have made it worthwhile in photograpy terms. I felt dejected and the thought of a walk where I would make lacklustre, for the sake of it, photos didn’t really appeal so I took the idea off the table. I had a number of other things to do indoors anyway.
The walk will wait for another day, although – as I’m back at work on Monday – it will have to be at another weekend as it’s much too long a distance to make during a lunch-break or something. I think part of my not going out is also lockdown blues. Even though there is light at the end of the tunnel, that’s still several weeks away and the thought of wandering the same places over and over is becoming less attractive by the day. Just the chance of driving a few miles will allow me to get a bit of an inspirational re-charge and the freedom to do so can’t come soon enough.
Two images today of the same electricity pylon. the first made just beside a railway footbridge, the second made a few minutes later from atop another railway footbridge.
I’m sick of lockdown I have an urge to go roam And it’s unfulfilled
I’ve walked past this bungalow on a number of occasions and noticed a Jack Russel terrier peeking out the window. On this day I snapped his picture as I walked by.
Back in December, not long before Christmas, was the last time I visited the city centre. Less than a fortnight later the nation was placed back into lockdown and it became off-limits. The day in question was bright with sunshine and I spent an hour or two wandering around with my Texas Leica and the Sure Shot Supreme. The Supreme has been my “coat-pocket camera” for the past few months, going with me most places whereupon I would make the occasional picture when something caught my eye. Mostly, in these cases, I don’t really keep track of where and when I made each photo unless there’s something notable enough to get captured on my timeline. In this case, due to the Pandemic, a walk around town fell into that category. The roll of film in the camera was finally finished towards the end of last month (the Supreme has some Colorplus in there now).
The two images shown here are, respectively, the Yorkshire Artspace Persistence Works building, and the Rutland Arms pub. They sit opposite one another on the corner where Brown Street and Furnival Lane meet. I’ve never been inside either of them.
Hopefully I’ll get to see them (and the rest of the city centre) again before too long.
It’s easy to miss The things you take for granted When they’re out of reach
I’m jumping back in time by a year or so for today’s photo. I’m on the cusp of scanning and uploading some recent images that will likely form tomorrow’s post, but until I get that done I’ll dip into the archive. Hopefully it’s not a shot I’ve published before (I don’t think it is).
It depicts the Eagle Stone, a large boulder that stands alone above Baslow Edge in the Peak District. A footpath passes closely by and it no doubt gets lots of attention, but on this day at the start of the year, the temperature was cold and the wind was blowing gustily – especially along the nearby crags – and there were not many folks about.
As I approached the stone I saw a small group of people near its base. Then, as I got closer, a man appeared on its top. He first lay on his back and took a selfie, before calling his girlfriend to talk about where he was. Then, after taking a drink and standing to survey his surroundings, he clambered back down the edge of the rock, jumping down the last six feet or so (my less supple physique gave an internal groan as I watched this happen, imagining the damage it might have done were it attempted by me!). The other people with him were, I believe, his parents and a sibling, and I passed a few comments before they moved on and I made some more photos of the rock sans human presence.
As I’ve mentioned before, one of the main tolls the current lockdown is having on me personally is the loss of freedom to roam, and I look forward greatly to the day when I can visit places such as the Eagle Stone once again.
Above Baslow Edge A stone stands stark on the land A challenge is set
I’ve got a couple of days off work, making for a long weekend. I’d decided long in advance that I would use these two extra days to take a walk or, more specifically, a long walk. Due to the current lockdown restrictions, I’m still limited in where and how I can travel, but local exercise is permitted so I decided to go for a hike along the Trans Pennine Trail (TPT) on the stretch that heads south to Chesterfield. My plan was to walk to Renishaw, then head along the road towards Eckington, before cutting through Renishaw Golf Course and looping back to the trail for the return leg.
The weather forecast looked promising, with a hope of some sunshine, but the temperature was still forecast to be low, -1° as I left the house, so I wrapped up warm.
I took the Yashica Mat 124G with me along with three spare rolls of film. I also had a few frames left to shoot with the Canon Sure Shot Supreme that’s been in my coat pocket through the winter, and I took an extra roll of 135 in case I finished the existing one. My light meter and a bottle of water finished off the stuff I carried.
This section of the TPT runs along a disused railway line, crossing a number of bridges (and going beneath a few others), and there’s even the remnants of the disused Killamarsh Central station along the way, complete with the northbound platform and pedestrian footbridge. It also runs alongside the Cuckoo Way for part of it’s length – the Cuckoo Way being the towpath beside the Chesterfield canal. Much of this length of the canal is derelict and clogged with vegetation, but there are still stretches with water, which today was frozen over with a frosting of snow laid on the surface.
To the west of the trail lies the valley where the River Rother snakes it’s way northwards and recent heavy rain has left large swathes of the floodplain submerged in water, again now coated with a layer of ice. One of the footpath spurs down into the valley that I’ve walked before was completely blocked by this floodwater, but I ventured to its edge to make a few photographs.
I managed to shoot shoot two full rolls of 120 through the Yashica (as well as finishing the roll that was already inside when I set out) AND finish the roll of C200 in the Sure Shot. I now have a backlog of four rolls of B&W to develop, plus the roll of 135 colour to send to the lab. You’ll be seeing many of these pictures on the blog shortly (I hope!).
In total I was out of the house for around four hours and (if my phone is to be believed) walked for the best part of nine miles and my legs and feet are now letting me know just how hard they worked… It was a good walk and good to be out of the house in the fresh, bright air for so long. I saw plenty of robins along the TPT, plus a few squirrels re-stocking their winter supplies. I might also have quite a nice picture of a horse as well if I didn’t mess things up somehow.
The only downer was when a roll of film didn’t load properly, necessitating my re-spooling part of it while stood in the middle of a field. I hope I’ve not introduced any light leaks onto the film, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Thanks to the nature of film photography, I can’t show you any shots for the walk until I get them developed and scanned, but they’ll probably start landing in a week or so as I get through my backlog. So, to illustrate a little what the day was like, here’s an older photo from three years ago made during a walk around Linacre reservoirs.
Teazels backlit by the winter sunshine. I used the 70-200mm for this and was at the very edge of close focue when I made the shot. The sun was bright enough to allow a decent shutter speed, although I think the lens was at it’s widest aperture.
Spiked halos shine bright As winter sunshine lights up Dry vegetation
See, I told you I ‘ve made a number of shots at this location, so look forward to more exciting skip photos in the coming days! I’m sure you can hadly wait… 🙂
Crust of frozen snow Atop the bins it slid off And made my hands cold
