Bosham (West Sussex) in Paint

Bosham, West Sussex . . . Watercolour – WHB: 2000

Bosham is a delightful village situated on an arm of Chichester Harbour (West Sussex). Bosham has a long history; it is thought that it was one of the first sites in Sussex were the Saxon St Wilfrid preached, around the year 681 AD. Three centuries later, it was at Bosham that King Canute, tongue in cheek, ordered the waves to cease their movement. Canute’s daughter is buried at Holy Trinity parish church, which features a superb 11th century chancel arch and a Saxon tower.

One of Canute’s successors, Harold, set sail from Bosham in 1064 on the voyage which was to eventually cost him his kingdom, after a storm cast him into the hands of William of Normandy.

Today, Bosham remains a popular boating centre, and it retains many charming 17th and 18th century buildings in the narrow, winding streets and alleys that lead to the harbour. The manor of Bosham House, which may stand on the site of a Saxon house built for Canute, was the home of Henry Hamblin, the popular writer and spiritualist known as the ‘Saint of Sussex’.

From: http://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=3123

Two more watercolours of Bosham Harbour . . . WHB c.2000

Scotland – The Fife Coast: 2

[ Photo Gallery # 97 ]

The Fife Coast: 2

Elie, Anstruther, Crail, & Fife Ness

 

Continuing my journey along the Scottish East Coast, my Photo Gallery today displays more views of some of the delightful coastal villages along this  seaboard. . .

Elie is a small coastal town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the north coast of the Firth of Forth.

The shoreline and jetty at Elie

Anstruther is a small town in Fife, Scotland, nine miles south-southeast of St. Andrews. The two halves of the town are divided by a stream, known as the Dreel Burn.

The harbour at Anstruther

View seawards to the harbour entrance at Anstruther

 The stout harbour wall at Crail, a former royal burgh in the East Neuk of Fife.

A gull’s nest viewed from the cliffs at Crail

The harbour at Crail

Two views from Fife Ness, a headland forming the most eastern point in Fife

 

Malaga – SPAIN

 [ Photo Gallery # 95 ]

Málaga is a port city on southern Spain’s Costa del Sol, known for its high-rise hotels and resorts jutting up from yellow-sand beaches.  The photographs below were taken by me on a visit to the city in 2006 . . .

( Click on any photograph to open an enlarged view; click again to move on through the remaining enlarged photographs )

 

Whitby #3

[ Photo Gallery # 77 ]

A further (last – for the time being anyway) selection of my photographs of Whitby taken on my frequent visits there  in the past . . .

Whitby – as the River Esk enters the North Sea – view from East Cliff

Harbour Entrance   1

Harbour Entrance 2

Harbour Entrance 3

The ruins of Whitby Abbey atop East Cliff

Whitby Town – view from the top of the 199 Steps

Caedmon’s Cross and Whitby Town – View from the Churchyard of St.Mary’s 

Old gravestones in the churchyard – a prominent setting for Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ story.

A Weathered Gravestone

By the entrance to the church – Memorial to John Storr, the Coxwain of the Whitby lifeboat, and eleven others who lost their lives on the lifeboat in 1861.

A modern day street puppeteer with organ grinder on the Whitby harbour-side

 

WHITBY #2

[ Photo Gallery # 76 ]

A further selection of my photographs of Whitby taken on my frequent visits there  in the past . . .

Panoramic view of the entrance from the North Sea to Whitby Harbour and the River Esk

The Church of St. Mary on the headland on the south bank of the River Esk.   Ruins of the ancient Abbey can be seen behind the church

View of the inner harbour and the swing bridge crossing the River Esk and connecting the north and south areas of the town.

View to the east across the inner harbour

The breakwaters at the Whitby harbour entrance

Another view of the Whitby Whale Bone Arch

Bronze statue of Captain James Cook
The inscription reads:
Front: To Strive, to seek to find and not to yield. To commemorate the men who built, the Whitby Ships and the men who sailed with him.
North Side: In every situation he stood unrivalled and alone on him all eyes were turned.

. . .  very popular with the local gulls

A WW2 anti-aircraft gun on the Whitby seafront

Whitby Harbour entrance

The bottom of the 199 steps in Whitby, leading up to Whitby Abbey and the top of the East Cliff.  These steps are an extraordinary attraction in Whitby, y attracting visitors from all over the world.

Wood-carved monument to Whitby seamen in the inner harbour

CORNWALL – the North-East Coast

[  Photograph Gallery   #71  ]

Cornwall’s Coast . . . continued . . .

St. Enodoc’s Church, Trebetherick, Cornwall. The church is said to lie on the site of a cave where Enodoc lived as a hermit.  It is situated among the sand dunes on the eastern bank of the River Camel estuary. Wind-driven sand has formed banks that are almost level with the roof on two sides.  From the 16th century to the middle of the 19th century, the church was virtually buried by the dunes, but by 1864 the church was unearthed and the dunes were stabilized.

St. Enodoc’s Church – The grave of Sir John Betjeman.   From his youth Betjeman had come to this particular area of Cornwall.  He went on doing so regularly for the rest of his life.  He eventually moved to live at ‘Treen’, down a quiet lane in the village of Trebetherick, where he died in May 1984. 

St. Enodoc’s Church – the decorated west porch

St. Enodoc’s Church  – the decorated west porch (close-up view)

Harbourside entertainment at Padstow on the River Camel estuary

The view towards Boscastle from where the River Valency meets the sea

Boscastle harbour and breakwater at the mouth of the River Valency

Boats tied up in the shelter of the stone jetty at Boscastle

 

The River Valency at Boscastle. Here seen after radical repairs and reconstruction of the river bed and bridge following the hugely destructive floods of  2004. An interesting description of this flood disaster can be read on Wikipedia at:  Boscastle Flood

The Coastguard Station at Boscastle

The sea entrance to Boscastle on the River Valancy viewed from the hilltop to the south of the town.

Cornwall – The South-East Coast

[  Photograph Gallery #70  ]

Moving west from the coast of Somerset, which was the subject of my last photographic gallery  ( See –  ‘Coleridge and Watchet’ ), I intend, over the next few weeks, to offer some of the photographs which I have taken in England’s western-most county, Cornwall, mainly in its coastal areas, on my several visits there over the last ten or so years.  I begin today on the south-eastern coast of the county, covering part of the area between Cothele on the border with Devonshire and Fowey (pronounced (Foy).

Map of the South-East coast of Cornwall

Calstock and the Viaduct from Cothele House (National Trust)

The Harbour at Looe

Polruan

Polruan Siesta

Polruan – Coastguard Lookout Station

Rame Head

Cawsand

At Mount Edgecumb

School’s Out – at Mount Edgcumb

Cottage in Fowey (pronounced ‘Foy’)

Old timbers at Tor Point

Ship’s Figurehead at Anthony House

Coleridge At Watchet

[  Photograph Gallery # 69  ]

The harbour town of Watchet lies on the North Somerset coast of England, between the Quantock Hills and the Brendon Hills on the Eastern edge of Exmoor.

The harbour at Watchet is said to have been the inspiration for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous epic poem ‘The Ancient Mariner’.  Whilst on a walk with his friends, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, over the Quantock Hills in 1797 from his home in nearby Nether Stowey, they came upon Watchet.  It has been said that looking down at the town from St. Decuman’s Church in the town gave him the idea for his poem.

‘The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, 

Merrily did we drop 

Below the kirk, below the hill, 

Below the lighthouse top.’

In 2002 the Watchet Market House Museum Society decided to commemorate the town’s important link with Coleridge by commissioning a statue. A seven-foot high effigy of the mariner was designed and created by sculptor Alan B. Herriot, of Penicuik, Scotland, cast by Powderhall Fine Art Foundries in Edinburgh and unveiled by Dr. Katherine Wyndham in 2003.  This statue now stands overlooking the marina on Watchet Esplanade.

There is now a designated ‘Coleridge Way’ walk of 51 miles through the landscape that inspired Coleridge to produce some of his best known work.  It takes an east to west path from Nether Stowey to Lynmouth through the lovely Somerset countryside of the Quantock Hills, the Brendon Hills and Exmoor – or obviously, in the reverse direction.

My photographs below were taken on a visit to the area in and around Watchet in 2007.

 

Watchet – Harbour & Marina

 

Looking north-east from Watchet harbour across the Bristol Channel to the island of Steep Holm

Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner’. created by the Scottish sculptor, Alan Herriot

‘God save thee, ancient Mariner! 
From the fiends, that plague thee thus! — 
Why look’st thou so?’ — With my cross-bow 
I shot the ALBATROSS..

(Coleridge) … this renowned poet resided for some years at the nearby village of Nether Stowey.  In 1797, while on a walking tour, Coleridge visited Watchet.  On seeing the harbour he was inspired to compose one of the best known poems in English literature, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’“

While the black-backed gulls keep an eye on events

Coastal rock striations near Watchet 

Dead, or just over-wintering?

Dubrovnik … From The City Walls – # 2

[ Photo Blog  #66 ]

I now continue my tour of Dubrovnik with more photographs taken from the superb viewpoint of the magnificent 16th Century walls surrounding the city, during my visit there in 2006.  It is amazing to realise that, only 15 years before my visit, the city had been under siege from invading forces of the Yugoslavian People’s Army during the Croatian War of Independence.

At that time Dubrovnik was a designated UNESCO ‘Protected’ World Heritage Site and the attack on the then besieged city shocked the world.  It had been caught up in the war being fought in the former Yugoslavia.  The military engagement saw the city under siege from both land and sea and constant shelling destroyed many of its ancient baroque buildings and marbled streets.   Many of Dubrovnik’s inhabitants were killed or injured during the bombardments.  Most the buildings in the old town were struck by shells.  The city walls were badly damaged in many places, and its palaces, churches, its monastery and fountains were also badly damaged.

Incredibly, by the time of my visit, Dubrovnik, as you can see from my photographs, had, at a huge cost, been largely restored to something approaching its former glory.

 

Greenland – Nanortalik #3

For my third and last collection of photographs of this fascinating small coastal town in Greenland, I have eleven miscellaneous photographs from the town and nearby.   The first two are of icebergs and a glacier high up in the mountains viewed on the approach to the town from the sea.  The remaining photographs show views of the town, its harbour, its backdrop of saw-tooth mountains, its proud displaying of the national flag, and of a reconstructed turf house, showing the original homes in which the townsfolk lived . . .