Newcastle- Sept 2019 – St.Marys Cathedral

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St. Mary’s Cathedral in Newcastle is a grade 1 listed building, catholic cathedral and the mother church of the Dioscese of Hexam & Newcastle and seat of the Bishop of the diocese. The cathedral was designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, an English architect, designer,artist and critic and was a pioneer of the Gothic Revival style of architecture. He designed many churches in England, Ireland and as far as Australia, but also the interior of the Palace of Westminster, and its iconic clock tower, later named the Elizabeth Tower which houses the bell known as Big Ben. Construction of the…

Newcastle ~September 2019 ~ Elmer edition

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St.Oswalds Hospice in Newcastle cares for both adults, children and babies who have terminal illnesses.  It is a registered charitable trust, and whilst the NHS regulates it, it does not fund it. The childrens hospice has to raise over £7.5 million each year to keep its doors open and its service free to those who need it, and relies a fair bit on volunteers, (who’s equivalent salary comes to around £180 million a year, if they were paid minimum contract wages). It is well run and very well thought of by those who have been unfortunate enough to need its…

Newcastle Upon Tyne ~ September 2019 ~ 2

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Part 1 HERE After our somewhat disappointing ‘tour’ around All Saints, Sophie and I went off to find an interesting building Sophie had spotted from a train. According to Sophie it wasn’t too far away, so we left All Saints and headed down to the quayside. We walked down the quayside and I was amused to see that a temporary beach had been set up for summer. You may notice an elephant in the middle of the picture, this is something that happens every year in the North East, and will have a post of it’s own next time.  In…

Poland~ April 2017 ~Auschwitz

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Originally posted on fraggle:
It’s taken me a little while to get to this part of our trip, it’s taken a little while to Marshall all my thoughts. It may be a lengthier post than normal, but I am not going to do this in ‘parts’, once is enough, so anyone with a short attention span feel free to bow out now 🙂 . First thing to say is I was wary of going here, I, like many, have seen harrowing movies, Schindlers List, Sophies Choice, Boy in striped pyjamas, The Pianist, etc, and have seen the truly staggering news…

Newcastle Upon Tyne ~ September 2019 ~ 1

Categories: Adventures · architecture · Church · Fuji · Fujifilm X100F · Georgian era · History · medieval · people · photography · UncategorizedTags: · · · · · · · 37 Comments

We actually had a sunny day back in September last year, and Sophie wanted to go to an open day at All Saints Church in Newcastle. So off we went on the metro, but before we get to the pictures, we must do The History Bit. The current All Saints Church stands on the site of a previous medieval church called All Hallows, founded between 1150 and 1190. It is the only elliptical church building in England, a Grade 1 listed building, and the third tallest religious building in Newcastle.  The original church was pulled down at the end of…

Bamburgh Castle ~ August 2019 ~ 3

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Part 1 HERE . Part 2 HERE Onwards into the castle itself. The Library Built on the site of the medieval Great Hall, the Kings Hall is a Victorian masterpiece. The magnificent false hammer beam ceiling is made with teak from Thailand. They were playing music in the Kings Hall, and we saw the lovely French man and his wife dancing to it The Cross Hall, which crosses the Kings Hall, has a vast Tudor style fireplace and intricate stone carvings representing ship building across the ages along with large tapestries and a copy of Theodore Rombout’s The Card Players….

Bamburgh Castle Revisted ~ August 2019 ~ 2

Categories: Adventures · Anglo~Saxon · castles & ruins · Fuji · FujiX-T2 · History · medieval · museum · photography · Victorian era · WW2Tags: · · · · · · · · 18 Comments

Part 1 HERE After a good wander around the grounds we went to visit the museums. The first museum we got to was the Armstrong & Aviation museum, which houses some of the stuff that Armstrong produced for WW2, and some stuff from WW1. I’m sorry to say I didn’t take notes or many photo’s in this museum, I’m not sure why it didn’t float my boat,  however there was a really nice vintage car that I liked. We also visited the Archaeology Museum and saw some nice bling that they had dug up. The pieces were incredibly small, but…

Bamburgh Castle Revisted ~ August 2019 2019 ~1

Categories: Adventures · architecture · castles & ruins · Fuji · FujiX-T2 · History · landscape · medieval · people · photographyTags: · · · · · · · · · 26 Comments

Sophie and I last visited Bamburgh on a rainy day in June 2016, when our planned boat trip to the Farne Islands got called off due to the rotten weather, and it was the nearest place to hand. In summer this year Sophie’s chap came over from Spain and he got to choose our destination, so back we went to Bamburgh and spent a sunny day there. For readers who were not followers back then, here is the history of the castle, the rest of you can scroll down 🙂 THE HISTORY BIT, mostly from wiki with added extras There…

Staindrop and St.Mary’s Church – August 2019

Categories: Adventures · architecture · Church · Fuji · FujiX-T2 · Graves · History · photography · UncategorizedTags: · · · · · · · · · 35 Comments

After Sophie and I had finished photographing the butterflies at Raby Castle, we decided to go and have lunch in the nearby village of Staindrop, and visit the church there. Staindrops earliest history begins in Neolithic times, though there is little left to see of that as the current village is built on top of it. Nearby roads and settlements bear evidence of it’s expansion in Roman times. The History Bit It is known that the first church in Staindrop was a saxon building made around 771 when Alhred was the King of Northumberland, but not much else is known…