20120909_Kenilworth Castle Photographic Outing

20120909_Kenilworth Castle Photographic Outing

When : 9^th September 2012

Who : Me + My course tutor + some other students

Where : Kenilworth Castle, Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England

Maps used : 1:25000 Outdoor leisure map no.211 (Coventry and Warwick)

Start and End Point : SP280,721 … Main Car Park for the castle

Distance : Not far … Approx 2½ to 3 miles ….ish.

Significant heights : None to speak of … apart from steps up and down the ramparts, and a couple of spiral staircases, but you don’t need to do them if you don’t want to.

Click on a pic’ and it should launch as a larger image on my flickr photostream.

Use this link for a larger set of images without the words

This diary details a day out, but not really a country walk as-such, but there are half a dozen rights of ways radiating out from the castle area and these can be linked to make various length circular walks, which I’ve done several times in the past. However, today was specifically allocated for photography, so, I just touched on a couple of the public footpaths, just to see if I could get a good view point for some pictures of the outside of the castle.

It had been prearranged to meet at noon in the main car-park just off Castle Road (B4103) , but I decided to arrive early (about 10:50 as it happens) to give me a little time to walk around the outside of the castle, figuring that once everyone else had arrived we’d probably go straight inside. I also thought having the sun a little lower in the sky might give longer shadows and so give better depth to my pic’s; in reality I think I’d have had to be there at least another hour earlier as there wasn’t significantly much difference in the quality of light between 11:00 and 12:00.

When I arrived, the sky was a lovely blue with just a hint of thin wispy white clouds, and I was hopeful my new circular polarizing filter (a birthday prezzie) would come into its own, so I headed off to the pay-and-display machine with a bit of a spring in my step. The charge (£2.00) is refundable upon entrance to the castle (£8.00 – in 2012) and I’d say for a car-park charge, £2.00 was reasonable should you just wish to go for a countryside walk from here.

Anyway, as I was taking my first picture (from near one end of the car park), a passing gent’ (out walking his dog), made a tongue-in-cheek quip that it must have been the first time ANYONE had EVER taken that PARTICULAR view … and YES,  I suppose it could be described as a clichéd shot, but hey, it immediately sets the scene – The Castle completely dominates the view and I defy anyone with a camera not to take this snap.

To start with, I crossed the track in front of me, dropping slightly to go through a kissing gate (near a notice board) and then turning left I picked up a path heading almost due west along the side of a little wood. On my OS map, this path is marked as part of a long distance route and marked as “Midland Link”. It seems to make a connection between “The Centenary Way” here in Kenilworth and “The Heart of England Way” further to the west. (The “A Coventry Way” also passes quite close, so this link path could be used to connect in various ways). Anyway I headed maybe a couple of hundred yards or so along here to get some pic’s from where the path makes a joggle into a tree lined sunken track. This allowed me to frame the castle with the lower branches and leaves of the trees and the shadows on the ground … again this could be described as a bit of a cliché, but a time honoured technique that nearly always works.

I then turned back on myself, headed back to the kissing gate, rose up to the car park area again and strolled down to the ticket office positioned at the end of a raised causeway. Once I’d negotiated past the lady trying to get me to take out yearly membership of “English Heritage”, [the non-profit making guardians of the castle], I bought my entrance ticket and continued down the causeway towards the castle itself … but …just before Mortimer’s Tower I dropped down the bank on my left and set off around the outside of the castle walls in a clockwise direction. At times I stayed low, slightly away from the walls, on a narrow dirt path, at other times I got up close to the walls to see the detail in the stonework, including some attractive natural weathering and human graffiti carvings from many years ago.

After a short time, the path reaches a lane (Purlieu Lane) and I made my way onto this and turned left for a very short distance, before turning off to the right on another footpath rising up a grassy field towards some ruined farm buildings. My idea was to reach the top of the rise, turn around and get a shot of the castle from this slightly elevated position. I was hopeful of a decent shot but not particularly expectant as the sun was high and I was facing mostly into the brightness.

The results were as feared :- disappointing!, being rather flat and lack-lustre even after a little editing …. I’ve only kept one image from here, just to post up with this diary and give an indication of the view.

After a couple of minutes, I gave up and headed back down to and along Purlieu lane, back into the field next to the castle and then immediately swung left around an attractive cottage  to follow a narrow well worn path by the side of the castle walls again (still heading around clockwise) and emerged into a small car park by the side of Castle Road (B4103). Across the other side of the road is a very attractive row of cottages set back from the road across a small grassy area known as Castle Green. I was much happier with the couple of photo’s I took here.

Dropping to the far end of the mini-car park I picked up another dirt track (opposite The Queen and Castle Pub/Restaurant) to once again follow the outer perimeter walls in a clockwise direction, only this time very close to the walls. I really like this little corner, looking across the road junction to Castle Hill through a little stand of pine trees. The pubs, cafes (including The Clarendon Arms and Harringtons on The Hill) and cottages here are absolutely pristine looking, very picturesque. Normally we just pass by here without really seeing, but having camera in hand it kind of forces you to look more closely and it is lovely here.

A look at my watch told me it was very nearly 12 o’clock, and therefore time to meet my fellow photographers, so I picked up my pace, followed the path over a small stream (that floods the nearby road to make a sizable ford at times), along the bottom of the bank that carries the causeway and then up to the main car-park. This only took a couple of minutes and I was soon chatting to my friends and we all moved off towards the ticket office for them to pay their entrance fees.

It was at this point I offered around some blueberry muffins as a late 50^th birthday treat, which could be considered a bit of a mistake, as the photo course tutor (David Harding) pretty much constantly ribbed me about “getting old” for most of the afternoon – Thanks David !!!!

Once everyone had paid and run the gauntlet of the “will you become a member today” lady, all six of us headed off into the castle grounds or to be more accurate, into The Inner Court. The scale of the buildings seemed different inside compared to outside, as the walls segregate you from the wider landscape and so the tall towers, even in their ruinous state, are really quite imposing. Anyway, we went our separate ways and I set off at a slow pace pretty much on a clockwise route, but zig-zagging back and forth into and out of the various buildings/ruins looking for interesting subjects to “snap”.  The mix of brick and sandstone, grassy banks and trees, sunshine, blue sky, clouds, silhouettes, deep shadows and bright highlights gave plenty of scope for photo’s.

I’m sure we probably all ended up with a mix of wide views and intimate close ups. I thought I was being quite inventive concentrating on some of the carved graffiti in the stone work (hundreds of years old in some cases), only for one of our group to show me he’d been doing precisely the same thing ! …. is there a new or unique idea left in the world ? – I doubt it; we all just keep re-inventing the wheel.

In places, I liked the way the stone had weathered over the years, eating away at the once dressed surfaces creating interesting curves and ridges, almost organic shapes. I’d also carried my tripod around with me, and I actually got to use it in a couple of places in some of the darker areas, as I couldn’t hold the camera still enough for the aperture size vs exposure times I was experimenting with.

        

I also quite liked the graphic angles of bright light and deep shadows from some of the windows and doorways and in one place, I spent quite some time trying to get a sunburst effect through one of the stone windows.

          

The busiest place in the castle seemed to be where a series of wooden staircases rise up one of the buildings affording some super views out over the local farmland (used to be a huge shallow lake or mere in the castle’s hey-day) and also across the inner Court and over to the recreated Elizabethan knot garden with its geometric planting beds, pergolas, obelisks and central fountain sculpture. Somehow without actually arranging it we’d slowly regrouped and we ended up dropping down a set of stone steps into the garden for a closer look.

As we reached the centre of the garden, David kind of set an informal task to photograph the white marble fountain (no flowing water today though) … I think his thoughts were that there’d be a problem with overexposure and loss of detail of the raised “carved” freezes. Well I’ve seen one of David’s pic’s (on flickr) and he solved the problem by shooting into the sun and making a feature of the fountain’s silhouette. I took a different tack, attempting to use narrow depth of field and close up detail at a steep angle to the carvings. How a single subject can be seen in different ways !

        

I think by now I was getting pretty much all photo’d out and upon entering Leicester’s Gatehouse a big sign said no photography …. This part of the castle isn’t in ruins at-all, and the rooms are open to view. The top floor has an exhibition exploring the relationship of Queen Elizabeth 1 and her favourite courtier Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester. The final photo I took was of the outside of Leicester’s Gatehouse before we headed off to the cafe, for a drink (posh bottle of dandelion and burdock for me) and a chat outside in the sun.

And, that was that, we all headed back to our cars and I headed off to Coventry for a family meal at The Wing Wah (an all you can eat buffet style Chinese restaurant)  at the junction of Broad Lane and the A45.

The end …. I hope you enjoyed my scribblings and photo’s …. If you’d like to comment on my diary or any of my pic’s please feel welcome.

T.T.F.N. Gary

20090906_Ryton to Kenilworth Walk – A Coventry Way

20090906_Ryton to Kenilworth Walk – A Coventry Way

When : 6^th September 2009

Who : Just Me

Where : Ryton-on-Dunsmore to Kenilworth.

Map : 1:25,000 OS. Explorer Map No.221, Coventry & Warwickshire.

Start Point : 386,744 [Ryton-on-Dunsmore]

End Point : 285,723 [Abbey Fields, Kenilworth]

Approx Distance : about 11 miles, (17.5 km)

Heights : Hardly worth mentioning really as there wasn’t much in the way of heights climbed. The route is over gently undulating terrain, the biggest climbs being about 20 metres (65 ft) in any one stretch and then only in two or three places.

Summary : Following the route of “A Coventry Way” through Warwickshire Countryside including Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Bubbenhall, Stareton, Stoneleigh, Kenilworth Golf Course, Kenilworth Castle & Abbey Fields Park.

There’s not much of a preamble to this walks post; I just had a little time on this Sunday morning/early afternoon and my good lady wife kindly agreed to drop me off outside The Blacksmiths Arms in Ryton-on-Dunsmore and to pick me up in Kenilworth’s Abbey Fields Park later on, so allowing me to do a linear walk.

Ryton-on-Dunsmore is a kind of an odd place, in that it’s in Warwickshire, but to me feels much more akin to Coventry, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise for a couple of reasons. To start with it’s only about a mile and a half from my home city’s outskirts; if it wasn’t for the floodplain of the River Avon (and I believe protection of green-belt designation), I’m sure they’d have joined up years ago. The other major factor was the large car factory (an industry synonymous with Coventry) just on the outskirts of Ryton. This was recently closed down and has now been levelled, unceremoniously razed to the ground, with just heaps of broken up rubble and acres of bare concrete to mark its former presence. Sadly the long and proud history of car production [Hillman ; Humber ; Rootes ; Chrysler ; Talbot] was finally put to the sword by Peugeot-Citroen when they switched production, to Eastern Europe, in pursuit of a little more profit. That’s enough of that, I think, before I dig a big hole for myself and this diary post becomes a political diatribe … let’s get back to the walk ….

Well, I started just outside The Blacksmith’s Arms (a pub I’ve always liked) on High Street, not far from the A45 dual carriageway and after taking a minute or two to orientate myself-map-to-ground, I headed away from the A45, turned right into a side road and then very soon a left turn to skirt the edge of a sports pitch and the backs of houses eventually reaching the edge of the village. I then turned right to skirt the back of the local school. To my left was a tall wire fence topped by coils of razor wire, behind which was the wasteland of the old car plant; not at all attractive, but striking none-the-less. After a couple of hundred yards or so, the path took a sharp 90-degree turn to the left to head off south-westwards through what would have been the middle of the car plant … why the need for all the razor wire I don’t know, after all there’s absolutely nothing left to steal or damage, save for concrete and scrub.

Carefully crossing the A423 (Oxford Road), I picked up the path again, and although no longer an industrial landscape it still felt rather scratty which was summed up by an extremely smelly and ugly stagnant pond-cum-stream crossed by a footbridge. This little corner certainly would not win any prizes for best beauty spot in Warwickshire. At least three named “ways” :- A Coventry Way, Centenary Way and Shakespeare’s Avon Way, all follow the same route here, I wonder if any of them mention the grottiness of this area. After a biggish dogs-leg in the path, I was hopeful that the path across farmland to Bubbenhall would drastically improve [it couldn’t get much worse] and it did improve but just by a small amount, the walking and map reading was now very easy on a wide farm track, but the terrain was quite boring, not aided I suppose by all the crops having been harvested already and just ploughed fields or rough pasture on either side of me. The only good thing was I could now stretch out my legs and pick up the pace a bit.

I’m not giving a good impression of the walk so far, but it was to improve as I entered Bubbenhall. I stood a while to watch a local football match and after seeing two or three gilt edged scoring opportunities fluffed (really badly fluffed !), I headed into the village. In counterpoint to Ryton, I thought the village had a very Warwickshire feel as I passed grand looking half timbered buildings, a good looking village pub (the Malt Shovel, which I’ve never been in), a square towered stone church (St. Giles’) and horse paddocks and all not far from the banks of the river Avon … lovely …. but it’s not a big place and it’s charms were soon left behind as I again headed out into the fields, still in a roughly south-westerly direction. (ps: I didn’t see the other pub in the village, The Three Horseshoes).

In the next few fields, a series of large modern metal kissing gates have been installed … I think they are designed to maximise accessibility into the countryside for as many people as possible. At a guess, I’d suppose the new gates replaced old stiles. The way marking was good and most remarkably next to a number of the new gates, simple wooden benches had been installed – a very nice touch – and well done to the land-owner for allowing an “opportunity to stop” as well as the legal “right of way”. After a couple of more fields (past Broomhill Farm) the route took a right turn to follow field boundaries to emerge onto a minor road.

Turning left along this minor road marked the beginning of about a mile of road walking and after a couple of hundred yards a T-junction with a slightly larger (and certainly faster road) was reached with the striking building of Tantara Lodge directly opposite. I guess this would have been a gate house entrance to Stoneleigh Deer Park, now surrounded by the fairways of a golf course. To continue the road walking, the route turned left and then right at the next junction … This leads past the sprawl of a business park (sorry, business village) set back from the road, which was once home to offices of Massey-Ferguson Tractors (The main M-F factory was not far away in Tile Hill in Coventry). This was another company synonymous with Coventry and now shut down completely and like “The Peugeot” with production switched abroad – I think it’s a shame not only because of the thousands of jobs lost, but also as I played for the M-F works cricket team for several years.

Not far past the business park, the road reaches the small grouping of houses that make up Stareton itself, blink and you could miss the hamlet, but please don’t, as the route takes a right turn here, leaving the road to head gently down through a strip of woods to cross The River Avon where there was a small clump of geraniums or cranesbill in flower – they were worth a short stop to admire even though I have cultivated varieties in my back garden. Being the end of the season, there hadn’t been much colour in the way of flowers along the way; perhaps enhancing the purple-blue flowers charms beyond what would normally be noticed.

The route then rose roughly northwards on open ground, with a park-land feel, to meet the Stoneleigh Road. There were quite a few people around here, most walking dogs and a lay-by was well frequented by cars, I assume left by the dog walkers. The countryside was much nicer now and after a short walk (northwards) along the road, I crossed to take a path over Motslow hill to pass an old quarry (looking more like an old castle mound to my eyes) and  then picked up a wide sunken path that dropped down to meet the The River Sowe.

There are a number of delightful thatched half-timbered cottages here and I stopped to pass the time of day with a gentleman crossing the footbridge in the opposite direction to me. I mentioned how nice the lobelia flowers were that were planted across the bridge semi-masking some ugly utilitarian piping. It turned out he lives in one of the cottages and the flowers have become a tradition every year since they “dressed” the bridge for their daughter’s wedding to brighten the walk to the nearby church on the opposite bank of the river. A nice story and a lovely touch of public spiritedness … There are still good things happening in our fast paced rat-race of life.

I could have continued on past the village of Stoneleigh, but this is another charming village so rather than pass straight by, I took a small detour along a side road as far as the old smithy, where I found somewhere to rest and have a bite to eat and have an experiment with some odd photo’s of the village … I think they turned out OK … as well as some more conventional views of the village. I then retraced my steps to pick up the path to rise up to meet the B4115, watching a number of dogs undergoing some sort of training as I went … oddly all the parked vehicles were varying sizes of white van. I’ve since been told that the police use this spot for dog training, so maybe that’s what was going on. There now ensued a little more road walking, first turning right alongside the road and then left at a cross roads. There was a narrow strip of rough tarmac path to the side of the road, which meant I didn’t have to brave the cars zipping past still trying to maintain the speed of the A46 they’d probably just left.

After about ½ a mile the aforementioned A46 dual carriageway was reached which I crossed on a major bridge/junction. Immediately after this the path turns left down a field boundary following the line of the slip road heading towards Kingswood Farm. This was made a little awkward by lines of electrified wires forming temporary horse paddocks … These had to be crossed in places, but it does make good map-reading very important as it does feel wrong to do this. I always feel electrified fences shout “keep-out” at me, even though I know I’m on a right of way.

My awkwardness around Kingswood farm was nothing compared to the next “obstacle” to negotiate … Kenilworth Golf Course! … I really dislike crossing golf courses and this was even worse …. there were a couple of fairways to cross (look left and look right signs warning of the potential of flying missiles, I mean golf balls) and then a walk down the length of two fairways within a line of trees separating the two strips of lush grass.

    

Negotiating past a pond near a putting green, the path then exited the golf course to become a narrow path at the back of some residential gardens. This was quite an unpleasant path, as the golf course fence was at times falling over the path and hedgerow shrubbery/trees were heavily encroaching on the other side of me making progress horrible and I was relieved to emerge onto the residential street of Frythe Close in the Park Hill area of Kenilworth. This soon led to the larger road of Knowle Hill and after turning right down onto the quite sizeable Dalehouse Lane, I then turned right (away from Kenilworth) for about a hundred yards and then left into Common Lane. Rising up here, I soon reached a made-up path heading off into Kenilworth Common following the line of a small stream (Finham Brook). Information boards gave a potted history of the area and what butterflies might be sighted etc. The path went under the broad arches of a railway line and eventually the green corridor ended and I had to pick up side roads, which wasn’t unpleasant as on one side of me was a sizeable area of allotments extending the green feel for a little longer.

Not long afterwards I’d made my way to Abbey fields Park. There are open fields, tennis courts, a small indoor/outdoors swimming pool, kiddies play area and a sizeable pond/small lake with a good number of ducks to feed … Oh and the remains of an Abbey (hence the name) … I was lucky to arrive when one of the better preserved buildings was open with a small history exhibition inside, which I had time to peruse as my family hadn’t arrived yet … for once I’d arrived ahead of our pre-arranged time.

In fact I also had time to :- Take some refreshment ; Walk through to the western end of the park alongside the mini-lake ; Walk around the outside perimeter of the famous castle ; Wander down Castle Green ; Resist the temptation of the Queen & Castle and Clarendon Arms Pub’s and then head back into the park, alongside the other side of the pool to meet my family who’d just arrived.

And that was that, a mixed bag …. a poor start but some nice countryside and it’d stayed dry as well … not bad for 2009 … and 11 miles under my belt … perhaps the start would be better at another time of year rather than at the end of what had been a rather poor summer overall.

I hope you enjoyed my scribblings ….

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