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May 2017
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Photographers Resource |
ISSN 2399-6706 |
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Issue No: 160 |
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May is public holiday month in the UK, with two
long weekends to be able to get out and explore more of the UK. The first is in
fact in place now with the 1st being our May Day bank holiday. The second is at
the end of the month with the Whitsun weekend. In some towns and villages across
England there will be traditional celebrations taking place in parks with
Maypole displays and Morris Dancing. Padstow in Cornwall celebrates with it's 'Obby
'Oss Day, while Malvern in Worcestershire has a Donkey Procession. |
Some Quick Links:-
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The countryside around us is blooming with all the
flowers, trees, hedgerows and more displaying their wares to attract the bees
and insects, and the wildlife pairing up for this years new offspring.
Wherever you look there is something new to see. I'm about to make my annual
pilgrimage to the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire to see the carpets of
Bluebells
which cover the forest floor. The best place
within the forest to see thousands of them is the road which connects New Road
near Blakeney to Top Road in Soudley. From New Road, once you have gone under
the arched bridge you will see the woodland floor carpeted with them on both
sides of the road, you will not no where to look first, and you will stop many
times to take in the spectacle. If you time it just right, at this part of the
forest the tree cover comes in a little later and as the sun dapples through the
blossoming tree cover the colours are quite strong. If you want a good picnic
spot and then a comfortable walk around a lake you could stop off at Mallards
Pike Lake. A good spot in the forest for a good aerial view of the forest and to
watch birds of prey soaring above the woodland canopy is at New Fancy. This is a
Forestry Commission
site set on the old New Fancy coal mine site and
as well as viewing platforms, to take in the view, there is also a Geomap which
explains the underlying geology of the forest with where the mines and quarries
once were, marked. |
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Bluebells
in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire
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The second weekend in May sees the annual
National Mills Weekend, celebrating our milling heritage and provides you
with an opportunity to get up close to many Watermills and Windmills,
throughout England and Wales, many of which are not normally open to the
public. Many of these mills were once thriving businesses providing flour
to the local communities for their daily bread.
Some which can be found in
Living History
attractions, such as the water mill at the
Weald and Downland Open Air Museum,
 both
have a working watermill which produces flour and explains how it would
have worked within the community.
There are some areas of England
particularly that have a larger number of surviving and working windmills
including Kent, Sussex, Lincolnshire and Norfolk. Take a look at our
Windmill Section
for technical articles on how windmills worked, a list of the
190 still with sails,
together with articles on how to best go
about photographing them.
Scottish Mills are not included within
this weekend, probably because there are not so many of them that survive.
One such mill we visited on a trip to Scotland was, a Tower Mill, at St
Monans on the coast of Fife. It was originally built in the late 18th
century and probably was a power mill for the nearby Saltpans. |
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It became a ruin in 1853, but today it has been
restored and although has limited opening times for getting inside to look
around, there are some fantastic views you can get of both it and the coastline
around it. Take a look at our
St Monan's Windmill and Saltpans
page for details of it's history and the fantastic views you get. |
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At the end of May is the Whitsun Bank
Holiday, another long weekend where we celebrate the end of spring and the
start of Summer. Again England celebrates with community fun, such as the
Woolsack Races in Tetbury Gloucestershire, where teams of four people run
in relays ,carrying a 60lb woolsack up and down a 1 in 4 gradient hill.
These races go back to the 17th century when the Drovers wanted to show
off to their ladies. Today of course the ladies also take part. May is
also the month of
cheese rolling
in the streets of Stilton in Cambridgeshire,
at the beginning of the month. Then along with the cheese, grown men and
women throw themselves down a very steep hill in Gloucestershire on the
second holiday weekend. There are many activities taking place during this
month and with, the extra long weekends, plenty of opportunities to
get out and enjoy the weather, spend time with friends and family, take
some great photos and above all to have some fun! |
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What's New and Changed |
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Articles and Location Guides Updated
Recently |
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Carew Castle and Tidal Mill,
Pembrokeshire
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We are continuing to upgrade this
website
It is taking
us some time, but in the background we are continuing to move from a Microsoft
based website to something much newer and more flexible, run on our Apple
systems. Our Windows computer is often difficult to start and should it
fail, before the new system is live, we will allow a gap of a month or two
to occur rather than waste time setting up outdated systems as a temporary
measure. So if we go missing for a while please check back regularly as we
will be back.
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