Changing Skies at Wimpole

The sky was constantly changing during Tuesday's walk at Wimpole. with all the recent rain, the road at Arrington was flooded right across giving a great reflection.  

 

Marbled Whites at Wimpole National Trust Estate

Wonderful to see so many Marbled Whites at Wimpole NT Estate yesterday. Every patch of thistles had some feeding along with Small Skippers, Small Heaths, Meadow Browns and Small Whites (also Ringlets)

Windy Skies at Wimpole

On Saturday, we had an East Anglia RPS and CCC outing to Wimpole Hall. I suggested a few projects to try at various locations around the Park, including long exposures. It was cloudless when we set off for our walk but clouded over very rapidly at lunchtime giving lots of opportunities for cloud trails, using a 10-stop neutral density filter to give  a shutterspeed of 25 secs.  Last two images are as we left in the afternoon (having visited the inside of the Hall) when the sun started to break through the clouds again.

 

Wimpole Hall, the National Trust and the Oak Leaf

 The National Trust chose the oak leaf as its symbol in 1932 - they ran a competition to find a design but as nothing was suitable they asked six designers to submit designs based on either an English lion, the rose, or the oak to represent English heritage.  The winning design was by artist Joseph Armitage (1880-1945).   Wimpole Estate has some fine oak trees including a narrow-leaved one near the Folly with an impressive spread.
The Church at Wimpole (not part of the NT property) has a long building history including refurbishment in the 19th Century in Gothic style, which incorporates many carvings of Oak leaves and Acorns along with other symbols of the church. The oak tree has been held in high esteem throughout history including the Greeks and Romans. The Druids frequently worshipped in oak groves (the word Druid was probably a Gaelic derivation of their word for oak, Duir, and meant men of the oaks). The spiritual appreciation of oak did not cease with the advent of Christianity and the Oak/Acorn symbol is commonly used.

 

Wimpole Walk

Another warm sunny day so a walk down from Eversden Woods to Wimpole Hall Gardens via the Folly gave lots of high contrast images. The dahlia is a stacked image -17 images using the Focus bracketing facility on the Fuji. More success with these hornets with flash on the macro lens but only attempted this once as they didn't like me that close!! 

 

 

Sunny But Freezing Morning at Wimpole Estate

The Folly, lake and trees all looked great in the winter sunshine with a crusting of snow and ice. The sheep and Heron didn't look so pleased as their food was difficult to get at.