Stretham Pumping Station Details

A dull rainy day to visit Stretham Pumping Station gave some great shadows and colours for photographing the details of the machinery and tools. Stretham Old Engine is the last complete survivor of more than a hundred similar engines that worked the drainage network all over Cambridgeshire lifting the flood waters from the fields via the ditches and dykes draining it into the rivers.

 

Cambridgeshire Ancient Woodland

During the Neolithlic and Bronze ages, the first farmers cleared areas in  West Cambridgeshire that had been covered in prehistoric forest since the last ice age. This continued through to the Anglo-Saxon times. However the heavy boulder clay soil of this area was too difficult to farm and so some areas of the forest were left  - these include my local ancient woodland, Hardwick Wood. The Domesday Book shows that the pattern of woodland fragments in 1086 looked very similar to the pattern of woods that still exist today as ancient woodlands. 

When I walk deeper into Hardwick Wood I feel the pressures and worries of our times evaporate. I hope these IR pictures something of that Ancient Woodland mystery.

Last of the Summer ......

My gardening efforts were interrupted yesterday morning by the noise of a flock of around 30 swallows flying around and landing on the television aerials and trees nearby. Down tools and up camera for a session with these wonderful birds presumably having their last feeds before undertaking the flight to Africa. It is more than 10 years since we had a nesting pair in our garage (image 3, 2007) - unfortunately we had to evict them when we needed to convert the garage to a bedroom as our family size increased. The last image shows one of the youngsters taking a nap - it is most likely it is a descendent of our swallow family.

Three years Pass on Hills Road Cambridge

As part of our ongoing CCC project to record changes in the Streets of Cambridge since our 2001-4 survey, I spent an hour photographing Hills Road (see Documenting Cambridge). As I did an interim visit in 2020, it is interesting to see how much has changed in just 3 years rather than the 20 of the main project. For instance, Richer Sounds (who have kindly sponsored our Annual Exhibition) have built a new shop further into town along with lots of other changes while Tescos remains essentially unaltered.