London: Farringdon Station, Smithfields and Charterhouse Square

A few more images from my nostalgia trip visiting an area of London that my parents lived in. Farringdon Station was opened in the 1860s as the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground metro line but the present building dates from 1922. It was built together with a freight station to take livestock to a slaughterhouse to supply Smithfield Market. Smithfield was redesignated as a wholesale 'deadmeat' market in the 19th century and the Freight station was last used in the 1920s. Meat has been traded at Smithfield Market for more than 800 years, making it one of the oldest markets in London.
Charterhouse was founded as a Carthusian monastery in 1371 near a 1348 plague pit, which formed the largest mass grave in London during the Black Death. Tens of thousands of bodies were buried there (some discovered during the Crossrail excavations). It was later dissolved and the building has been an almshouse and later used by two public schools, Charterhouse and Merchant Taylors'. Now it is partially occupied by Charterhouse Square School a much smaller primary school. The square is managed by Trustees, one of whom was inspecting the Square and chatted to me on Wednesday.

Revisiting the Barbican Development after 45 years!

On Wednesday, some CCC members made a trip to photograph the architecture in the Barbican area of London. It had the added interest for me that my parents bought a flat 33 floors up in the Cromwell Tower soon after it was built in 1973. I wished that I had taken photographs of the view at that time from the flat - certainly I remember that St Pauls dominated the skyline and none of the subsequent buildings of theatre, museum etc were present. In the view from the Tate looking towards the Barbican with its three Towers, Cromwell Tower is the one on the right now completely surrounded by city office blocks etc. The second image is the painting from the front of the Brochure produced in the 1970s to sell the flats. A resident told me the flats are now worth over £ 2million pounds - what an investment that would have been had they kept the flat as they would probably have paid around £10,000 for it.

 

Frosty Morning Walk in Toft

There was still a bit of residual snow on the ground but the fields and trees were white from the frost with lovely soft early morning light. 

 

 

CCC Flash Workshop

 Yesterday, we ran a workshop at Sylvie's house for 12 people to practise their skills with flash photography, including balancing ambient and studio flash in portraits with model Bernadette, using off-camera flash guns for dramatic lighting and lighting table-top set up with their own flashes and triggers. The last image sums up the day as we all trouped in and out for warming cups of tea etc.

 

 

 

Snowdrops at Anglesey Abbey (National Trust)

The snowdrops are well out at Anglesey Abbey, which opens at 9.30am at the moment to encourage people to come early. We took advantage of this and had a peaceful walk around the grounds admiring the snowdrops and other spring flowers. 

 

 

Stockholm - Buildings in Djurgårdsstaden

I spent my second day in Stockholm on Djurgården, an island that is home to  museums, galleries, the amusement park Gröna Lund, the open-air museum Skansen, the small residential area Djurgårdsstaden, yacht harbours, and extensive stretches of forest and meadows. Here a few buildings from the original fishing town  - these are still lived in (unlike the next post, which will show images from the Open Air Museum).