Category: Places

Folly Hill Return

Faringdon skbook

July just before the Olympics I sat on Faringdon Folly Hill. Bright sun. Clear colour. White Horse Hill in the distance. From the west a ripple of coloured bands. Wavering smoke rainbow. Drawn through the Vale of the White Horse by a squadron of the Red Arrows as they practiced for the Olympics. Paul Nash battle of Britain paintings enacted just for me. Continue reading “Folly Hill Return”

Frames of reference

Five French Gardens

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I was looking at Greg Becker’s Pinterest page, The Wild Allotment, a lovely collection of green-fingered imagery and a great escape from our endless winter. It got me thinking about visits to other, slightly more manicured gardens, but most importantly gardens filled with sunshine. Indulge me while I recall warmer days. This is Le Prieuré d’Orsan where we stayed for one memorable night in 2006. Continue reading “Five French Gardens”

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Dorset Developments

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We recently received six new paintings by Margaret McLellan inspired by trips to her favourite parts of Dorset. The first three Longhouse paintings find Maggie revisiting Toller Fratrum before returning to her beloved Isle of Purbeck for three Quarry paintings. Continue reading “Dorset Developments”

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Port Meadow

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Dear Chris, As mentioned here are a couple or so photos and two sketchbook pages of bird images. I could write for a thousand pages about Port Meadow. I’ve been there ever since I was six years old. It floods in winter, gathers over wintering migrant wild fowl. In the summer it’s a place people swim, sail, walk, make love, do archaeology etc. If you want I can get David to send his poem about the meadow which refers to a drawing of mine. Best wishes to all, love, Andy. Continue reading “Port Meadow”

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Epping Snow

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All this talk of winter trees and William Morris and I realise it’s time I went back to Epping Forest. It seems different every time I visit but today is something special, I’ve never seen it so thick with snow. It’s another world, silent and monochrome like an old movie. Continue reading “Epping Snow”

Frames of reference

To Mughal India

procession of Emperor Bahadu

This procession is at the British Library but we took a circuitous route to find it. We started out for old times’ sake from the Brunswick Centre. Sue used to share a nearby flat, the Gate Bloomsbury (now renamed Renoir) was our local cinema and later Coram’s Fields was always a favourite place to bring the girls, but not today. Continue reading “To Mughal India”

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From Powdermills To Wistman’s Wood

Here is an extract from a prose work in progress about family life in summer on Powdermills Farm in the 1960s and 1970s. My father, then head of art at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art, had hired a cottage there, in the middle of the moor, from the Duchy for £70 a year. No electricity, no running water, a ghost in the second bedroom, and sheep in the paddock at shearing season. It was a wild experience. Wistman’s Wood, primordial remains of the original Dartmoor landscape before its Bronze Age settlement, is a few miles walk from Powdermills, and remains one of the most atmospheric and haunting spots on the whole moor. The paintings were made on a return visit in 2009, and there are two of my father’s sketchbook drawings from the late 1960s. The poem comes from First Music, a sequence about Dartmoor, childhood and memory, in the 2011 collection The Rapture (Salt Books). Continue reading “From Powdermills To Wistman’s Wood”

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