8 February 2023

Gallery

Above - bonus images from Monday's lovely walk. Working down from the top...
  1. St Bartholomew's Church in the tiny village of Deanhead  - sometimes confusingly referred to as Scammonden. It overlooks Scammonden Water - a reservoir that opened in 1970 in conjunction with the M62 motorway.
  2. A nineteenth century chest grave containing Thomas and Ann Wilkinson  and their son Charles. They had a small farm at the opposite side of the valley - now almost obliterated as if it was never there at all. It was called Spring Head as the inscription confirms.
  3. Fence and path gate on "The Mosses" above Deanhead Reservoir. The simplicity of the arrangement caught my eye as I ascended to  Saddleworth Road.
  4. "The Turnpike" pub-restaurant seen across Booth Wood Reservoir.
  5. An abandoned sheep farm on the hillside that overlooks Stott Hall Farm on its motorway island. This farm is called High Moss.
  6. Stone sheep in the valley between Deanhead Reservoir and Scammonden Water. A small leisure area has been developed here for walkers, families, picnickers etc and it is where I parked Clint.

Below - Room 39 at The Old Golf House Hotel including a view of Monday's sunrise over the motorway. That picture was on my wall. Who chooses the "art" for hotel rooms? Guests rarely marvel at it

33 comments:

  1. Beautiful scenery--like something out of an artsy film. The actual "artwork" leaves much to be desired. It was probably free.

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    1. I certainly would not want that picture on a wall in my own home.

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  2. Haunting & surreal images.
    The Wilkinson family gravestone & Room 39.

    Your shade in the grass (previous post) hovered over my sleep.
    Man the forked animal, the thinking biped.
    And Peter Schlemihl, the man who lost his shadow.
    And Hans Christian Andersen's story of the man's shadow with a life of its own.

    *What did ye go into the wilderness to seek, a reed trembling in the wind ?*

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    1. And John doth saith unto Jesus, "No my Lord. I went to seeketh Stott Hall Farm which lieth upon an island in the middle of the M62!"

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    2. And did His Honour quaff a pint o' Black Sheep Ale wey his frugal lunch o' twa Ham and Pease Pudding Stotties ?
      Ay, thou wert allus a divil for thy ale and stotties, lad.
      Ah expect thy Mam spoilt 'ee just like Shirley, bless her oven gloves.

      Pease Pudding : A Northern Delicacy.
      Northern Soul online.

      Gavin Maxwell wrote a marvellous book about the Marsh Arabs :
      *A Reed Shaken by the Wind*.

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    3. His honour did taketh of the holy waters of yon Timothy Taylor and yon Bradfield Brewery that doth lieth in yon hills west o'Sheffield. He were not a reed shaken by the wind but a windbag who can't read and needs a good shaking.

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  3. Replies
    1. I really felt lifted by my two walks. It is so amazing to walk in what I call virgin territory.

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  4. Not my favourite side of Huddersfield - a bit dark and brooding - but you make it look attractive.

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    1. The hillside farms and houses are so solid - like the rock beneath,

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  5. Lovely photos. I wonder if Charles Wilkinson ever married; his parents lived to a good age.

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    1. I wondered the same. Maybe he was too busy running the farm with his parents. Together their lives spanned the entire nineteenth century.

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  6. I hope those stone sheep don't cross the pond. It was bad enough with the silhouette cutouts of the farmers wife bent over or of whitetail deer that passed through 20 years ago. Fortunately you rarely see either anymore. But I could see stone creatures taking off if introduced.

    About a month ago or so, I watched a news piece on a fellow who went around to motels all over the U.S. and altered them in some way to attract notice. As one might expect, some hotel owners weren't too pleases and other people loved them so much that they were being auctioned off for astronomical prices.

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    1. He sounds like my kind of guy. Rather like England's famous graffiti artist - Banksy. If you haven't heard of him you should google him.

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  7. Lots of history here but I envy you getting out for all the fascinating walks.

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    1. I am glad you can see how fascinating England is for walkers. Thousands of miles of public paths.

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  8. That's a very clear inscription on the gravestone. I love the stone sheep.

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    1. The inscriptions in the graveyard were unusually very clear - not just this particular gravestone.

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  9. As if there are not enough sheep in England, you need fake ones as well. Actually, I quite like them.

    Theft proof picture hanging costs more. There is no danger of this art being stolen.

    The room looks comfortable.

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    1. I certainly was not tempted to pinch that picture! We have two statuesque sheep in our garden.

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  10. High Moss is of course my favourite of your bonus pictures, followed closely by the fence and gate - not so much because of the arrangement of lines, but for the colours.
    The Wilkinsons had a rather impressive tomb for a family with a small farm. Maybe they had other sources of income, or simply put aside every possible penny towards their stone.
    Hotel art is usually part of the entire design concept, especially if the hotel is part of a chain. But in some places, the owner's personality is expressed in their own choices. Your room looks comfortable and spacious.

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    1. I like the wild grasses at High Moss. Using an old map, I was able to locate exactly where the Wilkinsons' little sheep farm once stood. Now there isn't even a ruin to feed the imagination. They could have seen the church across the valley.

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  11. Red sky at night. Shepherds delight. Super photos.

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    1. Red sky in the middle of the day means Putin's fed up of not getting his way.
      A nuclear bomb has landed on Blackpool Tower, welcome to the apocalyptic hour.

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  12. I love the stone sheep! The light on that gravestone really makes the writing stand out.

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    1. There were other examples of skilful grave carving in that churchyard and the older graves were mostly of the chest or table type.

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  13. The painting adds colour to an otherwise bland space. I like the stone sheep, but then we like anything sheep.

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  14. Interesting photos YP, and for some reason I particularly liked the abandoned sheep farm (no 5). I like the windswept grasses. What a bleak existence so many of those farms endured.
    The hotel "art" is very dated, and I can remember buying a picture similar in style to adorn the white walls in the dining room. Strangely it received quite a lot of compliments - but it was the 1970's! It went to the charity shop along with other 70's "fashionable" art when we moved house in the early 80's.

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    1. Those Pennine farms certainly did endure a bleak hand-to-mouth existence. You are right about that type of abstract picture - very fashionable in the seventies.

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  15. Hi, Neil. I am wondering what happened to our friend, JayCee. You might need to plan a visit to the Isle of Man to see what is going on with her. Shouldn't be hard to find as she lives in a chapel...
    Glad you had a nice getaway.

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    1. I have no idea what has happened to JayCee's blog - "Diary of a Nobody". I am hoping that she pressed the wrong button or something like that and that she will soon be back with us. If she had been thinking about quitting with blogging, there were no signs that this was brewing. Most confusing.

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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