Recently Keith and I went for a boat trip along the River Medway.
Recently Keith and I went for a boat trip along the River Medway.
Some pictures from a recent visit to Rochester in Kent
La Providence – The French hospital. Founded in London in 1708 by a rich Huguenot to care for poor Huguenot refugees fleeing from persecution in France it moved to Rochester in 1959. Today is still alms-house for people of Huguenot descent.
Restoration House, so called because Charles II stayed here on the night before his restoration to the Throne of England and Scotland
Shrewsbury is located within a loop of the River Severn, which encloses it on 3 sides, close to the border between England and Wales. Two bridges lead from the town, appropriately named English Bridge and Welsh Bridge. It has a strong and long history and today there are over 650 listed buildings within the town.
It was originally the capital of the ancient Welsh Kingdom of Powys but was captured by Offa of Mercia in 778AD. In 1069, it was besieged by a Welsh army but was relieved by a Norman force led by William the Conqueror. William gave the town and the lands to Roger de Montgomery, whom he created Earl of Shrewsbury. Roger was responsible for the foundation of two of the town’s most prominent buildings, the castle in 1074 and the Benedictine Abbey in 1083. It was besieged again in 1138 when it was held for Empress Matilda against King Stephen during the anarchy.
In the Middle Ages Shrewsbury became commercially a very rich town, mainly due to the wool trade. The only interruption being during the Civil War when in 1645 as Royalist stronghold it was besieged and captured by the Parliamentary forces.
Much remains of Medieval Shrewsbury, as is born out by the high number of listed buildings.
Having been away from home for a while it was good to be able to do the Butterfly and Dragonfly survey on my patch today. It was a lovely sunny day although thankfully the temperature had dropped some degrees from the previous week, which made it more pleasant to be outside.
There were a number of Butterfly species to be seen with a good number of Commas and Meadow Browns, my first records of these on the patch this year, along with large White and Speckled Wood. the star undoubtedly was a Large Skipper. This is only the second record for the patch since I started recording here.
On the Dragonfly front, there were good numbers of Azure Damselflies and a single Large Red Damselfly. Most of these were well away from the pond where they breed. I did check as many as possible to see if there were any Common Blue Damselfly, of which we occasionally get a few, but I couldn’t see any. On the main lake an Emperor Dragonfly was patrolling the margins.
It is amazing to remember that when I started watching wildlife back in the 1980’s the Red Kite population had reduced to less than 20 birds in one area of West Wales. This was largely down to persecution and ignorance. Tales abounded about Kites taking all sorts of prey including sheep and small animals. In fact there live on carrion (that is meat that is already dead) and worms. Occasionally they may take small mammals such as mice and rats but scientific studies have shown that they cannot handle anything larger unless it is already dead.
From these dark days of the 1980’s when many presumed the species would die out in the UK due to in-breeding the picture has changed dramatically. A program of re-introductions into different parts of the country has been very successful and there are now reckoned to be around 2000 breeding pairs in the UK. These attractive birds can now be seen and enjoyed in many parts of the country.
These pictures were taken in Wales recently at the Nant yr Arian feeding station.
Sounds like a great day and brings back memories of visiting 2 years ago. We are in Norfolk for our main holiday again this year so hope to re-visit
On the 22nd April, I visited the North Norfolk Railway for the Spring Steam Gala. An intensive service was in operation, and saw six steam locomotives operating. Visiting locomotives were LMS Stanier 8F, No. 48624, 2-8-0 from the Great Central Railway, and 56xx GWR 0-6-2T, 5643, visiting from the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Railway, and owned by the Furness Railway Trust.
Also in attendance was the home fleet, consisting of LNER B12 Class, 8572, 4-6-0, GER Y14 Class, 564, 0-6-0, BR Standard 4MT, 76084, 2-6-0 ‘Standard 4’ and Ring Haw, 1982, 0-6-0ST.
It was also the first event since the completion of the Suburban four, a project to restore four suburban coaches to as built condition, to compliment the Quad-Arts coaches owned by the M&GN Society. Unfortunately, the Quad Arts Set was not in operation, but the restored Surburban coaches were a star of the event. The 6 year project finally came…
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On a recent visit to Rochester, Keith and I visited the Museum which is housed in the Old Guildhall (1687) and the previous offices of the Medway Conservancy (1909) next door.
It contains a number of exhibits on the history of Rochester from its Norman foundations around the Castle and the Cathedral situated at the crossing of the River Medway to its civil war exploits and the Battle of the Medway in 1667 when the Dutch entered the River and captured or destroyed a large part of the British Fleet in 1667.
The upper floor of the Guildhall is the Guildhall chamber which has been used both as a court and as a council chamber during its history.
After leaving Aberystwyth I travelled to Shrewsbury en route to a meeting in the Brecon Beacons. Whilst in Shrewsbury, I popped down to one of the parks where a Black-Crowned Night Heron has been in residence for a couple of months.
There is much debate as to whether this is a bird that has escaped from a collection – it certainly seems tolerant of people, but regardless a lovely bird and great for photography.
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