Showing posts with label lake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lake. Show all posts
Friday, 28 August 2015
Wednesday, 22 April 2015
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
The Vinegar Pond
The Vinegar Pond, on Norwich's (in?)famous Mousehold Heath. A dew pond formed from old gravel pits and wartime manoeuvres with military vehicles which supposedly packed the earth down tight enough to facilitate standing water.
As I took these I had a fairly random conversation about graveyards with a guy who looked like Alan Moore. Started to rain soon after. Good for the pond, I suppose.
As I took these I had a fairly random conversation about graveyards with a guy who looked like Alan Moore. Started to rain soon after. Good for the pond, I suppose.
Tuesday, 12 March 2013
Floodlands
After days of rain, sleet, snow - not to mention the small fact of last year being the UK's wettest on record and leaving much of the ground totally saturated still - the woodland and marshes around the University of East Anglia grounds have flooded quite beautifully.
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
The Norfolk Loch: Loch Neaton, Watton
Initially glimpsed on an OS map and the cause of a sudden burst of bafflement and excitement - a loch? In Norfolk? - yet the reality wasn't quite the hidden, ancient, Celtic-magickal body of water I had been imagining.
The creation of Watton's Loch Neaton is traced back to the 1875 extension of the Thetford - Watton railway line to Watton - Swaffham. Massive earth excavations were needed to build the track up over the low-lying land of a nearby hamlet - Neaton - and the area of the excavation would become an entire leisure park by the early twentieth century, the craters being filled with water from the River Wissey. During its history, the park has hosted tennis courts, a bowling green, fishing, boating, swimming, even (when winters were winters) skating.
Today, of course, there remains little of any note. A picnic area. Beer cans around the charred remains of (prohibited) barbecues. Dead pigeons. Signs warning against swimming, unlicensed fishing, rats spreading disease. The weather didn't help my mood: heavy grey skies, greasy late-spring drizzle, lake water the colour of cold tea. Other, more photogenic, images online suggest the lakeside can be as picturesque as anywhere else, but today, the magick was definitely lacking.
Oh, and the 'loch'? In honour of the Scottish labourers who excavated the site all those years ago.
The creation of Watton's Loch Neaton is traced back to the 1875 extension of the Thetford - Watton railway line to Watton - Swaffham. Massive earth excavations were needed to build the track up over the low-lying land of a nearby hamlet - Neaton - and the area of the excavation would become an entire leisure park by the early twentieth century, the craters being filled with water from the River Wissey. During its history, the park has hosted tennis courts, a bowling green, fishing, boating, swimming, even (when winters were winters) skating.
Today, of course, there remains little of any note. A picnic area. Beer cans around the charred remains of (prohibited) barbecues. Dead pigeons. Signs warning against swimming, unlicensed fishing, rats spreading disease. The weather didn't help my mood: heavy grey skies, greasy late-spring drizzle, lake water the colour of cold tea. Other, more photogenic, images online suggest the lakeside can be as picturesque as anywhere else, but today, the magick was definitely lacking.
Oh, and the 'loch'? In honour of the Scottish labourers who excavated the site all those years ago.
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