Animedragon

You say the pictures aren't great, but I'd disagree with that. The sunset pictures are amazing and really like the soft colours in the sky and and in in the water.

The nighttime pictures are equally as good, it can be tricky to get nicely exposed night shots but you've captured the scenes perfectly. I really like that illuminated bridge.

Thank you I'm pleased you like my photos. I guess those forts wouldn't have been so peaceful when they were operational 

Wow. Nice pictures. That old fort must be a really interesting place to explore.

That event looks fun. It also looks like a good place to empty your wallet

That looks like a much more sensible, practical and helpful event than the Pride events in the UK, which are just parades along the street with people waving placards and pretty much trying to force their views on everyone else.

3 hours ago, Ayame said:

I love your photographs (●´ω｀●) This sounds like such a history rich place if only the buildings could talk about all they've seen and heard. 

Yes, if some of those old buildings could talk they'd have some amazing stories to tell.

35 minutes ago, Sasuke said:

It does seem so. The floor and the ceiling for instance look really good both for how old they are and when you figure they probably weren't trying to preserve it well if it was being used as a storage room.

I think I didn't explain things too well. The tiled floor was in the original late 13th century refectory which was demolished in a remodelling of that part of the buildings in the 15th century. I guess the tiled floor was considered old and not worth keeping, so the just buried it under the demolition rubble. The carved ceiling is in the new 15th century refectory.

@Zeref Looking at the plan the abbey in the guide book, nearly all of the surviving buildings are from the 13th century, while the refectory is from the 15th century and replaced the original 13th century one, that was the one with the mosaic floor. 

@Sakura It was indeed a summer day and the sun was in just the right position when I took those two photos. It's quite amazing how some photos can make people nostalgic and bring back memories, I'm sorry that my photos made you feel a little sad, but also pleased that they bought back happy memories for you. That ceiling is truly awesome, the quality and degree of craftsmanship in ceilings like that never ceases to amaze me, even more amazing is that it managed to survive for something like 600 years.

I liked those two pictures as well. The whole place is remarkably well preserved especially when you consider that after the dissolution most of the monastic buildings became stone quarries and were taken apart and used in other buildings.  

3 hours ago, Zeref said:

I'm not

You are if you carve your name into the bark of trees.  That sort of thing can kill a tree if done to much  

Work is the curse of the working class 

@Sarada It's on a headland that sticks out into the sea. You can drive as far as the car park at Brean beach then you have two choices, climb the steep 200 steps to the top of the headland and then walk just over a mile to the fort, or you can walk along the access road which is steep but easier than the stairs but adds about another three quarters of a mile to your walk.

@Eris I think that it would have been quite a peaceful place to be stationed, as far military bases can be called peaceful.

Thank you.

It wasn't a very large fort, I think it had about 50 soldiers stationed there. The crazy guy's action damaged quite a lot of it I think but it didn't change the size. It was a lot larger in WW2, if you look to the right in the first photo you can see the foundations of the WW2 barracks.

Thank you.

The forts were sometimes referred to as "Palmerston's Follies" because they cost a lot of money to build and in the end were never used for purpose they were built for because the expected French invasion never happened.

She's quite right, carving names on trees damages them by creating wounds which act as entry points for pests and disease.

Beautiful photos as always. I liked the ones on the forest trail those trees look lovely. That sky is an amazing colour of blue, and the mural on that building is fantastic. I agree with you that going out for a walk somewhere like that is really good for you it's so nice to just sit amongst nature and soak up the peaceful calm that surrounds you.

Exams can be really stressful so I hope the remaining ones go OK for you. Remember, you've put in the hours studying, so do your best that's all you can do.

These are really beautiful pictures, I really like sunsets and those are amazing, there's some wonderful colours and cloud patterns, it all fits so well.

5 hours ago, Moestub said:

Nice shots, they almost looks wholesome with the greenery, but knowing what was going on on-site gives it another feeling ! The lack of awareness and protection towards noise/heat and the working conditions sure doesn't sound like a fun time.. Still, the tower/furnace remains impressive.

It's a fascinating place to visit and all the greenery makes it a look a really nice peasant and tranquil place, but in reality I don't think there would have been much, if any, greenery when it was working and it certainly wouldn't have been tranquil!!

5 hours ago, Moestub said:

Wow, that TV looks even smaller than Sony's old PMV which were used in hospitals and other professional setting  

That TV would have bee state-of-the-art at the time and that TV like the record player/radio unit opposite would have been quite expensive items, so the people living there in the 1950s would have been fairly well off.

5 hours ago, Moestub said:

The lack of awareness and protection towards noise/heat and the working conditions sure doesn't sound like a fun time

Health & Safety wasn't a thing back in those days.

7 hours ago, Zeref said:

Wow that little TV

 

Yes, a huge 12 inch screen and in glorious black & white, and probably took 5 minutes to warm up before you saw the pictures . We had one for a while when I was about 4 or 5, my dad bought it at a jumble sale, we couldn't afford a new one, but I don't think it lasted all that long.

This blog entry has generated quite a bit of interest, so by way of a 'thank you' here are four bonus pictures. These are some inside photos so I hope you'll find them interesting.

Part of the display in no.2 furnace. Originally there would have been a wine glass shape lining between the base and the opening of the chimney but this had been cut away for replacement but the works closed before the replacement was built.

Some of the cottages were furnished as they would have been at different times, and I forgot toe make a note of the dates!. Close inspection of my full size photos I would place this one at 1900s possibly around 1914. The vases are about right for that period and the photo on the mantelpiece is of soldiers in first world war style uniforms.

I'm much more confident to date this one at 1940s as the newspaper headline reads "Hitler Assassinated".

Another one I'm confident to date as 1950s as the date on the Playbook Annual is 1954. (I remember some of the things in that room, and I've still got a standard lamp like that in my living room).

I hope you enjoyed looking at these bonus photos.

1 hour ago, Zeref said:

I wondered about the life there too if it was possible better than other places if they were fed for free or not? In some cases in that time period if that was how it was, working there might have been a good option to get guaranteed food. 

They certainly didn't get free food. The company owned shop at the works was run to make a profit for the company.

@Sasuke Yes, you can still go into the foundry and no.2 furnace's cast house and there's a sort of audio visual presentation in there that gives an idea of what it would have been like working in there with coloured lights and a sound system that played the noise of the furnace and shouts of the workers. You can go right up to what is left of no.2 furnace but access to the other furnaces is not allowed. You can enter the workers houses and they're set out as the would have been in different decades, they're quite small but they were well equipped.

@Zeref I'm glad you find my blogs interesting a learn something from them, and thank you for the compliments about my photos. I'm sure it's a place I wouldn't want to work! As far as I know nothing was actually done about the child labour, I think it was just one of those inspections that was made and filed. The children in the iron works probably had a better life than those working in the mines where the iron ore came from.

1 hour ago, Sarada said:

Ate those things only 10 feet tall in the picture? O_O they just look so big 

Perhaps I shouldn't try to reply to questions early in the morning not long after I've got up .  I didn't do a very good job with my reply . Yes, the actual furnace, or perhaps crucible would be a better term, isn't all that big, but the structure that makes up the whole of the furnace is quite large from the ground to the top of the chimney it would be around 80 - 90 feet high and the walls of the structure would have to be thick enough to retain the heat and survive the high temperatures of the furnace 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The whole thing would also have to be wide enough at the top to allow room for them to add the ore into the opening at the top of the chimney.

@Sakura , @Sarada  @Eris thanks for your comments, I pleased that you liked my photos. The actual blast furnaces weren't that large, they were originally inverted wine glass shaped and about 10 foot or so in diameter and about the same high but the whole structure of the furnace has to be massive when you're dealing with molten iron at 1500C which is about 2730F you need a massive structure to cope with it. There's also the requirement to have the charging point above the furnace where the ore was fed into it. The working conditions must have been horrendous even if you weren't working with the furnaces, there was a small railway network that was used to move the iron and other stuff around the works and the carts would have been moved by hand and the very young children may not have had shoes.