My name is David Jefferson and I live near the historic English market town of St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England. I enjoy taking photographs of beautiful landscapes and flowers. My photography helps me as a designer of stitching card and string art patterns. I created the patterns available from the Stitching Cards, Form-A-Lines and String Art Fun websites.
La Gomera in the Canary Islands is still relatively unspoiled by tourism. Most visitors arrive by ferry from Tenerife or La Palma. The mountainous middle of the island has a cloudy and foggy climate with forest trees hung with moss. We were based in the Valle Gran Rey in the sunny south of the island. From there we visited the main tourist attractions including San Sebastian, Mirador del Palmarejo, Chipude, Garajonay National Park, La Laguna Grande, Mirador de Roque de Ojila, La Montaneta and Vallehermosa.
A walk from the tranquil Parque García Sanabria to the noisy harbour, admiring some of the beautiful flowers and trees on the way. The Parque García Sanabria is the largest urban park in the Canary Islands. The park’s floral clock was manufactured in Switzerland by Favag.
The Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory is at the top of a volcano above a sea of clouds. We explore the craggy and precipitous footpath that runs around the volcano rim. On the way we glimpse some of the fourteen telescopes from various countries. Roque de Los Muchachos was chosen as an observatory site because it has one of the clearest skies on the planet. The location of the island and its climate makes the cloud act as a natural mirror, blocking light pollution from the towns beneath.
The drive to the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory is not for the faint of heart and travellers should expect a few bends and hairpin turns on the way. Even so, the stunning landscape views from the road are compensation enough. Lucky for us we had an excellent coach driver to get us there safely.
This excursion take us to breathtaking scenery above the clouds. At the Teide National Park visitor’s centre we see information about the volcanos and local wildlife. Then we go on to explore the volcanic landscape. If the Mount Teide volcano is measured from the ocean floor, it is at 7,500 meters (24,600 ft) the highest volcano in the world base-to-peak outside of the Hawaiian Islands, and is described by UNESCO and NASA as Earth’s third-tallest volcanic structure. Teide is the most visited national park in Europe. In 2016 it had 4,079,823 visitors and tourists reaching a historical record.
A walk beside an irrigation canal to a misty waterfall. The Los Tilos rainforest is an adventure playground of cool, moist laurel forest. Within minutes of leaving the car park you can be stooping through damp tunnels or clambering up to waterfalls. The sub-tropical forest is nestled between colossal mountains and has thrived for twenty million years. In 1983 it became a part of La Palma’s first UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, making it an officially protected area.
A walk at Cumbrecita to a great viewpoint. The Parque Nacional de la Caldera de Taburiente is in a bowl formed by volcanic action millions of years ago. The bowl is 8km wide, carpeted with thick Canary pine forest and surrounded on all sides by imposing rock walls. The forest walk takes us to the Mirador de la Cumbrecita viewpoint. It juts out over the caldera, offering a great place to take in the beauty and enormity of the park.
Canons Ashby House is a Grade I listed Elizabethan manor house located in the village of Canons Ashby, south of the town of Daventry, Northamptonshire. The interior of Canons Ashby House is noted for its Elizabethan wall paintings and its Jacobean plasterwork. It is owned by the National Trust.
The Trentham Estate is an award-winning visitor attraction, welcoming over 3 million visitors a year. The estate includes a large lake with a passenger boat, Italian gardens and woodland walks. Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown worked on the landscape at Trentham around 1760.
The centerpiece of the Shugborough Estate is Shugborough Hall, parts of which date back to 1695. Further additions were made during the 18th and 19th centurys. There is an exhibition showing highlights from the lives of two previous residents; Thomas Anson who was a Member of Parliament and George Anson who was First Lord of the Admiralty. It is owned by the National Trust.
Baddesley Clinton is a moated manor house near the historic town of Warwick in the English county of Warwickshire. The house probably originated in the 13th century, when large areas of the Forest of Arden were cleared for farmland. It is owned by the National Trust.
A fire dancer displays her skill with fire fans and a fire hoop. She is a street performer on the beach at Valle Gran Rey, La Gomera, The Canary Islands.
A la Ronde, near Exmouth in Devon, is owned by the National Trust. It was built in 1796 for two spinster cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter. Jane was the daughter of a rich merchant. Following the death of her father, Jane decided to set up home in Devon together with her cousin Mary. They purchased a plot of land near Exmouth and had A la Ronde built. We visited in May 2018.
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They lived quiet lives, occupied with handicrafts such as needlework and creating pictures with sea shells. Jane died in 1811 leaving the property to Mary. The terms of Mary’s will specified that the property could be inherited only by an “unmarried kinswoman”. This condition held firm until 1886 when the house was transferred to the Reverend Oswald Reichel, a brother of one of the former occupants.
Reichel was responsible for major changes to the house. These included the construction of upstairs bedrooms with dormer windows, the fitting of first-floor windows, the replacement of the original thatch with roof tiles and the addition of an external catwalk.
Jane and Mary were regular attendants at a Chapel in Exmouth, but as the two ladies got older they found the journey to worship increasingly difficult. Therefore they had ‘Point in View’ chapel built on their own estate. Surrounding the chapel was a small school for six girls and almshouses for four maiden ladies of at least 50 years of age.
Tyntesfield is a Victorian Gothic Revival house near Bristol. The mansion was built in the 1830s. It was later bought by English businessman William Gibbs, whose huge fortune came from importing guano (bird droppings) used as fertilizer. In the 1860s Gibbs had the house expanded and remodelled. The architectural style selected for the rebuilding was a loose Gothic, combining many forms and reinventions, of the medieval style. The choice of Gothic was influenced by William Gibb’s Anglo-Catholic beliefs as a follower of the Oxford Movement. This movement advocated the revival of the medieval Gothic style, and “a return to the faith and the social structures of the Middle Ages”. We visited in May 2018.
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In 2002 the Tyntesfield estate came up for auction following the death of its owner and the substantial death duties that became payable. Concerned with the demolition and desecration of various historic country houses in recent years, the National Trust launched a “Save Tyntesfield” campaign. It collected £8 million in just 100 days, with £3 million from the public plus two substantial anonymous donations of £1 million and £4 million. The Trust also received £17 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The National Lottery earmarked a further £25 million for the major conservation work needed.
The National Trust purchased the house, the kitchen garden, and the park. Starting out with a staff of 30 volunteers in 2002, recently the total of employed and volunteer staff exceeded 600, this is more than the number engaged by any other National Trust property.
The initial conservation work focused around weatherproofing the house. The repair of the roof, including the restoration of the original bold red and black tiled geometric pattern. The entire property was rewired. Much of the original lead piping was replaced and a fireproofing scheme implemented. These initial works cost more than £10 million, much of which was raised through donations, via the “Save Tyntesfield” campaign, and the sale of lottery tickets to visitors.
At first the Trust had been reluctant to allow visitors to the house, while work was underway, especially taking into account the costs of Health and Safety requirements, and the delays these could cause to the essential preservation work. But the need for cash dictated the answer, and the Trust learnt that, through giving the public close access to the preservation work, they actually gave more additional donations as a result of seeing where their money was going, and how they were making a difference.
Montacute house and village have often featured as locations for films. It was used as one of the locations for the BBC’s adaption of the novel Wolf Hall, in 2014. The fictional location for the Wallace and Gromit film ‘The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’, Tottington Hall, was based on Montacute House.
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Montacute House is a building with two fronts. In 1787 the west side, originally the back, was rebuilt to become the new approach.
When the house was built in 1598, the east side (above) was the front. The lawn and flower borders would have originally been a courtyard with a gate house.
A notable feature of the house is the Long Gallery, spanning the entire top floor of the building. It is hung with 16th and 17th century old master portraits, in partnership with London’s National Portrait Gallery.
