Category: Postcards

Images from my travels

Ear, Eye and Throat Hospital

I haven’t written much about Shrewsbury, Shropshire’s county town, but I have been in the process of a post or three for several months, during which time I have been preparing many photos for the blog. The town contains some very interesting architecture from medieval black and white timber-framed to very elegant and simply styled Georgian properties. (And some 1960s carbuncles, but we won’t talk about them). This distinctive red-brick Victorian built building is along the Town Walls. The Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital opened in 1881. It earned a reputation for its high standard of treatment and during WW1 was a major clearing centre for troops with eye injuries, treating up to 800 soldiers a week. It closed in 1998 and has been turned into flats.

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Built in the style of the Arts and Crafts Movement with ornate decorative bricks and tiles/panels, the style placed great value on the work, the joy of craftsmanship and the natural beauty of materials.

Ancient trees and the Spanish Armada

One of the loveliest things about visiting Croft Castle in Herefordshire is to see the many ancient trees planted there. Majestic chestnuts and oaks some going back hundreds of years.

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A story tells that sweet chestnuts were taken from captured Spanish ships and planted at Croft between 1580 and 1680. The avenue is said to represent the formal battle plan of the Spanish Armada with rows of chestnuts representing the Spanish ships and oaks the English. This was the original formal approach to the castle.

Continue reading Ancient trees and the Spanish Armada

Bench series #44

For the month of November I’m looking for a bench with either a message OR an Autumnal theme

(any kind of writing will do, it could be a message, a plaque, a dedication or even a map)

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I’ll start off with a message.

I love the ones on benches in the USA often showing a great sense of humour – this one is at Santa Cruz, California. I saw one with “June’s bench of Hugs” but sadly didn’t take a photograph. Now I want to know what kind of guy Brett Gardner was. Casual I guess 🙂

If you would like to join in with the Bench photo challenge then please take a look at my Bench Series page. No complicated rules, just a bench and a camera required 🙂

  • Create your own post and title it Bench Series: November
  • Include a link to this page in your post so others can find it too
  • Add the tag ‘bench series’ so everyone can find the benches easily in the WP Reader
  • Get your post in by the end of the month, as the new bench theme comes out on the first Sunday in December.

My Picks of the Week:

The last of the occupied benches came in throughout the week, most with real people rather than sculptures.  Violetsky has some unusual mums on benches, more mums from Elaine, whilst Sue goes for a male on a bench and Sylvia has grand-kidlets amongst others! Ruth finds some yarn bombing, but the scariest occupied bench has to be this one. What do you think?

As always there are so many delightful benches to view, I hope you will check out the other links within the comment section. And thank you all for your overwhelming response in October – it seems that a lot of you like to photograph benches that are occupied.