Favourite Waste Of Time
Thanks to Span I now have a new way to waste time when I should be doing something more useful with my computer time. It's the photograph section of the geoscenic site. What I love about these sorts of sites aren't just the bewildering number of photographs, the brilliance of the photography or the sheer bizarre nature of some of the material it's those photographs that allow you to compare now and then.
The photograph above is an example of the latter, it was taken in 1922 about a mile from where our house now stands. It's a photograph of sand extraction taking place and it's interesting for a couple of reasons, firstly it isn't possible to tell from the photograph whether it was taken at the site now used by the local gun club or the other deep pit about one hundred yards away which spends most of the year under water. The second thing is that the photograph very obviously includes two road vehicles and vehicular access to either site would today involve climbing up the side of St.Catherines Hill.
The hill itself is currently undergoing major surgery (if that's the right word for a hill) in a bid to remove the non-native trees ) mainly Strawberry and Rhododendron and return the area to its natural state of heathland - it has SSSI status and this status will only remain if heathland prevails. Naturally this has pissed off local dog owners and walkers and also a bunch of complete nutters who seem to be of the opinion that conservation is something that's done in South America and nowhere else. Anyway the pro-clearance lobby seem to be winning at the moment.
The photograph below is of one of the pits as it was last summer, taken by a local conservationist group and shows the difference in the level of the land between the photograph above taken over eighty years ago. And also how trees have taken over the place!
5 comments:
Good comparison...by complete coincidence the runner-up to rocks on the Scillies for a picture in my post was also a quarry, at Ham Hill near where my brood live in Somerset. It is also an SSSI and was both an iron age fort and Roman site long before the quarrying. It is the source of a lot of the marvellous yellow/brown stone houses there are in that neck of the woods. And a wondrous view SW across Somerset...also a good pub up there! (Prince of Wales)
Here endeth the Somerset County Tourist Information Bulletin.
P.S. (half a day later...)
Thanks for the link!
Great view as you say - is that the Somerset Levels?
St.Catherines Hill has been described as one of the seven natural wonders of SOuthern England by Chris Packham, it was an iron age fort as well!
No worries about the link, you'd posted my Copenhagen story as a link.
Yes...it's the Somerset levels which although they are flat (derrr!) create quite an impression, the A39 from Street to Bridgewater also has some fantastic views with the "island" of Glastonbury one way and the Levels the other, it is easy to imagine the whole thing under water with a few islands of land and the road itself as a strip through the "sea"
P.S. Glad you noticed the link!
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