Industries

Tuxford Mill, Nottinghamshire

April 21, 2013

Last week as I was driving through Tuxford in Nottinghamshire I couldn’t resist stopping to take a photograph of the old windmill. Its sails were turning just as they must have done a century and more ago. A splendid sight. A few days earlier I’d been looking at watermills in Cambridgeshire. Milling appears to have [...]

Anglesey Abbey Gardens – The Winter Walk

April 19, 2013

Anglesey Abbey, a National Trust property near Cambridge, although in parts almost nine hundred years old is in its present form the creation of its more recent owners from the sixteenth century onwards, culminating in the work of the 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) a grandson of one of the founders of what is now the [...]

Two Cambridgeshire Watermills

April 19, 2013

En route to a weekend conference in Cambridge last Friday I managed to squeeze in visits to two still-working watermills, both at properties managed by the National Trust. The first, at Houghton near Huntingdon, is the only remaining working watermill on the Great Ouse, and I was looking forward to the visit. Sadly I’d misread [...]

Across the North – January 2013

January 15, 2013

It’s time for another news post. I haven’t done one for some time. Starting with the North West, the big news in recent days has been the Lake District National Park Authority’s rejection of an eighteen month trial installation of a Zip Wire at Honister Slate Mine, a centuries old industrial site on the side [...]

Buttermere and Haystacks; Fleetwith Pike and Honister Crag

July 31, 2012

Yesterday afternoon, using a free afternoon between meetings in Keswick, and following a wet drive from the Newlands Valley over to Buttermere I decided to pay a quick visit to the Honister Slate Mine. First, though, even in conditions far from ideal for photographing mountains, I could not resist a shot over the head of [...]

Keswick Mining Museum [SADLY, NOW CLOSED]

July 25, 2012

Yesterday morning I was sitting on a wall outside the big tent at the Keswick Convention drinking a cup of Tearfund tea when I got into conversation with the man sitting next to me, a visitor from Switzerland. He was interested in knowing what there was in the area that would interest his young sons. [...]

Ullswater and Patterdale in the English Lake District

February 29, 2012

This past weekend my wife and I took a short trip by Ullswater, mostly in the car. I wasn’t very energetic but wanted to be outside so we drove from Appleby to Glenridding and up into Patterdale as far as the Brotherswater Inn. It wasn’t an especially good February day weatherwise, but the Lake District [...]

Lake District History and the Future

February 14, 2012

I was writing a piece on my “Lake District in Books” site when it occurred to me how much material I’d written there over recent months referring to the history of the region. This post is substantially a survey of things I’ve written there in the past, brought together for readers of the Around-England blog. [...]

To Protect? Or To Preserve? (Opinion Piece)

September 7, 2011

There are wild places, described by poets, painted by artists and loved by country walkers which must be protected for future generations to enjoy. I suspect that most readers of Around-England will have no difficulty in agreeing with that statement. I fear, however, that this post may lose me some friends as I consider the [...]

Copper Mines at Coniston

July 20, 2011

For many centuries the presence of copper in the Lake District mountain rocks above Coniston Water provided a livelihood for people in the area. Now Coniston coppermines are mostly visited by walkers and mine explorers (scroll down for video). Looking at the area today it is not easy to imagine a time (much of it [...]

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