Holy Trinity Church, Hepworth

A couple of years ago I spent a bit of time taking photos of churches around the Holme Valley and I felt sure that I'd put them online somewhere but it doesn't appear that I have.  I did have some thoughts of putting them into a book and trying to sell a few to the local people but I never followed through.  I even photographed some people in and around the churches and they asked me if I was going to publish the photos so there could be some interest.

Anyhow, one of the local churches I really love is the one at Hepworth, just a couple of miles from home and usually pretty quiet.  I decided to go back and make some fresh images and compare them with the ones I took back when I first started getting serious with photography.  So this first photo was taken back in April 2008, which surprised me a bit because that's more than three years ago and also explains why there aren't any on line as I didn't start blogging until November 2008.  I have an A3 print of the photo in a folder and I've always thought it looked pretty good with the lychgate  war memorial and the church behind.  

But now when I see it next to the new photo I can see it has a very yellow colour cast, especially on the stonework, which I suspect I may have added in the early days.  It does make the old image look a lot warmer than the new one but now I think it looks a bit odd and not as it should be.  The images are also a bit different as in the original the trees were bare of leaves, they have painted the doors a light green from the original brown and also freshened up the gate and roof trusses on the lychgate.

I found some other photos of the church I had taken in June 2008 but the sky was a very bland white and didn't look good at all.  I think I must have gone back to take more photos when I'd bought myself a very wide angle lens which I have also used in these next two new photo to get the whole of the church in the frame.  I had to move the green wheelie bin away from the left end of the church because it was very distracting.

This second wide angle shot is a bit closer and is suffering a bit with distortion which makes the end walls of the church look as though they're falling inwards.  I ought really to correct the distortion but I don't like to spend too much time post processing my images these days.

In this next shot I've take the shot from down low and tried to be a bit artistic.  The shapes of two gravestones in the foreground are supposed to being mirrored by the steeple and window behind them.  I'm not sure if it works or not though.

I took a few more shots outside, put the wheelie bin back and went inside.  This first stained glass window is just inside the entrance in a bit of a reception area which is quite dark.  I had to move a few things from the window ledge because it was a bit messy.

Between the reception area and the main church they have partitioned off a room which looks like it must be used as the Sunday School for the children and other social events.  Then you go through the double doors and find this aisle leading down to the altar.  I love the exposed wooden roof joists in this church, quite plain but simply beautiful.

I took quite a few photos of this font with the wooden cloche type cover over it but I was having a problem keeping the images free of wires and plugs which were plugged into an electrical socket behind the fonts stone base.  This ended being my favourite image with the board with the hymn numbers in the background.

This next image is looking across from the font to the lovely wooden pulpit an choir benches.  Last time I came here the table in the foreground had a wish tree on it where the congregation has written there wishes for people on little cards and hung them on a pretend tree.  When I read some of them I was very touched by their thoughts for others. Today it was a bit bare with just a vase of flowers and the three little candle holders on a mirror.

I was quite intrigued by the candle holders on the mirror with the little tea lights inside and took quite a few shots of them.  This was my favourite with the light from the stained glass window reflecting in the mirror.

Most of the church was carpeted but this area by the altar has a lovely tiled floor.  Also in this area the wooden roof joists have been painted red and green an look very nice.

A different angle on the pulpit with the stained glass window behind.  It looks like the paintwork on the arch is suffering from a bit of damp coming in and could do with touching up.

My final shot inside the church is up at the wooden rafters.  It's spoilt a little by the piece of green twine wrapped around the middle which I might try an clone out later. 

As I took my final shots inside a gentleman came to lock the church up for the night.  I took one last set of shots of the outside and then left to pick my daughter up and bring here back to our house for dinner.  This wasn't my favourite of the last shots but the others had the green wheelie bin on them.  I should have moved it again but it was getting late so I didn't bother, maybe next time.

Colne Valley Walk

Another walk from the AA cards and another one that's close to home.  The Colne Valley is the next big valley to the Home Valley (where I live) which starts from the heart of the Pennines and leads down into Huddersfield.  As with the Holme Valley there is a great history in the woollen industry but a lot of the old mills have either been converted or demolished over the years.  The Colne Valley boasts a railway and a canal which link the northern industrial and commercial cities of Leeds and Manchester and although the railway is still going strong the canal is now used only for leisure activities.

The walk begins in in the centre of Slaithwaite (local pronunciation Slough'it) although we actually started a little way out of the centre on the road that goes to Meltham.  It was a lovely sunny day with plenty of blue sky and quite warm for early May (yes I'm way behind again). It's quite a steep rise out of Slaithwaite, up the road and then up the path through some fields but then you get the wonderful view back down into the valley.

The first half of the walk goes along the top of hillside up towards Marsden with lots of stunning views down into and across to the other side of the valley.  This old tree caught my attention but it doesn't really come out on the shot as the main subject because the background is far too busy.

There are quite a lot of old farm buildings along the path including this old barn attached to the end of the farmhouse.  It's quite strange having the wooden flat roof across the gap between the two side bits which has now fallen down.  There's probably a lot of history in this building as it seems very higgledy piggledy in its construction.

Here's a row of old farm worker or maybe mill worker houses that have long since been abandoned.

This old fireplace reminds me of the ones that we saw at Beamish in the old miners houses but obviously in very poor condition.

The fireplace in the house next door had this strange addition on it which must have been for some big round vessel to be heated by the fire.  I guess it could have been a laundry or maybe some strange cooking pot.

We loved the design of this rusty old gate and there were lots of similar ones in this area.  I wondered if it was some local iron worker that had made a job lot for the farms.  I like this photo because of the colours and the textures in the gate, gate posts, walls, trees and sky.

Another abandoned old house which is dated 1754, exactly 200 years before I was born.

And another old abandoned farmhouse and barn looking a little worse for wear.

Further along the hillside we get a lovely view down into Marsden with the big mill in the centre and all the rows of houses around.  In the distance is Marsden Moor which is beautiful in summer but very bleak in the winter.

Up on the hillside there are a number of gulleys which feed the local reservoirs and drain some of the moisture from the peat bogs on the top of the moors.  Every so often there are these lovely little bridges that allow the animals and farm vehicles to cross the water.

The walk goes a little way past Marsden and around the corner where we have a view of the bottom of Butterly Reservoir and across to the golf course and another part of Marsden Moor.

We then drop down into Marsden where there is this lovely little house next to the river called The Old Cobblers.

Th second half of the walk is just straight down the canal side and back to Slaithwate.  I've photographed  this walk a couple of times before so we didn't stop for many new ones but I quite liked this lock so here it is.

The first half of the walk had been hard going but the second half was just a sprint down back to Slaithwaite. I guess it's designed this way so you get the hard work out of the way at the start of the walk rather than after you've been walking for a couple of hours.  We've done another of the walks over Rishworth Moor which was hard going for most of the way and I will cover it in a later post.