Stourhead NT (Thursday 30th September 2021)

The Spotlight Kid and I arranged to meet up at Stourhead last Thursday, approximately midway between our homes, notwithstanding the rather unreliable weather.

I took three cameras: my Pentax K1 fitted with an 11mm wide-angle lens, my Nikon P900 bridge camera and the red K50 armed with a 17-70mm macro zoom, and with a resolve not to photograph the iconic five-arched Palladian Bridge again (I failed). It wasn't the best day we could have chosen, cloudy and dull with occasional showers that developed into heavy rain by the afternoon, and the famous autumn colours had mostly yet to put on their show, but we judged the day overall to have been a success.

We walked anti-clockwise around the Garden Lake, on a path that is meant to evoke a journey like that of Aeneas's descent in to the underworld. The gardens were designed by the former owner Henry Hoare II and were laid out between 1741 and 1780. A small stream was dammed to create a classical style 18th-century design, said to have been inspired by Claude Lorrain, Poussin and Gaspard Dughet.

I deviated from the main path to get a closer look at some Canada geese that had taken over a small island on the lake, and were sharing the lake with a number of swans. We made an Everest-like ascent to the Temple of Apollo where we picnicked with commanding views over the estate (see 11mm Extra). The main blip was taken from some rockworks with a view that takes in the distant Palladian bridge.

After a reviving cappuccino outside the Spreadeagle we made a second circuit of the Lake, this time clockwise, which is when we got especially soaked.

L.
Monday 4.10.2021 (1247 hr)

Blip #3527 (#3277 + 250 archived blips taken 27.8.1960-18.3.2010)
Consecutive Blip #000
Blips/Extras In 2021 #182/265 + #085/100 Extras
Day #4206 (934 gaps from 26.3.2010)
LOTD #2670 (#2510 + 160 in archived blips)

Wide Angle series
Landscape series
National Trust series

Taken with Pentax K-1 Mark II with Irix IL-11FF-PK 11mm F4 Firefly full-frame manual prime lens

Stourhead NT, 30 September 2021 (Flickr album of 34 photos)

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
The Herd - From The Underworld (1967)