So here I am, still on WordPress and all set to stay awhile and participate in one of my favourite ‘challenges’ Thursday Doors! I’m back in the world of graveyards again for this week’s entry as I couldn’t resist sharing a door I found in the city of Angoulême cemetery this week. The weather was particularly…
Tag: Architecture
Thursday Doors – Inside the Cathedral
Dear Readers, I will be moving my blog over the next few days to a new self-hosted site. If all goes well I shall still be linked to my dear WordPress community and nothing much will change except for a new site, my special project and some new avenues to explore ; if I get…
Thursday Doors – A Few Gothic Studs & A Door Knocker
It’s been strange not participating in Thursday Doors this last couple of weeks but at last I’ve had a little free time to get out and about with the camera for a spot of door hunting. A stroll around some of the narrow streets in the old part of the town of Angoulême this week uncovered…
Thursday Doors – A Little Graveyard Classical
Having spent most of my recent photographic time in one local cemetery or another, my chances for photographing a door of the normal variety has been somewhat limited. So, I figured I’d go with the flow and present for this weeks’ Thursday Doors offering another amazing door on a tomb. The local cemeteries are full…
Thursday Doors – A Little Graveyard Gothic
I’m in the middle of a project at the moment which seems to be taking me quite frequently to visit some of our local churches and churchyards. On one or two of my visits this last couple of weeks I have been astounded by the beautiful examples of art and architecture to be found in…
Thursday Doors – Former Glory
I thought I’d share another church door for this week’s Thursday Doors post. Unlike the delightful tiny gem featured last week, this is a large village church which feels a little neglected these days but which must have been quite magnificent centuries ago in its heyday. Built, as so many of the local churches, during…
Thursday Doors – A Tiny Village Church
There is a tiny hamlet not far from the hillside which despite its diminutive size, boasts a number of lovely old buildings, a ‘town hall’ or Mairie and one of the sweetest little churches I have ever come across. The postage stamp grounds around it are always immaculately kept, the hedges and bushes trimmed and…
Thursday Doors – In a French Cemetery
I hope I shall be forgiven for the slightly strange theme of my Thursday Doors post this week. Whilst visiting and photographing a number of extraordinary ancient churches in our area over the last few months, I have also taken the opportunity to wander and explore a few of the local cemeteries. The tiny glimpses into…
Thursday Doors – At the End of the Tunnel
We’re visiting another abbey for my Thursday Doors post this week but this time it is not a ruin but a functioning monastery. The wonderful buildings of the Abbey of Saint Etienne, founded in the year 1003, were home until 3 years ago to 6 missionary monks of the order of Saint Theresa. These 6…
Thursday Doors – Beauty and the Beastly Cement Works
For my Thursday Doors post this week, I am revisiting a different part of a splendid ensemble of buildings which were once the beautiful Abbey of Notre Dame. After a long and chequered past of good fortune and subsequent destruction during the 100 years’ War and the Wars of Religion, the abbey and its ‘logis’…
Thursday Doors – A Dickensian House in a French Village
When I walked past this house in a local village and then turned back to look again at the very old and shabby exterior, I felt I could almost be looking at the residence of a character in a novel by Dickens. The shutters are cracked and crooked, all of them closed. The hinges are rusted…
Thursday Doors – A Medieval Stone House
It’s been a week or three since I posted for Thursday Doors – Christmas being, fingers crossed, a busy time here for the boutique and work sometimes just has to take precedence – but I’m surprised how much I’ve missed my regular postings and the Thursday Door community, so I thought I’d post a rather special…
Thursday Doors – Richly Wrought
I wasn’t sure if I actually had a door to share on Thursday Doors this week as I wanted to do something a little different and hoped to find something modern or colourful for a change. But, when I visited this astonishing church yesterday I decided the door was far too wonderful to be ignored…
Thursday Doors – Romantic Romanesque
I’m back to the churches again this week for my Thursday Doors post with this beautiful example from the 12th century which I visited a couple of weeks ago. As always the stone carving around the door is exquisite and completely different from many other local examples by being spectacularly delicate and classical…
Thursday Doors – The Ruined House Part II
My post for this week’s Thursday Doors is once again missing a door. It does however have a doorway and a hole for a window but sadly no roof. The house in question is our very own ruin, returning for a repeat performance to show off it’s other, though not necessarily better, side. …
Careful – Trespassers Beware
I’m still finding photos I had thought long lost after the demise of my laptop earlier this year and when I happened upon this wee trio of slightly spooky images from a local ruined abbey, although I realise it isn’t quite time for Halloween, I thought they might make a fun contribution to this week’s…
Thursday Doors – The Proud Resident
I’m really hoping that Norm is going to forgive me for being totally frivolous with my Thursday Doors post this week – I promise to behave properly next week Norm. I’m afraid I couldn’t resist posting a picture or two from a series I thought I’d lost when my laptop crashed a while ago. There…
(Extra) ordinary – A Ruined French House and a Fireplace
When we moved to France a few years ago, one of our projects was to be the restoration of a rather dilapidated cottage – the former caretaker’s cottage – in the grounds of our house. At the time the cottage was already in a state of poor repair but it did at least boast a…
Thursday Doors – Garden Gate & Dappled Sun
We’ve had some wonderful sunny autumn days here on the Hillside this week and in the early morning the sun is playing lovely games with light and dappled shadows in the courtyard. I thought I’d include a couple of views of one of the wooden garden doors here for my contribution to Norm’s Thursday Doors…
Thursday Doors – A Village House and Giant Gates
There is a well-known saying that an Englishman’s home is his castle – a love for privacy and a patch of personal territory on our overcrowded island is perhaps the explanation of this notion – but since moving to France we have been more than a little impressed by the Frenchman’s approach to presenting and…
Thursday Doors – The Abandoned Cellar
I’m cheating slightly with my Thursday Doors post this week. The entrance door of my subject building – a long-since abandoned village shop – is certainly old and nicely weatherworn but it’s the doors to the cellar which really caught my eye. These small doors which give a very limited access from the street to…
Thursday Doors – Iron Bars and Studs
This is another amazing door from our trip to Périgueux, just a few steps further along Rue Tranquille. I have no idea of the history of this door or the building behind it but it has the same feeling of incredible age and history as my previous example. Perhaps a checkered history in this case…
The Château and The Fairytale Swan
A trip out with the camera earlier in the week took me to a village I have not visited for a few years. I confess I had quite forgotten what was there and after a quick look around the church – yet another fine example from the 12th century – we followed the path towards…
Thursday Doors – Curlicues and Rosettes
There is some evidence in a dusty local archive, that way back in the 12th century, the Hillside was the site of a religious ‘paroisse’, the French version of our word ‘parish’. This could mean quite simply that a lone monk lived up here in contemplative seclusion or that he had fellow monks and a…
Thursday Doors – Inside Out
On Tuesday morning I set out on a photographic visit to an ancient local church a friend of mine had mentioned to me. It has to be said that our little corner of France is blessed with a wealth of ancient churches, a host of breathtaking examples from the 12th and 13th centuries lying within a…
Thursday Doors – A Door, Steps and a Juliet Balcony
The rehearsals for our summer theatre spectacular are in full swing now with only one week to go to the first performance. All the action takes place in various spots around our courtyard, in front of the barn and the house. There will be music and lighting to accompany the drama which won’t begin until after…
Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge #4
THE LECTURER It had been another dull lecture, the hotel conference room hot and stuffy despite the air conditioning. Twenty minutes from the end and a number of her colleagues had already discreetly left for the bar or one of the fashionable cafes on the square. She didn’t quite know why she’d stayed, sorry for…
Winter – Ghost Leaves
The colours on the hillside are changing now from their glowing autumn shades to the darker hues of winter. Nature’s astonishing architecture is becoming visible everywhere, in the bare branches of the trees, the hips on the rose bushes, the cones in the evergreens and in the fallen leaves which carpet the garden. On our…
Romantic Abbey Ruins and Hideous Cement Works
Just across from the ugly out-of-town shopping centre where I reluctantly go for some of my weekly grocery shop, is one of the most hideous concrete constructions I have ever seen in my entire life. Owned since the 1930’s by the enormous French company Lafarge, a ‘world leader in construction materials’, the monstrous site of…
View from a French Hillside 