Stirling Examples

Stirling Castle

The Castle of Stirling was a wonderful place to wander in, around, and a'boot. You talk about a place full of history, well this is the real deal.

I was very much captivated by the many figures that decorated the exterior walls of the castle, from the royal to the demonic, and so I post a selection of them here for your consideration.

The Royals

The Demons and the Grotesque

Devil figure close-up

And the guy with the crossbow protecting the battlements

 Colin

Aging Sculpture

Everything gets older, hell even the stone that we carve our memorials is aging in it's own particular way; it's eroding, it's softening, the figures may be blurring, fading, sometimes to the point of losing the shape
of whatever it originally depicted.

What is it besides likely bovine?

When Sid and I visited York in England we went to the old mediaeval cathedral there, York Minster. I was hoping to wander around the outside of the building and take photographs of the figures on the roofs and walls. Unfortunately the grounds were largely gated off while extensive restoration was going on and the only figure that was close enough to me to photograph was this particular one, on the point of fading to obscurity.

Gargoyles and other hangers on.

I'd like to introduce another theme here that's been one of my photographic interests for years.

Blech

I've always been fascinated by the creatures that sit or cling to walls and roofs, the ones that strive under window casements, and those that are stuck away in isolated nooks and crannies. Often, particularly in this busy world of ours, these silent sentinels are ignored or forgotten. They are also, even though cast in stone, aging.

Here are a few examples from Westminister Abbey (old churches, gothic ones in particular, are often great locations for gargoyle hunting).

The only problem is that they mostly occupy the higher realms.

Figures out of nightmare, figures out of time, many appearing to be quite ticked off.

I spy with my little eye something that is...

And mixed in with the menagerie of creatures are often the faces of people.

Golden Carousel

While we're on the topic of carousels I thought I'd like to add one more to this blog (even though it doesn't quite fit in with a lot of the criteria that I normally use when I photograph them).

I caught a glimpse of this carousel as Sid and I were walking across the Thames River, probably over the Hungerford Bridge, in London. That's the England one, not Ontario.

The ride was located on the walkway along the river embankment near 'the Eye', that big ferris wheel thingy that is located there. I don't believe this is a permanent installation so don't expect to necessarily find it there if you visit.

Okay, so the horses are fiberglass, not wood,

and the horses have names, which is nice I guess,

and it's gaudy as hell (is it just me or do you think that nobody does gaudy quite like the English),

and the horses have no tails,

but outside of all this there is one very major difference, did you notice? This carousel rotates in the opposite direction to every carousel I've seen in Canada and the United States, clockwise instead of counterclockwise.

Those English.

Colin

Guelph Antique Carousel

Last year I was still chasing down old carousels, the wooden ones, that were within day trip striking distance of Toronto. I had already done some research and found out that I had missed one of what I thought of as a 'major' installation, although a minor one (that's supposed to be a joke) nearby.

I had also just financed a new used car and wanted to take it out on a road trip. My son Elliot came along for the ride.

It was a beautiful summer day for a drive. We hit the road and headed in the direction of Guelph, Ontario. I had some printed directions and knew a bit about the layout of the city and so with only a little bit of head scratching and paper consulting (no GPS here, GPS is for sissies) managed to locate the carousel and, at the same location, a small replica train that gives rides around the park.

So the carousel is one manufactured by the Allan Herschell Company (you can tell by the features of many of the animals) and was likely constructed around 1919, at least that's the year painted on the outside wall of the pavilion. There's a bit more information that can be gleaned on-line about where the city of Guelph got it and so on.

The funny thing, at least to me, is that I used to live here, in Guelph, way back when (talking the 70's here), around the time the carousel was purchased.

The carousel is in fairly good shape, considering it's age and the fact that it is still very much a working carousel. I'm sure there are those who would like to see a little bit more funding for the care and restoration of the horses except we seem to be living in the time of the bean counter, where art and culture are often pitted against the bottom lines of city budgets.

 Still it was nice to see. There was one thing that was a bit of a distraction for me and an indicator of possible funding and maintenance issues. Some of the horses once had actual horse hair tails but that day I visited all that was left were threadbare (more like 'hairbare' but I don't think it's a word) butt plugs.

To be honest I don't really know if it was caused by a lack of restoration funds, the lack of horse hair on the market, age, vandalism, or, as is likely, a combination of all the above factors.

 And thereby ends a tail.

The Void

I know I haven't visited here in a while or posted anything to it. I guess I just lost interest. Thanks to my friend Sid and a new blog venture we have initiated I decided to come back, do a little dusting, take the sheets off the furniture, sweep away the cobwebs and leave the address for the new site (kind of like a place to forward mail to).

We decided to put on line some of the photographs taken in various cemeteries we have wandered through during our travels (solo and duo) and and if you are interested you could check out...

http://cities-of-the-dead.blogspot.ca/

Again, thanks to Sid, you may even find an addition or two here.

Colin