Odds and Sods May 2025

This month I have a radically varied selection of odds and ends on offer. These odds and ends are the result of several country walks, mostly using my phone, and a rare visit to a large city where I took my proper camera. I'll explain this oddity below later. It looks like they may have sold tickets from this building to travel on Flash Gordon's spaceship.

Country walks around here involve walking up hills through narrow lanes lined with high hedgerows bursting with wild flowers. Occasionally the hedgerows are punctuated with farm gates offering the chance for views like this.

This isn't a botanical garden under glass. This is the edge of a holloway. This year's new ferns are rocketing out of the darkness towards the sky.

In May the Foxgloves add to the natural fireworks display.

If the holloway is a deep one then the foxgloves can be thirty feet above your head.

It has been a great year for Wisteria too. For some time I have meant to look up the origin of the name and as I suspected it derives from someone's name. Thomas Nuttall an English botanist chose the name for this genus of flowering plants to honour Caspar Wistar. Both men lived and worked in Philadelphia, USA, and Wistar was a professor in the School of Medicine. It became Wisteria and not Wistaria for "Euphony" according to Nuttall.

Euphony - Is the effect of sounds being perceived as pleasant, rhythmical, lyrical, or harmonious.

Another walker is emerging up the hill behind me, to a viewpoint above the village of South Pool. He had a small dog called Alan who was not pleased to see me. The dog being called Alan immediately brought to mind the story from the comedy, Blackadder.

"A Dachshund named Colin" is described as one of a population of only four in the Parliamentary constituency of Dunny on the Wold. This leaves the constituency open to corruption, and Blackadder thus wins his seat in Parliament.

A passing ship hugs the horizon, some miles away.

Is this Tahiti? No, the water is probably a bit colder.

Rare orchids are now becoming a more common sight. This one sits just at the edge of the road, on its lonesome.

Bluebells are scattered about.

The vivid new lime green of the Hart's Tongue Ferns, which are backlit by the warm sunshine. My favourites.

These rocks were exposed during an abnormally low tide. Only the ones that are more often underwater have this seaweed coating.

The table top flatness of the slate cliffs, albeit they are nearly vertical, is broken by occasional cracks that are soon inhabited by grasses or Thrift.

Succulents with exotic flowers that attract electric blue beetles, are loving the salty shingle, set back from the worst of the winds and waves.

Did someone place this shell in this perfect spot? It wasn't me.

This natural sculpture is unfeasibly clever, balancing several tons of fallen slate on the perfect slender prop. This is no result of an Arts Council Grant though, just wind, rain and gravity, it is what you might call a free lunch. I'm tempted to add a plaque with my name on it, and a title for the work. It reminds me a little of Rodin's Thinker.

As a human with legs, I have never before dealt with the concept of "stepping stones" as actually being, from a swan's point of view, watery slots to paddle through. I had to wait for these swans to cross my path using their "paddle slots".

There is evidence of rock falls along the base of these cliffs but someone has been here checking things out.

Meanwhile in the man made environment of the large city I have a series of architecture shots. I thought it would be interesting to place them in order of date, so without any research I started off guessing what order they should follow. I wonder how many I will have to move around.

We are in Liverpool, and we found ourselves walking along a perfectly intact street of houses, all different and yet all of a similar style and date.

Rodney Street in Liverpool, England, was laid out in 1783–1784 by William Roscoe and others. It was named after George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney, who, in 1782, secured a naval victory over the Comte de Grasse at the Battle of the Saintes. It was developed piecemeal up to the 1820s with houses for the affluent, escaping the old town centre. There are over 60 Grade II listed buildings on the street. Wikipedia

The Battle of the Saintes, of which I had never heard, was in fact an historic naval battle in the Caribbean. The British victory was considered their greatest over the French, during the American Revolutionary War. The win by the British meant that the people of Jamaica today speak English and not French. As Michael Caine might have said "And not a lot of people know that".

This is a bombed out church left unrepaired, as a memorial. St Luke's Church, more commonly known by locals as the "bombed-out church", is a former Anglican parish church in Liverpool, England. It stands on the corner of Berry Street and Leece Street, at the top of Bold Street. The church was built between 1811 and 1832, and was designed by John Foster, Sr. and John Foster, Jr. The church was badly damaged by bombs during the Liverpool Blitz in 1941 and has been a roofless shell ever since, giving rise to its nickname.Wikipedia

Lime Street Station, played a part in our visit as our hotel was its neighbour, and from our bedroom window we heard every train announcement echoing around down below this roof. Surprisingly soothing it was too.

The iron and glass roofs date from the 1870's. Liverpool Lime Street is a terminus railway station and the main station serving the city centre of Liverpool. Opened in August 1836, it is the oldest still-operating grand terminus mainline station in the world.

This is the most famous building in Liverpool, with the bird that bears its name. There are two of these towers each topped with an identical Liver Bird.

The Royal Liver Building is a Grade I listed building in Liverpool, England. It is located at the Pier Head and along with the neighbouring Cunard Building and Port of Liverpool Building is one of Liverpool's Three Graces, which line the city's waterfront.

Opened in 1911, the building was the purpose-built home of the Royal Liver Assurance group, which had been set up in the city in 1850 to provide locals with assistance related to losing a wage-earning relative. One of the first buildings in the world to be built using reinforced concrete, the Royal Liver Building stands at 103.7 m (340 ft) to the top of the birds. Atop each tower stand the mythical Liver birds, designed by Carl Bernard Bartels. The birds are named Bella and Bertie, looking to the sea and inland, respectively. Wikipedia

Obviously Art Deco, and a stunning example, the George's Dock Building was designed by Herbert Rowse, chief architect of the Queensway tunnel, and is the most ambitious of the six buildings constructed to provide ventilation for the 2.1 mile long road tunnel under the River Mersey. The building stands to the east of the Port of Liverpool Building on the reclaimed George's Dock and was completed in c.1934. The building takes the form of a square engine house, with extensions north and south rising five double-height storeys containing offices. Above the engine house is the air shaft, a square column rising to the height of the neighbouring Port of Liverpool building. The building is finished in a spare Art Deco style and faced with Portland stone. Wikipedia

This is a relocated original tollbooth from the tunnel.

Now dating this one, below, is tricky for a very big reason. It is Britain's largest church and the fifth largest church in the world. It took me twenty minutes to circumnavigate it on foot, as it is the longest cathedral in the world, it is also one of the world's tallest non-spired church buildings and the fourth-tallest structure in the city of Liverpool. The cathedral is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and I will be making a seperate post about it to show it in more detail.

Technically I do have it in the correct timeline though as it was opened in 1978 by Queen Elizabeth II. The dating issue is complicated by the fact that it's construction began in 1904 and was interrupted by two World Wars.

The scale and complexity of the building means that it was a unique project. It's architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was born in the forty second year of Queen Victoria's reign. He also designed the iconic red telephone box. I have dubbed it Art Deco Gothic.

You may be confused by the style as it looks at the same time, High Victorian, and very twentieth century too. It is also constructed in the same way as a medieval cathedral would have been built. Every inch carved by hand from stone.

The scale of the building is truly awe inspiring. Looking up above, it feels medieval, while looking at the details down below brings you back to the modern, with its abstract art, vibrant acres of stained glass, and Art Deco angels.

These two buildings are part of the Mann Island Buildings group and are dubbed Latitude and Longitude. They were completed in 2011 as part of the Liverpool waterfront redevelopment.

My first thought when I walked past this building was printed circuits. Full marks for me then. This building dates from 2017 and is the newest one in this series. Originally called Sensor City it was a victim of the Covid Lockdown and never reopened. Subsequently, it has now been reborn as Central Tech and is described as an "innovation hub".

As for guessing about my architectural timeline, I only had to move one photo in the end. I had presumed the glass roof of Lime Street station was later than it in fact was and the Liver building earlier.