Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park

My first visit to the Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park was in 2018 and I've been meaning to return ever since. I finally made it! Tucked away up in Nidderdale, between Masham and Ripon, the woodland gardens, now covering over 45 acres, were created by Peter and Caroline Roberts after they bought the land in 1996. The gardens are now in the care of a charitable trust. Since my last visit a lot more has been developed and there are many more sculptures, in both permanent and temporary displays. 

'Contemplation Circle' (Liam O'Neill) consists of five huge chairs, each carved from a single piece of timber. 

'Bullrushes/Reedmace' (Michael Kusz) was part of the Landscape Exhibition of pieces exploring the intersection of art and nature. 

'Roebuck Deer' is one of several realistic pieces by Hamish Mackie, who also created 'The Swift', which you can see below. 

The steep site originally had a few rhododendrons along the drive and they inspired a vision to develop the site as a Himalayan garden. It now has one of the largest collections of rhododendrons, azaleas and magnolias in the North of England. My visit was a little late in the season for the best showing of these cultivars. Most of the blooms were withered, though I still found a few bright spots of colour. 

'Fisherman Head' ( Christopher Marvell) is a quirky, humorous work, aptly sited by one of the lakes. 

'This is Not a Knot' ( Karin van der Molen) was another wry creation, suspended in the trees. 

'Magnolia' (Rebecca Newnham) floats serenely in another lake, to which it gives its name. 

Sunday meditation: Lone leaf

I led an outing for my camera club around Saltaire and up the Glen Tramway to Shipley Glen. It was well attended and we had lots of fun, but I was so busy chatting and making sure we didn't lose anyone that I hardly took any photos myself. Of the half dozen images I came home with, I liked this one the best: a study of a lone leaf on the mill pond in the woods.

'A few stray leaves are floating along the surface, and I like how peaceful they look, 

not going under the water, and not blowing away either. 

Just floating, weightless and effortless.'   Carian Cole

'Anyone can love a rose, but it takes a lot to love a leaf. It’s ordinary to love the beautiful, 
but it’s beautiful to love the ordinary.'   MJ Korvan 

'Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, 
and take an insect view of its plain.'  Henry David Thoreau

A day being Gran

When most schools went back after half-term, my youngest granddaughter (9) had a couple of extra days for 'staff training', so I was drafted in to spend one of the days with her. We decided to go to Halifax to the cinema, and on the way we called in at Manor Heath Park, one of our favourite local places. There's a small 'jungle experience' - heated greenhouses with tropical plants, huge butterflies and ponds and streams with fish and terrapins. It's all rather fun and quite educational, though these days it tends to be my granddaughter educating me, rather than the other way round! 

She guided me round the back to a walled garden that I didn't even know about. It was really attractive and peaceful and we happily explored the planting and the winding paths. M is rarely still and, given half a chance, will find a spot for dancing and jumping about. 

In one of the flower beds she discovered a small stone, painted with a picture of a blue whale. 'Look, Gran, a whale.' 'Oh, well spotted,' said I. 'Whale spotted,' she retorted, quick as a flash. I think that's the first time she's made a little joke like that with me. Obviously she's taking after me and her mum. We both love puns. 

We had a very congenial day out. The film we saw was 'Garfield, the Movie'. Of course, being deaf, I can't hear the dialogue but it wasn't hard to follow the storyline. To add to the fun, it was in 3D so we had dark glasses to wear and it appeared that things were coming out towards us from the screen. Weird but enjoyable.

Backstage details

During our tour of Harrogate Theatre, we were allowed onto the stage and into the wings - a surprisingly constricted area full of random bits of detritus. The walls backstage are all painted black, I suppose so they can't easily been seen from the audience. It was all a bit the worse for wear, with chalk-scrawled notes and jokes, many of which seemed related to the Covid era. There was a list that was perhaps a tally of the performers who succumbed to the illness during a production run. 

Wide brooms must be for sweeping the stage - and some of the wiring and heating looked positively antiquated! 

I found the lone glass slipper rather poignant... and I've no idea what is 'Bad!' 

The area above the stage rises very high, hung with 'curtains' that can be dropped down on ropes when they want to change the scenery. There were vertiginous ladders at various points - and no, I didn't climb the 'stairway to heaven'! 

To the untrained eye, the mass of ropes looked like a real tangle but I guess the stagehands know exactly what to do, which to release and when, for each production, 

The auditorium

Harrogate Theatre's auditorium is of traditional design, with stalls, a circle and an upper circle, and some boxes at the sides. It reminded me of when I was child and my parents took our family to the theatre in Nottingham to see a pantomime. My father hired a box for us all and I felt very grand sitting there in our exclusive little pod, although you do get a rather skewed view of the stage from the side. I think boxes were originally intended not so much for viewing the performance as for the occupants to be seen by others in the audience (ie: 'the Royal Box') and for them to be able to survey the general scene from on high.  

My camera's lens wasn't wide enough to take in the full sweep of the auditorium, either from the front of house or the stage. However, these pictures give a flavour of what it is like. It was once very 'grand' and is still quite functional, if rather shabby and worn in parts.  

Harrogate Theatre

We had a camera club outing to Harrogate and a private tour of Harrogate Theatre, formerly the Grand Opera House. Its history is detailed on the plaque shown below: 

It's not a huge theatre and with about ten photographers - all with tripods - it proved a bit tricky to manoeuvre around to get the shots we all wanted. In the end, I ditched my tripod (never my favourite gadget anyway) in favour of hand-held shots, so mine are a bit less than sharp. 

The foyer is quite attractive, with an ornate ceiling and original panelling. The beautiful frieze depicting theatrical scenes was created by Frances Darlington (1880-1939), a local sculptor whose very fine work I also saw in St Wilfrid's Church (see HERE).

'Tragedy and Comedy':

'The Rehearsal of a Mystery Play':

'Fun and Frolic Mocking Time':

Any guesses as to what this (below) is?:

It's an ashtray for cigars and cigarettes. There were several dotted around, clearly a necessity at some point in the past. Now smoking is banned in public places, it's hard to remember what it was like when the air near the ceiling was foggy with smoke and the reek of cigarettes and cigars was all-pervasive in pubs, clubs, theatres and on public transport. 

More filming!

After another busy day with tradesmen renovating my new flat, I popped out for an early evening walk. I didn't realise that they had closed the main crossroads in the middle of Saltaire to traffic and were actively filming. Of course that limited where I could walk and I couldn't get that close to the action but every now and again they had to stop to allow local traffic and pedestrians to move around. It must be very frustrating for them really, trying to co-ordinate everything. There are loads of extras involved, which seems to involve an awful lot of standing around waiting for the odd few moments of actual filming. 

The film is 'The Choral', set in 1916: screenplay by Alan Bennett, director Nicholas Hytner and starring Ralph Fiennes, Jim Broadbent and Simon Russel Beale, though I've still seen no sign of any of them. 

I rather like the look of Saltaire when they convert the shops to more old-fashioned ones. It would be nice to have a post office, a greengrocer's and more 'ordinary' shops in the centre again. The village is now full of cafés, bars, a couple of gift shops, an art gallery, a bakery, hairdressers and an off-licence/sweetshop. The more 'useful' shops are concentrated up the hill on Gordon Terrace. 

And then it rained - a sudden, very sharp downpour with thunder and lightning! Luckily by then I was sheltered under trees on the canal towpath and was able to avoid getting drenched but it must have caused havoc on the film set. All the gravel they'd laid over the tarmac was being washed away. 

 

Fewston reflections

The Blubberhouses walk brought me back along the edge of Fewston reservoir. On a bright, sunny day, the reflections in the shallow water were vivid greens, blues and oranges. 

See how strong the colour palette is, with colours sampled directly from the images:

 

Unintentional abstract

On the edge of Fewston reservoir, I was fascinated by a grove of trees at the waterline, with trunks partially submerged. The colours and reflections made intriguing patterns. This is a straight photo but looks like something you might create with clever use of multiple exposures or software.

Filming

I had just alighted from the train at Saltaire station on my return from Leeds the other day. There were a lot of commuters going up the footpath onto Albert Terrace and we found ourselves walking right into the middle of a film set! As I mentioned the other day, they are filming an Alan Bennett drama called 'The Choral', set in WW1. It stars Ralph Fiennes, Jim Broadbent and Simon Russell Beale, so it's a high budget film. Alas, I haven't seen any of the stars round and about, just a lot of crew and extras.