Author: jamesclay

Posted on

Then and Now – St Pancras Railway Station

St Pancras Railway Station

I took this photograph of St Pancras Railway Station in March 2019 from an office building across from the station.

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart.

I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.

I always think I should give them a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. The first instance of this that I noticed was in May 2019 when I went to  Manchester. It only really came to my attention that I was doing this a lot, when checking the Places function on the Apple Photos Mac App that I could see I had taken the same photograph of the same thing just years apart!

Back in August 2007 I took this photograph of St Pancras Railway Station.

St Pancras Railway Station

At the time the station was undergoing an £800 million refurbishment to become the terminal for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link as part of an urban regeneration plan across East London.

London St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It is the terminus for Eurostar services from Belgium, France and the Netherlands to London. It provides East Midlands Railway services to Leicester, Corby, Derby, Sheffield and Nottingham on the Midland Main Line, Southeastern high-speed trains to Kent via Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International, and Thameslink cross-London services to Bedford, Cambridge, Peterborough, Brighton and Gatwick Airport. It stands between the British Library, the Regent’s Canal and London King’s Cross railway station, with which it shares a London Underground station, King’s Cross St Pancras.

This is the (similar) view of the station which I photographed in June 2016.

Two years later I was back and took a similar shot in September 2018.

This time I was actually catching a train from St Pancras to Paris (and then onto Brest) for a conference presentation.

I was back at St Pancras in August 2021, however I took a photograph from a different perspective.

St Pancras Railway Station

Close by to St Pancras is Kings Cross Railway Station.

Posted on

The other side of the Gorge

At the weekend we went for a walk around Leigh Woods. I went to Leigh Woods once, about twenty years ago, but have not been there since then. This I find quite surprising, as I do live in the area, and go regularly to Ashton Court, the Downs, which are all roughly in the same area.

Leigh Woods is quite small, a 2-square-kilometre (0.77 sq mi) area of woodland on the south-west side of the Avon Gorge, close to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. 

We parked the car and looked at the map and thought about which route to take. We walked through the woods and down to the Avon Gorge.

There were a couple of streams which feed into the River Avon.

With some modifications to stop flooding of the paths I assume.

We went under the viaduct on the Bristol Portishead railway line.

As it was Saturday and only carries freight now and then, we didn’t see any trains.

We then walked along the Avon Trail in the Gorge. It was really nice to see the Gorge from the other side of the river.  

Generally I either see the Gorge from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, on the Portway or from the Downs.

We walked along the River Avon Trail and then as we reached the Clifton Suspension Bridge we took a right back into Leigh Woods.

We passed some grazing cows which looked out of place on what was quite a steep rocky footpath. Once back at the top we walked back to the car. It was a little further than we planned but was a lovely walk.

Posted on

Going to the cinema

On Friday night we went to the cinema, after checking we ended up at Cineworld in Weston.

We spent over eight pounds on one portion of popcorn and some pick and mix. I can never understand the cost of cinema food. I understand the economics of it, but I do wonder sometimes if that model is flawed.

We saw The Fast and the Furious 9 which was a fun escapist film. It didn’t take itself too seriously, so neither did we. This is the first of these films I have seen from the franchise, having said that I don’t think you needed to have seen the others to enjoy the film (well except perhaps the post credits clip).

Despite being almost opening night, a Friday night and peak time of 7:40pm the cinema was quite empty. The whole complex looked very sad now that Prezzo, Pizza Express and Loco Mexicana have all closed down. The only places left are Nandos and Costa. How long will it be before Cineworld decides to shut.

Posted on

What’s the sculpture?

On a recent visit to Ashton Court I was reminded of this piece of bronze art that was on display at the front of the mansion building.

There wasn’t anything that I could see that said more about the art, so no idea about the title or the sculptor?

What’s the sculpture?

I quite like it though.

Posted on

Things I still never had…

Scrolling through the Twitter I came across this post from UK Vintage Catalogues from the Scalextric in 1963.

It reminded me of a post I had written on this blog about Scalextric, I thought I had written it a few years ago, no it was back in 2012.

I was being slightly nostalgic about the wonders of Scalextric.

I never had Scalextric when I was young.

We don’t even have it in the house now, even with two small boys, they wanted model railways and trains…

I am kind of glad I never got Scalextric as it is obvious (now I am older) that the only way to use Scalextric was to find a constant speed that ensured the car went around the track without falling off and keep doing that, whilst your competitor in an attempt to beat you, would more than likely fall off the track and so you would eventually win!

Though I am too young for this 1963 catalogue, I do remember seeing bridges in the Scalextric catalgoies of the 1980s.

Scalextric Bridges

I do remember once playing Scalextric at a cousin’s house and they had the hump backed bridge.

The memory was that it was really fun.

I will never get Scalextric now, as my memory of wanting it, I know will be ruined by actually playing with it… so I shall just be nostalgic and think about what I missed and never fulfil a dream that would have never come true.

 

Posted on

Filming The Undeclared War

Went to Bristol to work in the office. After the office closed I walked back to my car. Wondered why there was a coffee stall at the FaithSpace, then realised that they were filming today at the FaithSpace in Redcliffe in Bristol. No idea what they were filming and no indication either.

FaithSpace

Found out later in the evening from another Twitter account that it was a Channel 4 production of The Undeclared War.

Set in a post-pandemic 2024 in the run up to a British general election, THE UNDECLARED WAR tracks a leading team of analysts buried in the heart of GCHQ (the UK’s version of the NSA) secretly working to ward off a cyber-attack on the country’s electoral system.

 

Posted on

Then and Now Take Two – Snowing in Weston Village

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.

I published back in February some photos of Weston Village in the snow, so when I was there recently I decided to (intentionally) take a similar photograph and add it to the photographs I had taken there before. This time no snow, just some spring sunshine from April 2020.

Weston Village

However the following photographs were intentionally taken from the same location. I have over the years (when we had snow) taken a particular photograph so here is the 2018 version.

This with the wind and the cold was actually some of the worst weather I have seen down here, but as you can see it doesn’t look too bad…

This was how it looked in December 2010. Back then we had very heavy snow.

This was how it looked in eleven months earlier in January 2010,  again heavy snow.

And here it is in February 2009. At this time this was some of the worst weather we had seen in twenty years. This was taken from the other side of the fence.

 

Posted on

Then and Now – Clevedon Pier

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart.

I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.

I always think I should give them a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart.  The first instance of this that came to my attention was last year in May when I went to Manchester.

It only really came to my attention that I was doing this a lot, when checking the Places function on the Apple Photos Mac App that I could see I had taken the same photograph of the same thing just years apart!

I had taken some similar photographs in Clevedon, which you can see in this blog post.

Clevedon Pier is a seaside pier in the town of Clevedon, North Somerset, England on the east shore of the Severn Estuary. It was described by Sir John Betjeman, as “the most beautiful pier in England”. The pier opened in 1869 and served as an embarkation point for paddle steamer excursions for almost exactly 100 years. Two of the spans collapsed during stress testing in 1970 and demolition was proposed, but local fund raising and heritage grants allowed the pier to be dismantled for restoration and reassembled. It reopened in 1989, the pier now, once again, offers a landing stage for steamers and is a popular attraction for tourists and anglers.

I took this photograph of Clevedon Pier in May 2005.

In July 2014 I took these photographs of the pier.

Not quite the same view, but very close.

In February 2016 I took this photograph.

We were back in Clevedon in June 2017 and this was the photograph I took of the pier.

February 2018 saw me take this photograph.

In July 2019 I took another very similar photograph, this time much closer to the pier though.