Bridges

I like bridges, they bring people together.

They are also structures where engineering rubs shoulders with art. Roadways slung from mighty cables span the dizzying space above vast rivers, cantilevers stretch out their arms towards each other while cosy, domesticated hump-backs still exploit the strength and elegance of the arch, as they have since antiquity.

This post, then consists of pictures of bridges; a not entirely random collection from the archives, but all of them pre-date the blog and appear nowhere else among these pages.

For my own convenience photographs appear, in the order I or Lynne took them.

The Pont Saint-Bénézet, Avignon August 1982

France

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

So I start way back in the days when I had a beard and our daughter was an infant. Siân grew up and is now the mother of our two lovely grandchildren, and the beard, well that had to go. It would be grey now, like the little that remains of the rest of my hair.

The Pont Saint-Bénézet, better known as the Pont d'Avignon

Bridges bring people together, I wrote, but not the Pont d'Avignon, not any more anyway. Built across the Rhône between 1177 and 1185 it was destroyed forty years later during the Albigensian Crusade. It was rebuilt - many times. 'The strength and elegance of arches,' I wrote, but arches are tricky things. The Rhône floods most years, and those floods often brought down an arch or two. It was abandoned in the 17th century and today only 3 of the original 22 arches survive.

The Crooked River High Bridge, Oregon, USA, April 1984

The Crooked River High Bridge

USA

Oregon

Driving north from San Francisco to Seattle in a cool wet August we detoured away from the coast in search of warmer weather. East of the Cascades and on the fringes of the Oregon High Desert we were crossing a featureless land of junipers and sagebrush when a sign warned us of the approaching Peter Skene Ogden Scenic Wayside.

It was difficult to imagine there would be anything scenic in this flat land, but suddenly and without warning (except for the sign) the land dropped away and we were amazed to find ourselves crossing the undoubtedly scenic Crooked River. We Old World Europeans had been duped by the New World, this is a young country geologically as well politically.

The wayside, now a 'State Scenic Viewpoint', is named for Peter Skene Ogden who arrived here in 1825 leading a Hudson Bay Company trapping party. The High Bridge was opened in 1926 and carried US97 when we 'discovered' it in 1983 and returned in 1984. A new bridge was built in 2001 and the High Bridge is now pedestrian only.

Bridge over the River Saar, Saarburg, Germany July 1991

The River Saar at Saarburg

Germany

This is hardly the most elegant of bridges, but it somehow makes the scene and is just high enough for the barge heading downstream towards the much larger Mosel. On the lower slopes of the hills the vineyards of the Saar are some of the most northerly and finest in Germany.

Bridge over the Debed, Alaverdi, Armenia July 2003

Armenia

The magnificent Haghpat Monastery in the hills above Alaverdi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but that cannot stop Alaverdi being one of the most depressed and depressing towns we have ever visited. Once it was a copper smelting town in the industrial heartland of northern Armenia but when the Soviet Union collapsed so did the market for its copper. The 26,000 population halved between 1989 and 2011 and although industry can look grim, industrial dereliction always looks grimmer.

Industrial dereliction, Alaverdi

But turn around on this exact spot and face the other way....

Debed Bridge, Alaverdi

...and there is Alaverdi's delightful 12th century bridge across the River Debed.

Pont de Zaglia, Spelunca Gorge, Corsica July 2006

France

Corsica

There is no road along the Spelunca Gorge, but the river can be accessed from the coastal road between Ajaccio and Calvi. A kilometre or three along the pleasantly shady streamside track brings you to the Pont de Zaglia.

Pont de Zaglia, Spelunca Gorge

Corsica has been a French island since 1794 but in medieval times it had several, often competing rulers including Pisa, Aragon and most importantly Genoa. Dominant for 300 years from the late 13th century, the Genoese built coastal towers to warn of attacks from pirates and Barbary slavers, and roads and bridges to open up the rugged interior. A simple elegant arch never built to carry anything larger than a pack animal, the Pont de Zaglia is a lesson to the builders of Avignon. Even a slim, delicate arch, when you get it right, can withstand half a millennium of storms and floods.

oOoOo

There are plenty of bridges in other posts, many of them memorable. There is the tragic yet extraordinarily beautiful bridge at Mostar, there is the cutesy 'Japanese bridge' at Hoi An in Vietnam, the elegant modern bridge across the Guadiana between Spain and Portugal, and the bridges over the Rivers Irtysh and Yenisey on the Trans-Siberian railway, rivers so huge that in the heart of the world's largest continent their banks have cranes and quays like a seaport. And there is also the misnamed Bridge on the River Kwai which we visited in November 2015 and that, too, has a story to tell.

Commemorating the Dead: Tsunami, Earthquake and War

Local Memorials to Major Tradgedies

Following Favourite Gravestones I am progressing from memorials for one person or family to memorials for a community.

This is not about national memorials - most countries have their cenotaph or eternal flame (flames in Moscow, Sarajevo and Baku feature in this blog) - but about more localised memorials. The first we have come across by accident, the second we were shown by a local guide, the third we sought out.

Boxing Day Tsunami, Tharamgambadi (formerly Tranquebar) Tamil Nadu, India

On the 20th of February 2009 we drove from Pondicherry, down the coast of Tamil Nadu to Tranquebar.

The Danish Admiral Ove Gjedde had been there before us (in 1620) and he built Fort Dansborg.

Fort Daneborg, Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

Tranquebar remained in Danish hands until 1845 when it was sold to the British along with all other Danish possessions in India (hands up those who knew there were any).

In the afternoon we strolled through the small town...

Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

....and came across this obelisk.

Tsunami Memorial, Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

At first we did not realise what it was. There is much writing around the base, gold against the black stone, but Tamil is one of the many languages we do not speak - and it is written in one of the many alphabets we cannot read. It appeared to be a list of names, some 250 we estimated, such as you might see on a war memorial, but we could think of no war that could have wreaked such devastation on this small town. Then we noticed the one thing we could read. It was a date, 26/12/2004, the date of the Boxing Day Tsunami. We should have realised straight away, but somehow it had not entered our heads.

Our hotel, The Bungalow on the Beach, had once been the residence of the Governor of Danish India. Many years later, and after two years of extensive restoration it opened as a hotel on Christmas Day 2004 - not an auspicious day to open a hotel on that particular beach.

The Bugalow on the Beach, Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

Hotels can be repaired, and it opened again three months later. It is important to remember those whose lives could not be so easily repaired after the events of Sunday the 26th of December 2004.

The Spitak Earthquake Khachkar, Vanadzor, Armenia

On December the 7th 1988 a major earthquake struck northern Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union. Its epicentre was near the small town of Spitak. Between 25 and 50,000 people died in Spitak and the larger cities on either side, Leninakan (now called Gyumri) and Kirovakan (now Vanadzor).

The break up of the Soviet Union had a dire effect on both the Armenian economy and the earthquake rebuilding programme. When we visited in 2003 it was still easy to find earthquake damage in Gyumri.

Earthquake damage, Gyumri

Khachkars (literally 'Cross Stones') are rectangular stones carved with crosses and other floral and decorative motifs. Carving khachkars is a peculiarly Armenian craft and they have been doing it since the 9th century, at least. Every church and monastery has its collection of medieval khachkars and Armenian independence has brought about a resurgence in the craft.

It was appropriate to commemorate the victims of the earthquake with a khachkar. This simple, understated but very effective memorial sits in the churchyard in Vanadzor where many of the victims are buried.

Earthquake Memorial Khachkar, Vanadzor Church

38th (Welsh Division) Memorial, Mametz Wood, France

Tsunamis and earthquakes are beyond human control; wars are not. We should be able to avoid them, but apparently that is beyond the wit of humankind. Perhaps one disincentive to starting new wars is to remember the horror of those that have gone before.

No war killed and wounded more British and Commonwealth servicemen than the First World War. It is hardly surprising that there are memorials the whole length of the Western front. The major memorials on the British sector, The Menin Gate in Ypres, the soaring Canadian Memorial on Vimy Ridge and the huge Anglo-French Memorial on the Somme at Thiepval are well known (and now feature elsewhere in this blog). Less well known, and a little harder to find, is the memorial to the Welsh Division at Mametz Wood.

The Memorial can be reached by driving a couple of kilometres down a single track road off the Mametz-Contalmaison road, hardly a major highway itself. It stands beside a small quarry where the metalled road gives out.

38th (Welsh Division) Memorial, Mametz Wood

Between in the 7th and 12th of July 1916, as a part of the Battle of the Somme, the Welsh Division attacked across the open ground in front of the dragon and took the wood beyond against fierce opposition. The division lost 5,000 men killed or wounded. The 14th Battalion started with almost 700 men and finished with 276, others fared little better.

38th (Welsh Division) Memorial, Mametz Wood

There has been a memorial in Mametz church since the 1920s, but this memorial, the work of Welsh sculptor David Petersen, was erected only in the late 1980s at the request of the last surviving veterans.

Beside the narrow road poppies grow among the brassicas.

Poppies, Mametz Wood

For more about the destruction of the Welsh Division at Mamtez Wood see The Somme: One Hundred Years Ago Today

See also Three Favourite Gravestones

Three Favourite Gravestones: Armenia, China & Wales

It Isn't Really a Holiday Unless you Have Been Round a Graveyard...

...as Lynne so often says.

Père Lachaise in Paris and Highgate Cemetery in London are well established on the tourist trail, but the graves of non-famous people in non-major cities can also be interesting.

Grave of a Baker
near Goris, Southern Armenia August 2002

We had driven out from Goris to see some ancient cave dwellings. Getting as close to the caves as we could - which was not actually close enough to make them interesting - we walked through a graveyard. Several of the newer headstones bore representations of the deceased in a style we have not seen anywhere else.

The grave of a baker, near Goris, southern Armenia

I imagine he was proud of his profession and wanted the casual visitor to know that he had spent his life producing fine bread - an honourable and noble calling.

Grave of a Miao village
An Chi village, Guizhou Province, South West China November 2010

The Miao are one of China's larger ethnic minorities. 10 million Miao live in communities across south west China with another 1.5 million in northern Vietnam and Laos (where they prefer to be called Hmong). The Miao are divided into a multitude of subgroups, speaking several different though related languages. The Chinese and Vietnamese traditionally classify the groups by the dominant colour of the women's traditional clothing. An Chi, in rural South West Guizhou, is a Black Miao village.

Black Miao women, An Chi

Graves are situated throughout the village and adjoining fields. The distribution appears random but the graves are all in auspicious sites, carefully chosen by the village shaman.

Black Miao gravestone, An Chi

The gravestone names the deceased and gives a detailed genealogy including not only forebears but also descendants who are added, generation by generation, in ever smaller script as they arrive in the world.

The Davies Family Vault
St Cynog's Church, Penderyn, South Wales Summer 1991

Lynne is a keen genealogist and despite the problems caused by the Welsh National Surname Shortage, has traced both our families back through many generations.

It has long been a source of amusement to her then when searching for the graves of my ancestors it is usually sufficient to walk into the churchyard and head for the largest monument. It worked for my paternal grandmother's family in Magor in 2010, and we had found the technique effective for my other grandmother's family in Penderyn twenty years earlier.

Penderyn is a village on the southern edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Since 2000 it has been the home of the first (and only) malt whisky distillery in Wales. More importantly to my ancestors it is only a long drop kick north of the industrial valleys of South Wales, where they made their money.

The Davies family vault, St Cynog's, Penderyn
The picture was taken in 1991. Little has changed, except my daughter
and I are now more than 20 years older

The angel on the top of this Victorian monstrosity is probably pointing the way to heaven. I prefer to think the mason was a cricketer (as, doubtless, God is too) and the angel is the celestial umpire giving my ancestors 'out'.

Street Chess in Armenia, Bosnia and Vietnam

Chess and its Variants are Played in Every Country - and in Any Space

I am not much of a chess player. I can usually beat the computer on Microsoft Chess Titans at level 2, which probably puts me at the level of a very average ten-year-old. Nor do I wander round the world looking for chess players to photograph, but when they fall into my lap......

Gyumri, Armenia

Armenia's second city Gyumri, formerly Leninakan (and before that Alexandropol, and before that Gyumri) is situated in the northern highlands some 130 km from the capital Yerevan. We visited in 2002, 14 years after the city was devastated by an earthquake that forced Mikhail Gorbachev to cut short his visit to London. Damaged buildings were easy to find and there were still people living in shipping containers. Worse, we saw several relief projects that had been abandoned when the money ran out, and there were signs that some foreign donors (Americans, to be precise) had been more interested in rebuilding churches than rehousing people.

A game of chess,Gyumri, Armenia

These chess players were sitting on a wall at the edge of a street near the city centre, completely absorbed in their game and oblivious to passers-by.

Sarajevo, Bosnia

This oversized chess board is in Trg Oslobodenja (Liberation Square), the centre of Sarajevo's Austro-Hungarian quarter. Whenever we went past a game was in progress and there was always a crowd of people watching - and advising. How they decide who gets to play we never discovered.

Trg Oslobodenja, Sarajevo, Bosnia

Sarajevo went through hell in the 1990s. The stylised, bloodless form of warfare that is chess is a vast improvement.

Can Tho, Vietnam

Chinese chess, or Xianqi, is a closely related game. Each player has a general and soldiers, advisors, elephants, horses, cannons and chariots who all have different moves. The 'board' is often made of cloth, plastic or even paper and can be unrolled anywhere. The game is widely played and can be seen in any park or open space in China, and even in the street.

And it is not just played in China....

Chinese chess, Can Tho, Mekong delta

...Chinese chess is also played in Vietnam. These two were deep in concentration on a street corner in Can Tho, the largest city in the Mekong delta.

The Stone Circle (1): Swynnerton to Fulford

The First of Three Sections of a 60Km Circular Walk around the Town of Stone

Staffordshire

Stafford Borough

Over a thousand stone circles survive in Britain and Ireland from the Neolithic and early Bronze Ages. This post is about none of them.

This Stone Circle is a 60 km circular walk centred on the Staffordshire town of Stone. We are indebted to Stone Ramblers, who designed and way-marked the Stone Circles Challenge, though Francis has planned occasional variations from their route to arrive at an appropriate pub at lunchtime or pass through an area of particular interest. Unintentional variations may crop up later, but navigation in Part 1 presented few problems.

Alison, Francis, Brian, David and Mike preparing to set off, Swynnerton

Swynnerton to Tittensor via Beech

Despite my protestations and offers of help, Lynne insisted on cooking us all bacon and eggs, then we donned our boots and set off towards Beech. From the upper lane out of the village (sometimes known as Stabb Lane, for reasons lost in the mists of time) it becomes clear how exposed Swynnerton is, with no higher ground to provide protection from the prevailing westerlies. Unsurprisingly, we endure a dank and chilly microclimate. On a bright day the views are extensive with the Wrekin, 20 miles distant, in the fore ground, and the Long Mynd, and even the Berwyns 50 miles away in mid-Wales clearly visible. So why does my photograph show Alison, Francis and Brian looking at Swynnerton’s Millennium Topograph rather than the view itself? Because on a clear day you can see all these wonders - on Saturday we could just make out a blurry lump in the mist where the Wrekin ought to be.

Looking at the topograph, not the view, Swynnerton Millennium Topograph

The path to Beech starts as a green lane between fields still bare in early March, though the hedgerow broom was beginning to flower. A flock of fieldfares wheeled beside us; according to Francis they should have already left for their summer residences in Scandinavia, but they had clearly not read the textbook. A pair of buzzards quartered the same field watching for small careless mammals. As the path dipped into the woods a flash of colour signalled the first of several jays we would see in the day.

Beech is small, even for a hamlet. We turned east down a metalled lane to approach the M6 bridge. Mike questioned if it was the right motorway crossing. ‘Shouldn’t we have gone through Beach first?’ he asked. It really is that memorable.

The M6 Staffordshire

We crossed the M6. I post the picture above merely to put it alongside that of another road also designated as the M6 in its national classification. This M6 is the main road connecting Gyumri and Vanadzor, the largest towns in northern Armenia. And we complain about potholes.

The M6, Gyumri to Vanadzor, Armenia

We emerged on Winghouse Lane outside Tittensor by a large private duck pond. I have driven past it many times, but never stopped to look. Brian and Francis excitedly identified teals, pintails, tufted ducks and mandarins. When Francis spotted a smew joy was unconfined. Smew sounds like an ailment in a Victorian novel (Aunt Glegg, being severely discomfited by as nasty a case of the Smew as ever…), but is, apparently, a particularly handsome duck. I spotted none of my favourites, confit, Beijing and à l’orange.

Tittensor, Barlaston and on to Downs Bank

Reaching Tittensor via a more natural but less well-populated lake, we enjoyed an unnecessarily long meander through the houses to locate and cross the A34. Beyond the village we descended to a footbridge over the River Trent. It is hard to believe this insignificant stream becomes one of England’s largest rivers. Mike said he once canoed the Trent from above here to past Stafford. On a warm day with the high banks restricting visibility, he said it reminded him of the Dordogne. I closed my eyes and squinted; I flooded the area with mental sunshine, but eventually had to admit that Mike has a better imagination than me – either that or he is delusional.

The Trent (or is the Dordogne?) near Tittensor

Across the water meadows we reached Barlaston and paused for coffee by the Trent and Mersey canal. The local mallards were doing what mallards do, which in spring is gang rape. I am sure no cultured smew on a duckpond would ever do such a thing.

The Trent & Mersey Canal, Barlaston

Modern lines of communication, like the M6, power in and out of the Trent Valley at their pleasure, but the eighteenth century canal and the nineteenth century railway run side by side along the valley bottom. Walking a kilometre up the canal towpath took us from Barlaston Station to Wedgwood Station where we crossed the canal bridge and then the railway. The Wedgwood factory moved from Etruria to its current, somewhat improbable, parkland setting in 1940 and Wedgwood station was opened the same year. There are fewer workers now and those that remain never come to work by rail as no trains stop at either Wedgwood or Barlaston – though oddly neither station is officially closed.

Having zigged up the canal, we zagged back across the fields past Barlaston Hall. The Hall was built in 1786 as a manor house and was later home to the Wedgwood Memorial College. The College moved out when the building was seriously damaged by mining subsidence. After threats of demolition, the house was sold in 1981 to SAVE British Heritage for £1. Now restored it is again a private residence.

Barlaston Hall

Given the eccentricity of our route and the village’s elongated S-shape, we should not have been surprised that two kilometres after passing Barlaston station we found ourselves re-entering Barlaston. A quick stroll round the boundary at the cricket club took us out into the fields again where we deviated from the Stone Circles route, turning south towards Downs Banks.

Downs Bank, Oulton and up to Moddershall

We reached Downs Bank only after wading through a kilometre of country odours, first pig effluent then silage. The 67-hectare glacial valley was donated to the National Trust in 1950 by John Joule of Stone’s long defunct but still missed Joule's Brewery. A pleasing piece of countryside, it functions officially as a nature reserve, and unofficially as a dog-walking facility.

From the end of the valley we climbed to the village of Oulton with its collection of attractive brick buildings - Oulton Grange, Oulton Hall and Oulton Abbey - all hiding behind equally attractive but not so photogenic brick walls.

After a couple of pints of Timothy Taylor’s ‘Landlord’ and a bite to eat at the Wheatsheaf we descended to the Stone/Meir Road, and climbed up the other side toward Moddershall. It was a stiff climb, the last part under the watchful eye of a young but sizeable bull who allowed us to proceed unmolested once he realised that we were not interested in any of his ladies.

Mike and Brian climb towards Moddershall

Past Idlerocks, Over Stallington Heath and on to Fulford

By the Boar Inn we entered the Idlerocks defile. There is nothing obviously indolent about the local geology, but the path at the valley bottom is narrow and the drainage ditch deep. Foot watching seemed important, but we did not miss the deer on the skyline observing our passing.

A Deer watching us from the skyline, Idlerocks

At the top of the defile the valley opens out and a moment’s map consultation was called for before proceeding up to Stallington Heath.

A moment's map consultation

Stallington Heath greeted us with a large padlocked gate labelled ‘Danger – do not enter’. Next to it was an open gate and a ‘public footpath’ sign. We followed the footpath through deciduous woodland, the floor carpeted with last season’s leaves. What was ‘dangerous’ about the larger parallel track was not obvious, unless the inhabitants of Fulford have taken to mining the approaches to their village. Our path became narrower and muddier and we found eventually ourselves pushing past rhododendrons just coming into bud.

Stallington Heath

Reaching a minor road, we strode into Fulford where Brian’s car had previously been parked.

It was a pleasant day’s walk with perhaps a little more tarmac and housing estates than the ideal, but warm enough for early March and, most importantly, dry (almost) all day. We walked some 18 km, though finishing less than 12 kilometres from where we started. That is the first third of the Stone Circle completed. Part 2 will be on the 9th of April.

The Stone Circle

Part 1: Swynnerton to Fulford
Part 2: Fulford to Sandon Bank
Part 3: Sandon Bank to Swynnerton