Nice Farm Pictures photos
A few nice farm pictures images I found:
Ilam Hall in Staffordshire
Image by UGArdener
Best viewed LARGE on Black: bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=3537830227&size…
We stayed here in this magnificent YHA Hostel for two nights in July, 2006. The rooms were a bit spartan, but it was well worth it in order to be able to wake up on Saturday morning and begin our walk up Dovedale before the inevitable crowds arrived. If you click on the set and run the slide show in Full Screen Mode, you will get a tour of Ilam Hall, Ilam Park, Ilam Village, and a quick walk past Thorpe Cloud to Dovedale at sunset/moonrise on the Friday evening of our arrival. The pictures of our Saturday walk up Dovedale are in this set, which is "under construction":
www.flickr.com/photos/ugardener/sets/72157617037618252/
Here are links to the National Trust site and the Wikipedia entry:
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-ilampark
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilam,_Staffordshire
Here is other information from various sites:
A Tudor mansion once stood on the site of Ilam hall, the home of the Port family. It was sold to David Watts Pike in 1809 and remodelled by Jesse Watts Russel in 1821, the architect being one John Shaw. In 1875 Jesse Watts Russell died, and the house passed to thr Hanbury family, who sold it in 1927 to a restaurateur. He went bankrupt and sold the building to a demolition contractor, who promply moved in and took down two thirds of the building.
Ilam hall and popular country park belong to the national trust now and the hall and grounds are used as a youth hostel, tearooms, shop, information centre, car park and toilets. Whats left of the hall is still an imposing and stately structure, and in the gardens and parkland there is much to see.
Alpine-style cottages, a Tudor Gothic Hall, an eccentric river and a wonderful background of soft green hills make Ilam a very popular place with visitors. Many of whom come to walk in Ilam Hall’s beautiful parkland, along the aptly named Paradise Walk by the River Manifold.
The Manifold disappears for most of its four or five mile route from Wetton Mill, to flow underground before emerging at the Boil Holes, in the grounds of Ilam Hall. Only in the rainy season does it behave like an ordinary river and flow above ground.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, John Port acquired the estate and built a house on the site of the present Ilam Hall. In 1809, David Pike Watts became the owner and on his death, it passed to his daughter. Her husband, Jesse Watts-Russell a wealthy industrialist, had a rather grand hall built. It had battlemented towers, ornamental chimneys and a flag tower. The architect, who designed the hall, was also engaged in the building of Alton Towers and there were some similarities between the two.
The former estate village was mostly demolished and replaced by alpine style cottages, which provided a marked contrast alongside some of the older more traditional buildings. Watts-Russell built the school and provided it with an endowment. It fits in so beautifully with the other alpine style cottages in the village that one cannot imagine any child not wanting to go to school!
The Church of the Holy Cross: Originally Saxon, the church is now mainly 17th and 19th century – the two occasions when it was restored. Some of its Saxon origins can be seen in its carved stone Saxon font, and two stone cross shafts in the churchyard. It is in the Chapel of St Bertram, built in 1618, that the remains and shrine of the St Bertam (or Bertelin) can be found. St Bertam was a 8th Century son of a Mercian king who renounced his royal heritage for prayer and meditation after his wife and child were killed by wolves. He converted many to Christianity. His shrine became a point of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages and is reputed to be able to work miraculous cures.
A hall has been here since John Port had the 1st one built in 1546. Both William Congreve and Dr Samual Johnson have stayed at the hall when it was owned by the Port family. Congreve wrote his first play, "The Old Bachelor" here and Paradise valley inspired Johnson to write his novel "Rasselas".
In 1820 the estate was bought by Jesse Watts-Russell, a wealthy industrialist. It was Watts-Russell who is responsible for the Swiss look of Ilam, he found that the valley and surrounding hills reminded him of the Alps. So he had some new cottages built in the Swiss style and rehoused most of the villagers, (they were living in estate owned houses anyway). He also built the school in 1857 and funded it, at a time when schooling was not compulsory. He later moved to New Zealand built another Ilam Hal (see Links below). The farm/homestead that he created later grew and became the Ilam area of Christchurch. The site of the homestead was one of the main social centers of early Christchurch society.
The present homestead was built in 1914 after fire destroyed the first two buildings. There is even an Ilam school there! In 1934 Sir Robert McDougal bought the hall and gave it the the National Trust to become a Youth Hostel – which it is to this day. The grounds are open to the public, and are a starting point for one of the prettiest river walks in the area.
Skeleton of a modern dinosaur
Image by Unhindered by Talent
The first photo from back in Minnesota! This doesn’t mean that we’re done with the photos from Spain and the UK, however 
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This is the week of Sub-Evil’s annual summer theatre camp in Barrett, which is about 30 miles north of us here in Morris. As a result I get to drive that half hour stretch of rural highway back and forth quite a lot, leaving me with little to do but contemplate the fields and consider photo opportunities. This year this cool irrigation machine in a really nice wheat field caught my eye, and my mother got to wait by the side of the rode while I took lots of pictures .
Previous shots from this stretch of road (and previous camps) include "Winding wetlands", "Fighting back (Tilting at windmills?)", and "The once open prairie" (with its modification "Mountains across the ocean").
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