Cardiff: Up the garden path

In my last post Cardiff: Welcoming doors praising the beautiful entranceways of many of Cardiff’s old Edwardian and Victorian houses, I touched on the pavements or garden paths leading up to the front doors of these houses but only included one photograph. As their designs are so lovely, I thought I would share more images of these colourful geometric beauties.

Many of these tiles and designs originated from the factory of J. C. Edwards & Co of Ruabon, a town in North Wales famous for its clay and terracotta ware. Tessellated designs like these were a favourite of the Romans and, as well as the large pictorial mosaics the Romans are renowned for, their villas and palaces also contained corridors of more basic, geometric tessellated tiling. I can’t help but wonder if J. C. Edwards and his design team were influenced by such ancient buildings.

Of course, J. C. Edwards wasn’t the only tile designer and manufacturer working in the Victorian era, and Cardiff had its own highly esteemed companies making similar porch, floor and pavement tiles. One such was Gibbons, Hinton & Co of Brierley Hill, whose beautiful designs can be seen in many of Cardiff’s older suburbs, particularly in Maindy, north of Bute Park.

Even these curving black-and-white designs are works of art

Many of the garden path designs imitate the designs used for the flooring inside the magnificent old Victorian and Edwardian houses. Unfortunately, I can’t investigate those quite as easily as I can photograph people’s pathways but if you are interested in the interior tiles, or you have tiling that needs maintenance and restoration, the Building Conservation website has an excellent article about geometric and encaustic tiles.  

These paths have the same basic inner square pattern but the outer design has been adapted to fit the location

The designs of these beautiful pavements are highly adaptable and could easily be used as the template for a quilt, a tapestry or a rug. So, in order to share my images with fellow crafters and designers, I have uploaded them to a board on Pinterest, and I will continue to update that board as I find and photograph more of them. I would love to see what talented craftspeople are able to create using these timeless designs so please do contact me if you are inspired to produce something wonderful of your own.

Two different lengths of the same design

England: Bexhill and Eastbourne

I hadn’t been to any of England’s south coast seaside towns before but certainly enjoyed dipping my toes in during this trip. I showed you a little of Devon’s Budleigh Salterton and Sidmouth in a recent blog – now here’s a little of what East Sussex has to offer. I didn’t spend much time exploring these places so this blog will be mostly photos. I hope you enjoy your day at the seaside as much as I did.

Bexhill

It wasn’t exactly beach going weather the day we went to Bexhill, with occasional heavy showers of rain and strong gusty winds from the remnants of Hurricane Bertha making walking along the prom a bit of a chore but very exhilarating. We had lunch and saw an exhibition of the work of designer Ivan Chermayeff in the local De La Warr Pavilion, and rounded off the afternoon with a cider at a pub that had been a smugglerss haunt in centuries past. I loved the diversity!

A picturesque row of beach huts along the pebble beach

Love the Victorian bathing machine on the right: it would have been wheeled into the water so that women could step down directly into the water

On the right is the De La Warr Pavilion

Eastbourne

Eastbourne has recovered well from the Second World War when it was the most bombed town on the south coast. Sadly though, when I visited it had very recently suffered another piece of bad luck – part of its famous pier had been destroyed by fire so we weren’t able to walk along it.

Eastbourne became a popular seaside resort in Victorian times so the front is lined almost exclusively with hotels and boarding houses with typically Victorian architecture. As well as having its own attractions for holidaymakers, Eastbourne is also one of the gateways for visitors to the South Downs National Park, dedicated walkers can easily access the South Downs Way to enjoy some of England’s finest footpaths and countryside, and it’s a short hop, skip and a jump to the stunning cliffs of Beachy Head and the Seven Sisters – more on those in my next blog.  

Redoubt Fortress Military Museum, built in 1805 as part of Britain's defences against the threat of invasion by the army
of Napoleon Bonaparte

A closer shot of the damage caused by the recent fire on Eastbourne Pier

One of Eastbourne's many attractions is the gorgeous flower display along the front every summer

Eastbourne Bandstand where we enjoyed the annual 1812 Fireworks concert

England: Formby Sands and Southport

This was a truly wonderful day that included a visit to an artisans’ market at a lavender farm, rare red squirrel spotting in the forests behind Formby Sands followed by a long walk along that glorious long sandy beach, topped off by a walk along lovely Lord Street, the esplanade and England’s second longest pier at Southport.

Sarah drove, I navigated – most of the time successfully! Up the M6, along the A580, for a visit to Inglenook Lavender Farm. By chance there was an artisan’s market on so we checked out the stalls – there was nothing of great interest, though I was very impressed with the chainsaw sculptures and and we did get ourselves some yummy lunch for a picnic later.

There was only one small field of lavender, which was a little disappointing – I was expecting fields and fields, great expanses of the stuff. Sarah thought it was because they’d already harvested the lavender but there didn’t seem to be anything in the surrounding fields. Still, there were some guinea fowl and some very cute black-faced sheep mooching around in that one lavender field, which made for a few good photos. I actually took lots of photos but failed to get a single one in really sharp focus, so I was annoyed at myself for that. I think my eyes are the problem – wearing distance lenses and trying to focus on a close subject. That’s my excuse anyway!

Onwards, along more country lanes lined with fertile fields planted with various crops and edged and dotted with interesting-looking old farmhouses and barns. We picked up drinks and chocolate muffins at a Tesco supermarket, then eventually found ourselves at Formby, home to the wealthy footballers who play for Manchester United and Liverpool. I’m sure a few of them sped impatiently past us in their flash cars as we drove more sedately through the streets full of their large, expensive houses.

Head past those streets and you’ll come to an area of extensive pine woodlands, towering sand dunes and the Formby Sands, a long and exceedingly beautiful stretch of coastline that borders the Irish Sea. We ate our picnic lunch, then strolled through the woodlands, hoping to spot one of the small population of red squirrels that lives amongst the trees. The reds used to be the only squirrel species in the UK, until the brash American greys were introduced in the late 1800s – not only do they digest acorns better, they also brought the pox virus with them, which decimated the local red population. Luckily, the reds are making a comeback in this haven at Formby and, even more luckily, we managed to spot a couple. They move fast though, so my photos aren’t very sharp.

We then headed across the dunes and down to the beach for a bracing walk in the stiff breeze. It is a popular place for family picnics, long beach strolls, walking the dog or riding a horse, flying kites and wakeboarding, or trying to locate the prehistoric animal and human footprints that can sometimes be found in the silt beds along the shoreline. We didn’t find any of those, but did spot plenty of black-headed gulls and washed-up jellyfish, marvelled at the large array of wind turbines sited out to sea, and could just make out the tower and the huge rollercoaster across the shimmering water at Blackpool.

Our last stop of the day was Southport, a seaside town that was particularly popular around the turn of the 19th century. Its architecture reflects those halcyon days, with several interesting buildings dotting the Esplanade and even more along the main road, Lord Street. There are some grand sculptural features, including carved heads and classical columns, wrought iron verandahs cover the footpaths, and, in the summer months, gorgeous flowering baskets beautify the streets. Lord Street has a wide central strip with an impressive war memorial, bandstand, cafés and gardens – it’s all very grandiose for a relatively small city.

As well as being by the seaside, Stockport has a large seawater lake / lagoon that we walked around – seagulls and Canada geese competed for my camera’s attention, as did the big suspension bridge over the water. Southport also has the second-longest pier in England but we only got halfway along its 1112 metres as it closes at night – we had left that part of our wander till last, thinking to watch the sun set over the water.

Dinner that evening was fish and chips – so appropriate after a day at the seaside, and rather delicious it was too! And then we had a 45-minute drive home, an extremely quiet trip along the M6 as most people were glued to their televisions, watching the World Cup final.