Photo gallery – Escaping Oxford

A vase of red poppies and lilacs against a white wall.

St Lawrence’s was well-maintained despite being no longer an active church.

Reflections in the water.

Bare trees along the river, with evergreens to the right, and across the river on the left a caravan park.

Trees at Hampton Ferry.

A gull is about to land in lightly-rippled water. Two gulls swim in the water behind it.

Yeah, this doesn’t show you much of what Derby’s like, I just like the picture. Peregrine falcons are cool.

A white wall with a grid of square windows, reflected in a glass wall. Along the bottom of the white wall are four window boxes containing flowers.

See? Beautiful.

A red wall with gothic window frames, forming five sides of an octagon. The windows are unglazed and the roof is open; a blue sky with clouds is visible.

The old cathedral, near the altar.

A dark corridor leads to a glass-walled room, containing a small altar and a large cross. A woman is silhouetted against the light.

Looking into the chapter house.

A large atrium with glazed walls, and light pouring in. Information boards stand in the hall, along with people waiting around. Outside the windows are concrete buildings and cars.

The station is Grade II listed too.

Looking down the nave of an abbey, with gothic arches to either side and windows above. There is fan vaulting on the ceiling. The view is low, and the east end of the abbey is partially obscured by a man’s silhouette.

Pretentious shot.

A squirrel sits on a tree stump, three paws resting on the stump with the fourth tucked up. It looks to the left. Behind the stump is grass strewn with dead leaves.

Squirrel. What more can I say?

A view down a street, with buildings mostly in silhouette. The buildings on the right are visible, as well as a church tower in the background which tapers to a small cupola with weather vane. Just to its right is a silhouetted sculpture of a dragon atop a pedestal. A flag is visible on one of the buildings in the background. The sky is pale and clouded, with two birds flying through it.

The dragon in this picture is one of many at the streets entering the City of London (i.e. the financial bit).

A curved concrete roof, with straight beams supporting it which curve around the picture. Light pours in from a series of triangular windows, illuminating part of the roof. In front of the illuminated part is a silhouette of an old car.

The roof of the Design Museum. I’d say the best roof in the world, but perhaps I’m being hyperbolic.

A green fence, partly shaped like theatre curtains and partly in a cut-out of Oscar Wilde, this latter part overhanging a path. Most of the fence is over grass, and behind it is a bare tree. To the left is a high brick wall, on which is spray-painted (black with pink accents): “I’M NOT A PRISON, darling, I’M A THEATRE”.

Part of the memorial to Oscar Wilde. The graffiti on the wall behind made the local news (I can’t link from a caption, but Google the words and you’ll find it).

An arched tunnel leads to a path through a grassed area, with narrowboats also visible.

A tunnel of the riverside path under Reading Bridge.

A stuffed toy bird with red and blue plumage is suspended by a wire. It is seen in front of a wall and gate, behind which, in soft focus, are hedges and an urn containing flowers.

A real live emu!

A large white stone head of a Buddha, with a spotlight on its face, stands in front of a marble staircase; both are seen from above. The marble stairs are empty; white with black treads. The wall behind the stairs is also white marble, with a gold-coloured handrail.

The north stairs. The statue is an Amitābha Buddha from China, dedicated in 585.

A large room, with two sets of columns symmetrically placed leading into the distance, between which are identical wooden museum cabinets. The walls are of grey and yellow stone, and the ceiling is white with a plaster decoration.

Avoid the dinosaurs, go look at the rocks.

A long, narrow gallery, seen from the centre. There is a table and a cabinet on the plinth in the centre. The roof is vaulted, with skylights; the floor wooden. The walls are black, with white recesses containing various items of furniture grouped by use (e.g. chairs).

The furniture galleries.

A strip of metal has various dots and marks on it. The strip is in a circle, and is attached to another circle of metal to form a sphere shape, which casts reflections on the cobbled floor.

A sundial in the centre of a labyrinth in Campbell Park.

A dog runs through a garden which is alongside a small stream. The garden contains trees, a few small plants, and a brown wooded shed; the house to which it belongs, of brick, is just visible. On the bank of the river is a model heron. The dog is chasing a duck, which, closer to the camera, is leaping off the bank into the water.

Kingfisher! Ptarmigan! Dog!

The station clock is quite nice.

Looking along a vaulted brick-lined tunnel. The tunnel is dark, with display boards just visible on both sides. Light fours in from the end, which has a gate and turnstile, and three people can be seen standing in the outside.

The entrance to the caves.

A church tower, of stone at the bottom and concrete(?) towards the top; the upper part contains a large rounded arch on each side. There is a golden ball on the top of the tower. To the left of the church is a conifer, appearing nearly the same height as the church. The sky is dramatic, with the sun shining through gaps in the clouds.

Dramatic upward shot.

A curved greenhouse, with arched roofs, viewed down a wide grass path with trees on either side. The grass is thronged with people.

A view towards one of the greenhouses; a Windows Vista, you might say.

White, yellow, red, orange and purple tulips are seen in close-up against long grass, with dense woodland in the background.

Tulips on the way to the Temperate House.

A dome-shaped greenhouse, viewed from one end, against trees and a bright blue sky. People walk along a path in front, with passes through a lawn in front of a hedge.

The Palm House, seen from the end.

A greenhouse with a hipped roof, seen from the inside with the camera pointing symmetrically at the corner, such that the window frames from a geometric pattern. There is a balcony about a third of the way up, with a few people on it.

Artsy shot of the Temperate House.

A stone archway containing a small bell, on the top of a hipped roof. There are some other turrets. The photo is taken with a sun flare behind the tower.

The old Salt Grammar School bell tower, now part of Shipley College.

A close-up view of the top of railings, with arches between the metal posts. The railings are painted black, except for gold details on the arches. Behind, out-of-focus, are a light stone mill buildings, several storeys high.

Pretentious mill shot.

A man dressed as Santa on a bike decorated with fairy lights rides down a street in a city centre at night. The street itself is decorated with Christmas lights.

Santa on a bike. Slightly inexplicable

A view of a cabin of a floodlit Ferris wheel against the dark sky. Two people are in the cabin, silhouetted against the structure of the wheel.

Big wheel (not always present).

Two tower blocks, photographer so neither top nor bottom is visible of either. The one in front is beige and drab, made mostly of concrete; the one behind has blue strips between floors, and bright red, orange and yellow panels replacing some windows.

Tower blocks of no particular importance but I liked this photo.

A clocktower on a building, with a lit clock and a cupola (lit blue) with a weather vane on top. This is seen against a twilit sky.

The City Hall.

A pylon, with cables, silhouetted against a blue sky with large white clouds. Foliage, again silhouetted, is at the bottom of the picture.

Pretty, amirite?

A crow stands on grass, in front of flowerbeds containing pink-red flowers. At the back is a hedge.

A woodpecker.

A robin standing on a black dustbin with gold detailing, against a blurry background of shrubbery.

Sparrow on a dustbin.

A bridge wall, painted mostly green with curvy abstract detailing in black, yellow, purple and sky blue. Also overpainted is a metal sign attached to the bridge panelling, which reads “POST NO BILLS”.

Sign on a heavily-graffitied bridge over the West Coast Main Line.

A simple arched metal footbridge, painted black-and-white, over a canal, viewed almost end-on. The stone approach to the bridge is visible in the foreground, and on the other side of the water are trees, a modern building, and people sitting on some steps. Three people cross the bridge and look into the water.

The footbridge over the canal at the locks.

A heron, about to take flight, standing on the edge of a canal. Behind it are railings, picnic tables, and people’s legs.

The kingfisher about to take flight.

A view down the outside of a bus. The road markings have a large white arrow pointing forward and then curving to the left, which is reflected in the dark bus windows. Part of the red frame of the bus is visible below the windows, and a grey car is stopped just in front of the arrow. On the pavement along side, a group of five people are walking.

Looking down from a bus. Taken by shoving my camera out of the window, which was probably foolish.

Looking along the side of a bridge over a murky river. The bridge piers are of yellow stone, between greyish metal arches. A building with a spiky roof crosses the bridge. To the right of each bridge pier is a red column in the water, including one only partially visible in the foreground. There is a second row of these to the right, some of which are visible. A glass skyscraper and a tree can be seen on the far bank.

The piers of Blackfriars Bridge. Red pillars like the ones on the right are contained within the stone columns to the left.

A pigeon sits on a low grey wall, with Tate Modern in soft focus in the background.

A sparrow in front of Tate Modern.

A skyline view of London, with St Paul’s Cathedral in the centre. There are various skyscrapers in the background. The sky is filled with white fluffy clouds, having only patches of blue.

We also on this trip went to the Tate Modern viewing gallery, but that didn’t fit in thematically. Here’s St Paul’s.

Looking along a canal, with houseboats, from a bridge. The canal runs along a steep-sided, heavily-wooded valley, though on the left bank of the canal are various (gentrified) mills and houses.

The Rochdale Canal passes through the town.

A view from a distance of a three-tiered building, of stone, with a stone roof. The bottom storey has arches leading onto a courtyard, with glazed doors behind. The next has square columns, with simple detailing and railings (pale green) in between, with pale green doors and normal-sized windows on the ball behind. The next gfloor has round Doric columns, with railings, doors and windows as on the floor below. There is a marquee in the courtyard. behind the building a wooded hillside can be seen, with a St George’s flag on the left.

Looking across the Piece Hall yard, you can see the three different architectural styles.

A metal bridge, with ornate detailing, painted dark red and cream, flies from the foreground on the right to the background on the left. Above it is a concrete flyover, which flies from above the older bridge’s nearer pier to the background at the centre. Both bridges span a valley containing a car park, with no visible water course. The far side has various buildings, mostly stone, including a tall mill visible under the legs of the flyover.

The old bridge crossing the Hebble Brook, with the newer flyover, Burdock Way, on top. Dean Clough Mills are visible in the background to the right.

A view from high above a canal. The canal is surrounded by trees, above which can be seen mill buildings of yellow stone, with a black-painted chimney, and further in the distance steep rural-looking hills.

Looking over Bingley from above the highest lock.

Looking from a height over a large factory shed, with a zig-zag roof (the “slats” behind horizontal across the picture). To the right, above the roof, are two storeys of mill building running alongside, and there is another slightly higher building at the far end of the shed. More mill buildings surround, all of the same yellow stone, including an ornate Italianate chimney. In the background is a densely-wooded hill beneath a mostly-clouded sky.

The shed at the bottom was for carding and combing, and is viewed from the main building, used for spinning. An equivalent shed on the other side was for weaving.

A red, yellow and black butterfly, wings folded, with black spots, perched on a fat leaf. The background is green, but out-of-focus.

Don’t ask me what kind of butterflies these are. It’s like the birds all over again.

A panoramic shot of the inside of a circular cathedral, from near the edge of the circle, with all the wooden seats pointing at an altar in the centre. Around the edge are various side-chapels, above which are various hangings. Around each side chapel are blue windows. The floor is marble. There are a few people wandering around the edge of the cathedral.

The interior.

A crude digital drawing of a view through a yellow arch up a red-paved road towards a grey building, a representation of Buckingham Palace. There are red and blue flags along the road, and in front of the palace is a gold thing on a black plinth. The surroundings are green.

I actually think this one is decent.

A view inside an oval-shaped building with an ellipsoid roof (supported only by the external walls and its own structure; the whole thing is painted cream, and there is a skylight). There is a bacon, with brightly-colour shop doors under arches, and more muted-coloured doors on the main floor. There is a hole in the floor down to the basement in the foreground.

See, it’s nice in the CornEx.

A brick tunnel with a curved roof, and a road along the bottom. There are rainbow-coloured lights lighting the ceiling. The road is empty of cars, but there are various people walking up and down it.

I didn’t mention this in the post, but it’s a shopping centre partly in the “Dark Arches” under the station; the station is on a viaduct over the River Aire.

A blue-painted streamlined steam engine, with a black front, pulling a brown coach. The tank of the engine reads “LNER” in gold writing, and there is “№ 4468” in gold on the front. The train is in a large hall with a metal roof with blue struts, and underneath a wooden arched footbridge.

Mallard, which still holds the record for the fastest steam locomotive (mainly because nobody is racing steam locomotives anymore). The coach it’s pulling was used to measure speeds of locomotives, and is significantly older than Mallard itself.

A view town a river, which is mostly on the right of the picture and leads towards another bridge. The right bank is in shadow. The left is in light, and has a range of mostly brick, mostly three-storey buildings, including one with a clock tower. Some people sit on outdoor tables outside a pub. The sky is clear blue, with only a few clouds.

The bridge on the site of the original Roman bridge across the Ouse (the bridges up- and downstream from this are roughly where the walls met the river, so this is the only bridge properly within the walled city). The pub on the left frequently floods, bless it.

A station, with an arched roof supported by dark metal arches; there is a row of skylights in the middle. Two parallel sets of arches are to either side. The far end is a window, with struts following the curve of the arch. Beneath the arch are two island platforms, each containing a set of pillars, and a track for each side. One of the tracks contains a train.

The station. Just look at it, and try to ignore the hateful train I’ve spent untold days of my life on. I’m looking at you, Voyager.

A flower head in extreme close-up, with lots of flowers (with curved thin red petals and pink stamen) on one head. Behind is the body of the plant, out of focus, in a circular bed, and other plants around, surrounded by gravel paths.

I didn’t record which flower this was, sorry.

A Tube station platform. The station is open-air but in a cutting; there is a train at the far platform blocking the view of it. The near platform has a few people on it, on sitting and the rest standing. There is a footbridge with steps leading up, red-painted, from the canopy, with the bridge passing over a tunnel mouth. The tunnel mouth is at the far end of the station, and has two circular portals. Above the far platform, there are a few trees and there is a row of buildings.

Because I had to get a Tube picture in.

A metal clock on a pole. The pole is black, with red shields at the base and most of the way up, and gold decorative detailing, including crosses on the upper shields. The clock is four-sided, with a triangular pediment (with gold detailing) above a white clock (with black hands) on each face. Above that is a spire, with a black base and gold point. Behind are many shops, brick on the left and white/blue render on the right. A lorry passing by can be seen, just, at the bottom.

Sorry, this picture is blurry, but that’s the clock. Tangier visible in the background.

A cruciform church, made of Cotswold stone, with a tall spire atop a central tower. The leaves of a tree overhang.

It’s a church, innit?

An arches bridge over a railway station, in front and to the right of the arch of Wembley stadium, with various high-rise buildings surrounding. The photo is heavily-processed and in black-and-white.

Insta-tastic shot of a pair of arches.

A mannequin, white and faceless, dressed up like a figure from the Nutcracker, next to a wreath.

A wedding shop’s display.

A house window, square at the bottom and arched at the top, divided into panes. The house is dark; only the light from the window, and its reflection in a car below, can be seen. The window has white fairy lights in front of white curtains; on the window are black silhouettes of a black rectangle (with “God with us”) cut out, the word “Emmanuel”, and Mary, Joseph and a manger in a stable. Above all the silhouettes is a gold star.

The windows range from completely secular and/or abstract to fully religious.

A grasses area, taken from a path along its right-hand side; the path is separated from a road by a low white fence, with cars along the road. A family play football on the bass, while some other people walk dogs. A stone church, with a central tower and spire, are at the far end, and other buildings across the grass. There are trees on the right-hand side.

The church green. Very villagey-feeling.

An octagonal shaft, seen from near the bottom looking up, with walls divided into horizontal panels, and a pattern of rectangles at the top. Various stairways and ledges are present. The photo is black-and-white.

The ventilation shaft, in artistic black-and-white (to mask the awful blue tint my camera gave it).

Looking down through a grille in the floor to a Tube train (white, with a red door) at a platform. The raised dots at the edge of the platform can be seen, along with a yellow line and, at the very edge, the words “MIND THE GA”, the last letter being obscured.

Looking down on the Northern line. This felt surreal enough that I didn’t appreciate that I was looking down on a real Tube train until after it had gone.

The ventilation shaft, in artistic black-and-white (to mask the awful blue tint my camera gave it).

A pink neon sign in a dark space, below an artificial roof with an unlit spotlight. The pink neon light is handwriting, reading “Your Lips Moved Across My Face”.

A Tracey Emin. Honest.

The Gherkin, behind a square yellow-stone church tower with four small spires at the corners. An office block is to the left. The sky is blue with white clouds.

Directly below the Gherkin, also nicknamed “the Crystal Phallus”, is a church called St Andrew Undershaft. Ahem.

Several curved and rectangular office buildings, mostly faced with glass, beneath a grey sky.

I’m not sure where this is, and I’ve already had to look up several of the last three. I give up.

A road junction, with office buildings along the road leading away and a House of Fraser department store, with Ionic columns along its facade, on the right. In front is traffic, including a red Routemaster bus: “15: St Paul’s Cathedral, Fleet Street, Aldwych, TOWER HILL”. The bus carries adverts for Mamma Mia! at the Novello Theatre.

There is one heritage bus route that remains in London, using the old-style Routemaster Buses. This is one of the buses.