BOXING DAY BETWEEN THE RAINS.
Tag Tarka Trail
Linhay on the marsh revisited.
What to do on a Sunday with a spare canvas and some hangover enthusiasm. Go out and paint one of my favourite scenes on the Braunton Marsh. Acrylic on 16 x 20″ canvas.
This is what the Explore Braunton website says. No two linhays are the same, although most are of square or rectangular shape. Some have become dilapidated but around 30 still stand today. The one which attracts the most attention is the round linhay, a grade II listed building on the edge of the inner marsh road, which has been thatched and provides endless photographic or even painting opportunities.
I visit this site many times throughout the year and each time it’s slightly different. Sometimes the water in the drain is crystal clear full of sticklebacks and at others fully of weed and cowslip plants. Local swans often glide past along with large dragon and neon blue damsel flies. In the winter it’s always quite bleak here hence the wind blown trees, all in all I prefer the spring/summer seasons.
Below are two pictures I’ve photoshopped from a quick cycle around the marsh today.
Cycling into the storm.
Moving swiftly on a painting entitled ‘Cycling into the storm’ 600 x 600mm acrylic on panel. This painting is of the many beach huts that line the Tarka Trail at Instow. I was cycling on the Trail near the Cricket Club when a massive summer storm swept up the River Torridge towards me, quickly I took an image on my phone and this was the result. I remember the cyclist speeding by trying to get to shelter before the rain came. On the left you can see the secure boundary fence of the Instow Arm Camp and just out of frame to the right the old railway crossroad that leads down the Instow Beach.
The Dripping Well, Anchor Woods.
The Wishing Well as we called it as children when we played in Anchor Woods was known in past times as a Holy Well or Sacred Spring. On the wall there are carved stones on the left 18 and the right 65, date 1865. Above the left stone a colony of bees resides. It has been noted that there was at one time another stone engraved BR after Sir Henry Bourchier Wrey (1829-1900) a member of the Devonshire Gentry. As children and even now when passing, if you pick a dock leaf for a folded spout and place it into the sandstone crack of the spring a cool steady flow of water flows. The water’s always tasted very cool and pleasant. Perhaps it should be tested now because of many new houses built at the top of the wood. I will add more to this article once a visit to our local Athenaeum has been made.
An old ammunition store?
Today on a cycle ride I decided to revisit an old childhood haunt of Anchor Woods and this particular WW2 ammunition store. My late father mentioned in a memory that the field in which this store resides was used as a target range at the time of the second world war and this structure was store. If anyone has any more information about this pla please let me know. Al
Tarka Trail to Instow.
An enjoyable visit to the Tarka Trail to Instow and back. I was particularly drawn to this old mud hut just on the outskirts of Instow.
Tarka Trail near Chivenor.
A quick study of the Tarka Trail near Chivenor in North Devon England. Painted using my own sourced and prepared Bideford Black pigment. Loved the dark shadow and highlighted cow parsley on the left of the trail. Still trying to free up my paintwork. Al
Al Brown Multimedia Artist. 