Images for design

Welcome to the first posting on my new blog. On Sunday I decided it was time I tried out the new camera I received for Christmas. I decided to go to Hayle as there are lots of industrial ruins: old boats, ruined buildings, machinery etc. which provide good images. In the nineteenth century Hayle was an important port with two famous foundries, the Cornish Copper Company where some of my ancestors worked, and Harveys. Both firms made heavy engineering equipment including mine machinery and beam engines. Copper and tin were exported and before the arrival of the railway in the 1840s the main route out of West Cornwall was by sea from Hayle. During the twentieth century the town gradually lost its industrial base and in all the time I have known it it has been quite poor. There have been many proposals for redevelopment but nothing has yet got beyond the planning state.

I began my walk at the open air swimming pool which is next to various derelict factory buildings that I have photographed before. I walked along a very muddy unpaved road towards the mouth of the river. This photo is looking back to the Foundry Square end of Hayle and you can see the railway viaduct in the background.

Almost immediately I came across a builders' yard with gates and fences that said 'line' while on the other side of the road was an old concrete building with very interesting patterns where the original steel rods holding it together had been exposed to the elements.

As I approached the mouth of the river, I was surprised to find a small group of houses built of wood and looking exactly like the holiday baches I remember from my New Zealand childhood. Outside one of them was this sculpture made from fishermen's floats.

I also found these tracks in the road surface: nice quilting patterns.

Having walked to the end of the road, I found myself above the mouth of the river. There were wonderful views across the estuary to St Ives and lots of people taking advantage of one of the few sunny days we have had this month.
Working my way past the baches I found a great view in the other direction. This is Godrevy Lighthouse, on which Virginia Woolf based her novel To the Lighthouse, (I know she set the story in Scotland but she spent all her childhood summers in St Ives and this is what she knew!)

I continued my walk in a circle past many holiday chalets and then back over the hill to the town and the car. I had quite a collection of photos so let's hope they inspire me.