Coity Castle, Aberdulais Falls and Southerndown

When visiting friends recently (thanks for a great time Rhys and Laura) my hosts were kind enough to specifically take us places where I could get the camera out, and very kind of them it was too. Whilst many of the urban landscapes of south Wales are bland, unimaginative, post-industrial horror stories (I'm looking at you, Port Talbot) the history and geography of the region is amongst the richest in Britain. In the 500 years after the Norman conquest there were few places in Europe that had more castles built in it than Wales; and whilst the reasons for having the castles there were rarely positive, today we are left with a wide array of the best medieval architecture available anywhere.

Many of these castles are now in various stages of ruin, of course, but I find that that often lends them a more mysterious and ethereal quality; it certainly doesn't make them any less photogenic.

Coity Castle

We did actually go to a post-industrial site on our first morning there, but in this instance the reason it was useful industrially was also why it was such an attractive place to visit - a series of waterfalls. A century ago Aberdulais Falls was the centre of a thriving tin processing industry, today it is a clean and pleasant niche in the rocks run by the National Trust. There are several natural falls there and at least a couple of man-made affairs that are more weir-like. When tin was being processed there, the difference in water levels was used to drive a water wheel which in turn was used to generate electricity, the largest such operation in Europe.

The falls provided me with another chance to practice with long exposures, although competing with the crowds meant I didn't have as long there as I'd have liked to. The photo below shows the main fall quite nicely; all the specks in the water also nicely show that I badly needed to clean my lens too.

Aberdulais Falls

Southerndown is a beach known to many in the area. It combines plenty of sand to lay on, lots of rocks to clamber over and investigate and impressive sedimentary cliffs from which to plummet. It used to be a regular day trip destination as a child but this must have been the first time I'd been there in well over a decade and it hadn't changed a bit - unlike my photo. Normally I don't like to mess with photos after I've taken them perhaps other than cropping out a lamp post or straightening a horizon; it's time consuming, boring and feels a little dishonest. It was a very dull and overcast day when we were there which left my picture of the cliffs rather underwhelming so I thought I would experiment with perking up the sky. While I still like the stepped nature of the cliffs themselves, this resulted in the sky becoming an odd aquamarine colour and the clouds just looking plain weird. I think in future I'll leave the special effects to those who know what they're doing.....

The second beach at Southerndown