Upper Hexgreave (January 2019)

There is a great circular walk from the Southwell Trail, across the fields, to Hexgreave Hall. The route then follows the road to the south gate of the estate and back to the Southwell Trail. It is a popular local walk but less well known is an additional path which travels across fields to Upper Hexgreave before descending to the main A617.

The fields at Upper Hexgreave always seem to provide good value for photography. There are number of compositional features that work well together including: some nice diagonals separating one field from another, a line of telegraph poles, hedging on the brow of the hill with a few small trees, and then either side of the fields are wooded areas which are private and not accessible to the public.

On this particular occasion the lower fields had been recently ploughed which added some additional interest and there was some strong afternoon sunlight with some dark grey cloud in one direction and clear blues skies in the other. These were some of the results:

Back at the road I captured the low sun on the hedges and some late afternoon light on the imposing pylons that stretch across the landscape:

Earlier in the walk I photographed one of my favourite ash trees (yet again!). These trees are in the field that leads to Hexgreave Hall. On this occasion the sky seemed right for a black and white conversion: