My personal Top Twenty

A day on the Langdale Pikes - Photo 9 A fleeting patch of sunlight illuminates a solitary fell walker ('bless him'). Can you see him? Taken from Pike o' Stickle looking east. Harrison Stickle with its flat top is in shadow. The compact neat summit of Loft Crag is on the right in the middle distance at (0.7, 0.6). Windermere is In the far distance.

This vertical slab of sandstone is at Northcott Mouth, near Bude, north Cornwall. See geotag for exact location. This is part of the Bude Formation (upper Carboniferous) - deltaic and some turbidite sandstones interbedded with shales. The sandstones are relatively thick, compared with the underlying Crackington Formation, and as a result, more competent. The response to the Variscan earth movements at the end of the Carboniferous was to form more open, mostly upright or slightly asymmetric angular folds, compared with the cascades of tight recumbent folds which characterise the Crackington Formation a few kilometres to the south. This slab is the part of the vertical northern limb of an asymmetric anticline, and the view is of the underside of he bedding. There are sole structures - mostly trains of ripples/scours - on this surface, proving that it is the base of the bed. I would guess that the local rock climbing fraternity have given this slab a name, so if anyone knows it please let me know. Thanks!

A panorama composed from four portrait-style photos joined using Canon's PhotoStitch software. Just north-east of Boscastle, the short, steep-sided Pentargon valley ends abruptly, its waterfall plunging 120 ft over the sheer lip into the Pentargon inlet below. There are a number of these truncated valleys on the north Cornwall coast. Few of them extend far inland and often end with a spectacular, if small, waterfall over a vertical drop to the beach below. The rocks are shales with thin turbidite sandstones - part of the Crackington Formation (upper Carboniferous) - which are deformed into tight horizontal recumbent folds.

Another view west from the Lyke Wake Walk route on Howdale Moor near Ravenscar, looking west towards Fylingdales Moor, North Yorkshire Moors National Park. I have to say that I am pleased with this one with its rich moorland colours.

This lovely, lonely place is Charton Bay on the south-east Devon coast, about midway between Seaton and Lyme Regis. The popular South West Coastal Path passes inland along the undercliff within a few hundred metres of this spot, but there is no public access to the beach here from the path, nor is the bay visible from the path. The only (non-trespassing) way to get here is either by boat or by a 3-mile slog along the beach, either from Lyme Regis or Seaton. As the beach route in either direction involves quite a bit of boulder hopping, this tends to be a very quiet spot. In the 19th and early 20th century there were once private gardens near here in the undercliff, which were planted up with all sorts of exotics. Two of these can be seen in this photo - the Pampas grass and the Holme oak are now unwelcome and very invasive.

The wind was blowing the spray well inland in a ground-hugging mist on this blusterous morning at Newgale, in St Bride's Bay, Pembrokeshire. This couple and their dog happened along at just the right moment.

Maggi Hambling's stainless steel sculpture 'Scallop' - a memorial and tribute to the composer Benjamin Britten (1913 -1976). It stands on the beach just to the north of Britten's home town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England. Pierced into the margin of the sculpture are the words 'I hear those voices that will not be drowned' - words from Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes . An extraordinary sculpture, and for me, intensely moving. I spent a long time just looking, touching and photographing this beautiful piece, with the sound of the sea and gulls constantly in the background and Britten's 'Sea Interludes' stirring around in my head.

The occasional clearing in the dark coniferous woodland bursts with light when the sun emerges from behind a cloud. Rough Standhills plantation, Limb Valley, Sheffield.

Early summer greenness and cloudscape at Whirlow Hall Farm, Sheffield.