Herb Riddle's photos with the keyword: Delph

This placid bull must feel cold up in the minus 6C temperature. To the right was a big pile of straw for it and its two fellow bulls to eat. I think it could freely walk back into shelter not far away. The temptation to try and stroke its head was quite strong but I resisted. Best full screen Have a good weekend.

A look at one of our local reservoirs. This is Castleshaw, fabled as once being an area where a Roman fort was built. A five photo stitch. Enjoy full screen

How to build a wall to last a thousand years! Neither cement nor mortar needed, just weight, friction and knowhow. A few of you have seen various images of mine which included these very northern British traditional dry-stone walls. You may ask yourself – “why build a wall like this over a field in the middle of nowhere to keep a few cattle or sheep in the right field?” The answer might be in the British dogmatic pride - “If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing it well!” however a few practicalities are also at play here. First of all, wood in these areas was in short supply or in landowners hands that would not allow the use of much, whilst stone was available under much of these hills. The walls also had a very practical purpose for the animals, especially the sheep which were the main livestock here. Our winters were often very harsh, especially here in these high hills and the sheep could and did, take shelter behind the sturdy windproof walls. These walls were live-savers to them and so a farmers friend. Another real point is that, when a farmer constructed these walls, he was planning ahead for generations of his family not to have to build them again. This taken on a walk near the Saddleworth villages of Delph and Diggle, about three miles from my home. Local quarried, grit-stone cut blocks here, maybe hundreds of years old. Most of these will have been shaped by hand with hand-tools. The expert who is building this wall will search through all the stones to find the best and closest fit to the next adjacent stones on the wall. The whole construction starts quite wide and slowly tapers upwards –he is using these metal guides but often it is all done by eye with no clever aids like these. Smaller pieces and rubble often fill the gaps between the two separate stone sides and then thinner (but still heavy) stones are laid edgewise along the top. The final weight of those, press downward and keeps the whole construction ‘rock’ steady! The main reason for these walls eventually failing is man’s intervention of climbing over them and pulling stones off or land movement itself. Once the top stones have been moved or removed the whole section of wall gets unstable. A nice example of these walls in the Pip and preceding photo. Have a good day.

A fine example of the dry-stone walls here in Saddleworth, so prevalent in this area only a short distance from my home. See next photo for description of building them. Best full screen. HWW, enjoy the day.

Is it any wonder that I just love this season, when I can get out and take photos like this. Making me be glad to be alive, making me gaze in wonder at natures lovely creations. When it comes to climate change worries around our world, this scene reminds us what we are fighting for. Taken on a walk only some minutes away by car, at the village of Delph in Saddleworth, showing a small private fishing lake, with our public pathway running alongside it Enjoy full screen.

A pond that I have photographed a few times before, usually with the ducks and geese appearing in search of a feed. Alongside side us here the path leads us up to a nice pair of reservoirs in the far distance. It does get very boggy in this season though but the warm November morning sun makes this an attractive scene for me. Have a great week.

Seen on a local walk. This is of course, a Grey Heron of which we have quite a lot nowadays.