Houghton House is an attractive wreck of a building just outside Ampthill, in Bedfordshire with spectacular views across towards Stewartby with its four remaining chimneys from its days as a brickworks, that have been awarded listed status, retained I gather from my colleague Andy Fox as an aerial landmark, though searching the internet, I can find no corroboration of this.
The idea of a circular walk from this house was proposed by Andy, so we met at his place and drove to the house and parked up. I decided that whilst walking the 70-200mm zoom was a better bet than the 300mm, but how wrong could I be? Once we had walked to the house,we spotted three large birds (which turned out to be red kite) soaring in the warm air not too distant from us, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight I should have gone back for the longer zoom, but it seemed too far back and I thought the birds might have disappeared in the meantime. Shame, because they performed in front of us for more than half-an hour! My shots were worthless. Andy who had a 300mm took some very nice shots. He has Nikon gear, I have Canon, so a swap was not on the cards.
Whilst we were there, a posse of photographers with a bride and groom arrived to use the derelict house as a backdrop, to my mind a somewhat bizarre linking, but each to their own.
We set off up the tree-lined avenue, past the farm, and water tank, close by another farm, and I learned more about this area that Andy had travelled since his childhood, he mentioned he had come across rusting cars in earlier days, and soon spotted the final remains of at least one by a young tree, we joked about shooting what we found in different seasons with puns such ‘Spring in Summer’, and later we found a saw; Andy saw it first!
At either end of Holly walk are Lodge-style cottages, both of which had once been thatched, but the first is now tiled which makes the chimneys seem far higher. Altogether a great way to spend Saturday afternoon, thanks Andy.
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