Country Estate

In the Lions River area, on a trip to Nottingham Road (we’ll get there, we’ll get there) I looked across this magnificent panorama. It is a view across the grounds of the country estate of St Ives – a popular Midlands venue. It was here on St Ives Hill that the last remaining local lion was reputedly shot – the area having been a Zulu Royal hunting ground back in the early nineteenth century, when it teemed with elephants and lions. The name was given to the estate in 1862 when it was acquired by one John Day who named it after his birthplace in England. It became a notable horse stud in the early twentieth century. Every time I pass along this road I recall a silly childhood riddle and I idly wonder - with polygamy still a tradition in the Zulu nation - was this where it happened?

As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives,

Each wife had seven sacks; each sack had seven cats,

Each cat had seven kits:

Kits, cats, sacks and wives

How many were going to St. Ives?

I had tried to get a sweeping shot of the landscape from within the grounds of the estate, but the best I captured was taken from the roadside. The grounds secured by barbed wire fencing I held the camera above my head to exclude the fence’s intrusion, and without the use of a viewfinder in one single exposure this was the result. With lighting through the gathering rain clouds that would have inspired even Turner I think I now have a new favourite favourite!.