Oswald Bertram
Spring, Fawley, Berkshire, England
I love this view as it reminds me of France. In the 19th century the medieval church was taken down and replaced by one in the French Gothic style. It looks quite exotic sitting there in the English countryside.
For those of you who like books, Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure takes place in Berkshire and Oxford. Hardy always set his novels in real places and Fawley is the fictional village of Marygreen where Jude grew up. Hardy is generally very precise about his locations so you know exactly what road or footpath the characters are walking on.
Jude is a country boy who teaches himself Latin and Greek. Near the begining of the story he walks along the top of the hill on the right in this photo as far as the escarpment on the edge of the Berkshire Downs where there is a wonderful view over the Vale of the White Horse. He thinks he can glimpse Oxford in the distance and dreams of going to study there...
Before Hardy became a writer he was a church architect. He refers to the church at Fawley in this way, "a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back in a day".
Spring, Fawley, Berkshire, England
I love this view as it reminds me of France. In the 19th century the medieval church was taken down and replaced by one in the French Gothic style. It looks quite exotic sitting there in the English countryside.
For those of you who like books, Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure takes place in Berkshire and Oxford. Hardy always set his novels in real places and Fawley is the fictional village of Marygreen where Jude grew up. Hardy is generally very precise about his locations so you know exactly what road or footpath the characters are walking on.
Jude is a country boy who teaches himself Latin and Greek. Near the begining of the story he walks along the top of the hill on the right in this photo as far as the escarpment on the edge of the Berkshire Downs where there is a wonderful view over the Vale of the White Horse. He thinks he can glimpse Oxford in the distance and dreams of going to study there...
Before Hardy became a writer he was a church architect. He refers to the church at Fawley in this way, "a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back in a day".