Your Photo Dreams on Holiday

In August 2013 YPD went taking photos on location  to France, Belgium and Holland


Here are a few of our favourite places

Bruge in Belgium

Here are a few of our favourite places

Vintage advertising (Steel signs)

Although first used in the manufacture of coloured metal panels for buildings, the process of fusing coloured glass to iron plates, known as vitreous enamelling, patented in England in the 1870s,

This was soon turned to the production of brilliantly coloured enamelled iron plates, advertising all manner of products, ranging from groceries, newspapers and tobacco, to bicycles and motor cars.

 By the start of the First World War, almost every small shop in Great Britain would have had a colourful display of permanent advertising signs on its external walls, with slogans proclaiming the properties of the goods they advertised, such as: 'Cadbury's Cocoa, Absolutely Pure, Therefore Best', 'Robin Starch, Does not Stick to the Iron', 'Stephens' Mucilage, Sticks Quickly', and 'Hudson's Soap, Powerful, Easy & Safe'.

The onset of the Second World War saw the decline of this advertising medium, as the primary need for steel was in industry supporting Britain's war effort

 This, together with the adoption of the less durable American style paper posters on hoardings, effectively marked the demise of the enamel advertising sign in Britain.

The signs shown on this blog were photographed at transport / industrial heritage sites 

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Steam Railways

A look at some of the steam railway heritage sites where we have been to visit in the Uk including

Chasewater Steam railway

Severn Valley Railway

Llangollen Railway

North Yorkshire Moors Railway


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Delabole Quarry

 The Delabole slate quarry is one of the largest of its type in England and has run continuously since the 15th century making it the oldest working slate quarry in England.

 In the reign of Elizabeth I the five quarries on the site of the now larger pit assumed considerable importance delivering slate to Brittany and the Netherlands. In 1841 the five quarries combined to make the Old Delabole Slate Quarry.

The Old Delabole Slate Quarry Ltd was liquidated in 1977 by the company's bankers. It was run under receivership by Rio Tinto Zinc until 1999 when a local management team bought it out. In 2005, the majority shareholders bought out the entire share capital, creating a single family ownership, the first time since 1842.


Delabole Quarry was once the deepest man-made pit in the world, but this is no longer the case due to massive open cast mines and quarries in America and Australia.

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A Visit To Charlecote Park

Charlecote Park  is a grand 16th century country house, surrounded by its own deer park, on the banks of the River Avon near Wellesbourne,

It has been adminstered by the National Trust since 1946 and is open to the public. It is a Grade I listed building

The Lucy family has owned the land since 1247. Charlecote Park was built in 1558 by Sir Thomas Lucy, and Queen Elizabeth I stayed in the room that is now the drawing room

. Although the general outline of the Elizabethan house remains, nowadays it is in fact mostly Victorian. Successive generations of the Lucy family had modified Charlecote Park over the centuries, but in 1823, George Hammond Lucy (High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1831) inherited the house and set about recreating the house in its original style.

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Silver Studded Blue Butterfly

This small butterfly is found mainly in heathland where the silvery-blue wings of the males provide a marvellous sight as 

they fly low over the heather. The females are brown and far less

conspicuous but, like the male, have distinct metallic spots on 

the hindwing. In late afternoon the adults often congregate to

roost on sheltered bushes or grass tussocks. The Silver-studded

Blue has a restricted distribution but occurs in large numbers 

in suitable heathland and coastal habitats. It has undergone 

a major decline through most of its range.

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