Barnard Castle is a market town in Teesdale, County Durham. It lies beside the River Tees over which there were at least two bridges.

One of these is a relatively narrow traffic-light controlled bridge which lies just below the ruins of the mediæval castle (of which more later.)

The second I got to by walking along a path by the riverside. Its purpose is more obscure:-

On the way up to it we passed this weir:-

Weir and second bridge through trees:-

Last August I noted floods at Balbirnie Golf Course. The bridge featured in that post was sunsequently removed probably because its supports had been undermined.

In April this year I photographed the foundations of a replacement bridge.

The golf course itself was looking fine.

18^th fairway and green:-

The 10^th tee had some striking shadows:-

10^th tee and 18^th fairway:-

This clock was on a building at the entrance to the dock where our ship was berthed. The tower in white and the flagpole are also deco features:-

While wandering Bergen city centre I was delighted to see this building looming. Lots of deco hallmarks; curvature, rule of three, horizontals, verticals:-

These closer views also show up the building’s balconies:-

This bridge nearby certainly has a deco feel, albeit in a Scandinavian way:-

This one shows the ship we were travelling on (extreme right):-

Close up on lake with fountain:-

A road bridge in central Bergen from Mount Fløyen:-

Part of Bergen with sea inlets beyond:-

A distant suspension bridge (photo is fuzzy due to zoom function.) Due to its sovereign wealth fund – a legacy of the oil boom – Norway is festooned with infrastructure like this:-

See my Falkland Palace post here.

The gardens are very well kept. I believe they try to make them as much like they were back in the days of the Stuarts as they can. You can easily imagine Mary, Queen of Scots wandering about under the trees.

Trees in garden:-

Palace from garden:-

Steps in Falkland Palace gardens:-

View from steps to gallery and tower:-

Gate to orchard:-

Bridge in orchard:-

Last August there was severe flooding in Balbirnie Park. The Back Burn even overflowed by Balbirnie Golf Club’s eighteenth green, probably due to that tree trunk stuck at the bridge. Part of the revetments had been washed away:-

Between Golf Club’s clubhouse and Balbirnie House Hotel the road was flooded:-

The area just at Balbirnie House (and Hotel) which had flooded in February 2020 did so again:-

Abut a year ago we decided to take a walk to try to find the Barrel Brig, an old bridge over the River Ore in Fife. It had been featured in a calendar we had of local scenes but we’d never seen it.

It’s not on the beaten track and we had to walk quite a distance from where we parked in Coaltown of Balgonie. The start of the path has a view over to Balgonie Castle (on the left of this photo):-

It turned out to be a longer walk than we had expected along muddy roads/paths and over a disused railway line before finally seeing the River:-

It was still a couple of hundred metres or so before we saw the brig itself:-

The path curves round to the brig:-

You can see it’s not a modern thoroughfare:-

Before taking that shot I did scout down to the bank to grab this photo:-

We then strolled across the (unparapeted) bridge to get the opposite angle:-

On the way back to the car I took this shot over the fields to Largo Law in the distance:-

It’s mostly the Queensferry Crossing, not the two older bridges, you can see in this photo. (The white sail-shaped objects in the distance are the bridge’s cable stays.)

Looking the other way from the garden area there is a view of and Dunfermline Abbey and, to the left, the remains of Dunfermline Palace:-

Dunfermline Palace:-

An old joke has it that Perth is the smallest town in Scotland because it only has two inches. The North and South Inches are of course green spaces used for recreational purposes. They both border the River Tay.

We used to park regularly in the South Inch car park when we visited Perth. Nowadays we tend to use elsewhere.

As a result we one day strolled around the south part of the North Inch. A wall separates it from the river and on that wall is a plaque commemorating the men of Perth Co-operative Society who lost their lives in the two World Wars. It is inscribed, “1914 – 1919. To the lasting memory of the employees of the City of Perth Co-operative Society Ltd who fell in the Great War,” plus, “Also in grateful remembrance of those who sacrificed their lives in the Second World War 1939 – 1945,” and, “Their name liveth for evermore.”

From it there is this view of the river and Perth Bridge:-

Perth Bridge:-

On the same visit we popped into Perth Museum and Art Gallery. Among many other exhibits they have this old Pictish stone found at St Madoes/Inchyra in the Carse of Gowrie, Perth and Kinross.

In 2018 we visited Ironbridge, site of the eponymous iron structure. Unfortunately at that time the bridge was being refurbished and swathed in plastic. Last year on our way further south from Gladstone’s Library at Hawarden we returned. Lo and behold the bridge was revealed in all its splendour. A delightful sight.

The iron bridge at Ironbridge (Ironbridge War Memorial to right; see first link above):-

Closer view:-

Reverse view of bridge:-

River Severn from the iron bridge (looking east):-

(Looking west):-

Ironbridge village from the iron bridge:-

River Severn to west:-

River Severn looking to bridge from west:-

Sadly earlier this year the River Severn rose – not for the first time – and overwhelmed the temporary flood barriers that had been erected in an effort to prevent damage.