Showing category "Hastings" (Show all posts)

From the rooftop

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, December 10, 2013, In : Hastings 
The view from the roof of our house - chiefly of other roofs in Hastings Old Town - is wonderful, especially on a very balmy, watery-sunny December day. But there's something illicit about it. I'm not supposed to be here. It's not very comfortable. I have just crawled out of the Velux window into the lee of the chimney stack and I have to twist my ankles into strange positions to wedge myself in the runnel below the chimney while simultaneously leaning against and trying not to dislodge a ban...
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Burnt gorse

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, March 22, 2012, In : Hastings 


A large area of gorse and heather caught fire on the East Hill, overlooking Hastings Old Town, yesterday evening (21 March). BBC Sussex reports that firefighters managed to put out the conflagration, though not before some houses below on Tackleway and All Saints Street were evacuated as a precaution. My picture was taken this morning - you can see that there is still some smouldering.

(PS: And in the background you can glimpse the remains of another, more serious fire: Hastings Pier, this wee...
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Jerwood opening in Hastings

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, March 15, 2012, In : Hastings 
After years of eager anticipation and sometimes bitter wrangling, the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings Old Town opens this weekend (17 March). The gallery has been developed by the Jerwood Foundation to house its collection of British 20th century and contemporary art, and is part of a regeneration project which includes the creation of new open space and community facilities by the local council.

 

I last wrote about this almost exactly two years ago, when antipathy among some locals including a pr...
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Seasonal

Posted by Ken Edwards on Saturday, December 24, 2011, In : Hastings 


A happy Xmas and a productive and peaceful new year to everybody from Reality Street.

(the photo was taken on the Stade, Hastings last year - this Xmas has not been like this at all)
 

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Hastings disassembled

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, November 4, 2010, In : Hastings 
Researching post-industrial imagery for some writing I'm doing, I have been fascinated over the past week by Andrew Moore's photographs of Detroit Disassembled (published with an essay by the poet Philip Levine). There are awesome images of abandoned car factories, theatres, ballrooms and the ruin that was once Michigan Central Station.

You can also view some of these and other images accompanying an excellent recent piece in David Byrne's blog. 

This sort of thing has sometimes been disparaged...
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Mating season update (2)

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, June 7, 2010, In : Hastings 
The breeding season for Hastings' rooftop herring gulls is well under way, with chicks hatching all over the place. On our rooftop, the roof valley site has once again acquired considerable nesting debris but there is no sign of actual nesting here. However, on the top chimney at least one chick has hatched. You can see it below, just to the right of the middle chimney pot, while its parents stand guard. I would estimate it's a week or so old.



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Mating season update

Posted by Ken Edwards on Sunday, May 2, 2010, In : Hastings 
Mayday in Hastings. This is Jack in the Green weekend, when ancient rituals are enacted once more: Jack is taken from his hiding place in the Fishermen's Museum, and, accompanied by bogies and sweeps, as well as giants and green-painted entities of all shapes, escorted through the Old Town and up to Hastings Castle, where he is ritually slaughtered, thus ushering in spring. Alternatively, it's yet another excuse to dress up and drink a great deal....

Meanwhile, high on the rooftops, the mating...
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Mating season

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, March 15, 2010, In : Hastings 
A wonderful, sunny spring morning - so I decided to check the seagull habitat on our roof before the mating season begins in earnest next month. 

Herring gulls (on the endangered list in the UK) nest in profusion on the rooftops of Hastings Old Town, and our house does not escape. Each year we usually have two resident pairs: one nesting between the chimney pots of the bigger, higher chimney, and the other in the roof valley in the lee of the rear chimney. It's this latter that cause the probl...
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Ken Edwards This blog is written by Ken Edwards, co-founder and editor/publisher of Reality Street, and it's mainly about the press. Ken's personal blog can now be found at http://www.kenedwardsonline.co.uk