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Sunrise over the group of trees – Poplars, I think – on the outskirts of Godney village. Sited as they are on a small rise in the ground, these tall and slender trees are something of a landmark in this ultimately flat countryside.
And this small rise in the ground is important too. For, according to a 1991 book on place names, Godney refers not to a god, but to an Anglo-Saxon named Goda, who presumably had some sort of settlement / farm on this hill, when it was a small island in the vast area of marshes and lakes that occupied the Somerset Levels before they were drained for agriculture – “ney”, in Old English, means island. In AD 971, a manuscript named this place as Godeneia.
I grew up not far from here and, for most of my life, the place names were just, well, place names. So that it came as a real revelation to find out that the majority of these names originated in Anglo-Saxon times (c. AD 410-1066) and they in fact actually mean something, as in Goda’s island. It helps to bring this simple but intriguing landscape to life. There are newer names too, which result from the Norman invasion in 1066. And, more fascinating to me, there are also older, Celtic names, ie pre-dating the Anglo-Saxons: eg river names like Avon and Severn.
The pure naturalness of this image may be reduced by the telephone wire, which I may have been able to remove post-capture but, really, my aim is to show this area as it is, rather than as some manicured ideal.
There are other images from this early morning shoot here: 1 2 3 4 5 .
Click onto the image to open another version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further.
Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 83mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Godney, on the Somerset Levels; 19 Oct 2018.
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