Hard to believe it’s already the second month of the 365 project. Week 5 was partly spent in Essex and Leicester in England before heading back to Montreal on Tuesday.

Day 29 – Jan 29th 2012

Hatfield Forest near Bishop’s Stortford, Essex is the last remaining ancient royal hunting forest from the time of the Norman Kings that remains intact. The forest contains trees dating over 1200 years old and covers about 4 square kilometers.

Day 30 – Jan 30th 2012

Last day of holiday before returning to Montreal and so decided to go for a walk around Bradgate Park in North Leicestershire. Was a beautiful day and we saw quite a few herds of deer roaming around the park.

Situated in the center of Bradgate Park lie the ruins of Bradgate House which is one of the earliest unfortified mansions to be built in England and one of the finest brick houses of its period. Bradgate House was the birthplace and early home of Lady Jane Grey (1537 – 1554), Queen of England for just 9 days.

In addition to Lady Jane Grey’s House, Bradgate Park is also home to another historic monument – Old John Tower. This Folly (or Prospect Tower) was built in 1784 by the 5th Earl of Stamford. The circular stone tower replaced a former wooden windmill (which had been made unsafe in an earlier storm) and stands on Bradgate’s tallest hill and one of Leicestershire’s highest points.

By 1792 an archway was attached to the Tower and the legend of Old John Tower’s beer mug outline was born. Old John’s Tower can be seen on the right in the picture below:

Day 31 – Jan 31st 2012

Headed back to Montreal and managed to grab a couple of shots while waiting for my flight out of Heathrow. The posted shot of the day (above) was taken by pressing the lens against the departure gate window and was 3 exposures. Quite liked how the reflections came out, particularly the top left departure gate signage.

Since my flight was delayed by 3 hours, I ended up having to spend my remaining British pounds on some great Bombardier beer.

 Day 32 – Feb 1st 2012

Back to a cold and snowy Montreal. I decided to take a walk up Mont Royal at the end of the afternoon to grab some dusk shots. By the time I reached the top, snow was starting to fall again which didn’t make for the clearest of views of downtown which I had planned on capturing.

In addition to trying to get a few shots of the downtown skyline, I decided to take some pictures of the Kondiaronk Chalet. The chalet was built in 1906, and is named after the Petun chief Kondiaronk (1649-1701), whose influence led to a major peace accord between the French, Iroquois and other Indian tribes in 1701.

Day 33 – Feb 2nd 2012

Took a quick walk downtown to the Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde on the corner of Rue de la Cathédrale and René-Lévesque Boulevard. The Marie-Reine-du-Monde Cathedral was built gradually, from 1870 to 1878 and from 1885 to 1894. The Cathedral is a scaled down replica of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Just over the road is Place Ville Marie where I grabbed a quick shot looking up toward McGill College Avenue and Mont Royal in the distance.

Day 34 – Feb 3rd 2012

I wandered down to Griffintown late afternoon. My aim was to get some shots of the iconic Farine Five Roses neon sign. The picture I selected for the daily post  doesn’t  have the sign showing in all it’s glory, so here are a few more I managed to capture.

Day 35 – Feb 4th 2012

A gorgeous day out, so headed down to the Old Port. The above picture was taken from next to the clock tower on the Quai de l’Horloge in the Old Port.

On my previous visit (17th January), it was snowing hard and I could barely make out the Jacques Cartier Bridge when standing in a similar position to that for the picture below. I was pleased to see the umbrellas were still out on the new beach, but beach weather is still a long way off.

Given the nice weather, lots of ice skaters were out on the Old Port ice rink

That wraps it up for another week.

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time.

– Martin

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