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Springtime warms the stone © Copyright, All Rights Reserved, Barry W. Hollritt, 2009 Chipping Campden is the 'flower of the villages of all England', to paraphrase the brass inscription found in St James' Church in the center of Chipping Campden. Appropriately, I named this photograph "Springtime warms the stone" because of a sense of life returning to the barren stones of this ideal English cottage. I have visitited Chipping Campden numerous times, and each visit finds new subjects of photographic delight. Chipping Campden was already established in the 7th century and derives it’s name from the Saxon "Campa-denu" or Campadene", meaning a valley with fields or enclosures of cultivated land. It gained the prefix "Chipping" in the 13th Century, from the old English "Ceping" meaning a market or market place. Campden is known for its famous "woolen" market in the center of town and has become well known for it's attractive High Street. G.M. Trevelyan (an English Historian) refers to Campden as being "the most beautiful village street now left in the island". Today, Campden has a population over 2000 and still maintains the feel of a small English village. On a cool May morning I wandered off the famous High Street back into an area known as Westington. With my Hasselblad and tripod in tow, I found a doorway that encompassed the feeling of Spring that I was experiencing during that visit. The old Cotswold stone cottage, aged and damp in winter, was now becoming the object of the flowers and the warmth of a new springtime. The viewer of this photograph observes a variety of wallflowers and pansies growing beside the door in the front garden. Also attractive to my eye were the two older vine plants, the Wisteria to the left of the door and the large Clematis Montana vine growing up and over the door on the right. Just as the old vine plants have grown with age, so has the door and stones that make up the subject of "Springtime warms the stone". I especially like the doorstep! There are many stories behind the old wooden door.
Barry W. Hollritt
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