Your R System Images - May 2026

[PKM-UK]

Some images from my vaguely recent(ish) visit to Tyntesfield, North Somerset, England. (This was the morning after we attended a prog-metal concert in Bristol - featuring Between the Buried and Me, supported by IHLO and You Win Again Gravity. Karen had caught an early train back - to earn some of what we like to call ‘money’, leaving me to wander around in a tinnitus infused daze before eventually travelling home in our EV ‘Rimsy’).

(Shot raw and processed using: DxO PL E/ Viewpoint, Adobe LrC/ PS with Tony Kuyper Panels and Topaz Labs Studio).

You can find out more about Tyntesfield by clicking Here.

For anyone experiencing crushing feelings of déjà-vu we have previously posted images from this venue which can be found by clicking Here.

Phil (missing Karen)


1. Tyntesfield was the home of the Gibbs family.

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2. Their considerable wealth was derived from controlling the import of Peruvian ‘guano’ fertiliser. (This industry and trade came with various alarming social and environmental issues).

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3. Originally the ancestral home of the Tynte family, ‘Tyntes Place’ passed through several families and iterations of houses until purchased by William Gibbs and his wife Blanche in 1844.

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4. In the 1860s, they hired architect John Norton to rebuild the house in the Gothic Revival style, reflecting the family’s devout Anglican Christian faith.

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5. They also hired decorator John Gregory Crace to design the interiors, bought furniture from the finest craftspeople - including cabinet-maker James Plucknett and filled their home with art.

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6. The National Trust bought Tyntesfield in 2002, allowing visitors to explore this fascinating house, gardens and estate.

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(Source: National Trust).

 

[ACEkin]

We’re Back! 460 miles safely toured, with 46 miles cycled (4,705ft climbed), 32 miles walked (2,540 ft of ascent) and 15 places of interest visited. Some images to follow (the usual limitations will apply - Phil has 5,000 raw files to process, plus bunch of iPhone and GoPro stuff).

Thank you to all of the contributors to the thread in our absence - what haul of absolutely fabulous images! Looks like you've had a lot of fun…

Phil and Karen

(PS. 'Yes' it did rain - but only a bit!).


Karen crosses moorland towards Rhayader after climbing up from Craig Goch Dam, Elan Valley, Powys, Mid Wales. (The descent was wild!).

View attachment 45792

Oh, I feel so tired! And, mine is only from reading the bike rides and walks!! More power to you both.

 

[PKM-UK]

Oh, I feel so tired! And, mine is only from reading the bike rides and walks!! More power to you both.

Hi Cemal,

In fairness, after all that, we need a holiday…

P&K

 

[Bryan Conner]

Some images from my vaguely recent(ish) visit to Tyntesfield, North Somerset, England. (This was the morning after we attended a prog-metal concert in Bristol - featuring Between the Buried and Me, supported by IHLO and You Win Again Gravity. Karen had caught an early train back - to earn some of what we like to call ‘money’, leaving me to wander around in a tinnitus infused daze before eventually travelling home in our EV ‘Rimsy’).

(Shot raw and processed using: DxO PL E/ Viewpoint, Adobe LrC/ PS with Tony Kuyper Panels and Topaz Labs Studio).

You can find out more about Tyntesfield by clicking Here.

For anyone experiencing crushing feelings of déjà-vu we have previously posted images from this venue which can be found by clicking Here.

Phil (missing Karen)


1. Tyntesfield was the home of the Gibbs family.

View attachment 45803

2. Their considerable wealth was derived from controlling the import of Peruvian ‘guano’ fertiliser. (This industry and trade came with various alarming social and environmental issues).

View attachment 45804

3. Originally the ancestral home of the Tynte family, ‘Tyntes Place’ passed through several families and iterations of houses until purchased by William Gibbs and his wife Blanche in 1844.

View attachment 45805

4. In the 1860s, they hired architect John Norton to rebuild the house in the Gothic Revival style, reflecting the family’s devout Anglican Christian faith.

View attachment 45806

5. They also hired decorator John Gregory Crace to design the interiors, bought furniture from the finest craftspeople - including cabinet-maker James Plucknett and filled their home with art.

View attachment 45807

6. The National Trust bought Tyntesfield in 2002, allowing visitors to explore this fascinating house, gardens and estate.

View attachment 45808

(Source: National Trust).

These are all wonderful images, Phil. I really love the tonality in them...the colors....superb.

 

[Bryan Conner]

Yesterday, we visited St. Mark's Monastery and Parish Church in nearby Sießen (Bad Saulgau) here in Baden-Württemberg. It was an overcast and cold day, but we made the best of it.
The monastery and church traces its roots to the mid-13th century, when Knight Steinmar von Sießen-Strahlegg founded a Dominican nunnery in the nearby town of Saulgau before 1251. In 1259–1260, he donated his estate in Sießen along with the patronage rights of its church, and six sisters relocated there to live under the Augustinian Rule. The church of St. Markus, which came with the estate, was formally incorporated into the monastery in 1348 and became the spiritual heart of the community.

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One of the most striking aspects of St. Mark's Church is the contrast between its relatively modest exterior and the lavish baroque splendour that awaits inside — visitors often find the interior far grander than the façade would suggest. Designed by Franz Beer von Au from 1716 and completed by his son Johann Michael, the church was consecrated on 16 May 1733. In its original form, the façade was articulated with pilasters and the tower crowned with an elegant stepped spire, but both features were stripped away during 19th-century renovations and replaced with plainer elements. A careful post-war restoration reversed these changes, returning the exterior as faithfully as possible to its original baroque character.

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Built between 1726 and 1729 to designs by Dominikus Zimmermann, the interior of St. Mark's Church is organised across four bays with remarkably thin brick vaulting spanning a ground plan of 7 by 10 metres, and features a distinctive double nuns' choir — a glazed winter choir at the lower level and an open summer choir above in gallery form — reflecting the practical needs of the enclosed Dominican community. Zimmermann also executed the celebrated stucco decoration, bringing a mastery he had already refined across Bavaria and Upper Swabia, where the stucco takes on an expressive and illusionistic role far beyond mere ornament, with allegorical figures filling the vault spandrels and the work over the nuns' choir evoking the mystery of the Eucharist. His brother Johann Baptist Zimmermann painted the four large ceiling frescoes in the summer of 1729, all united under the theme of the Eucharist and illustrated through scenes from both the Old and New Testaments. The fresco at the crossing is particularly striking, depicting St. Dominic in an allegorical scene surrounded by personifications of the four continents then known — Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas — alluding to the global reach of the Dominican mission. Together, the architecture, stucco, and frescoes bind the Mass, the choir prayer, and the church's entire visual programme into a seamless spiritual unity, and Johann Baptist's ceiling paintings are today counted among the finest examples of late Baroque painting in the region.

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The celebrated stucco decoration was the work of Dominikus Zimmermann himself, who had already built a strong reputation across Bavaria and Upper Swabia before arriving in Sießen. Here he masterfully balanced the interplay of architecture, stucco, and fresco, with the stucco taking on not merely a framing or decorative role but an expressive and illusionistic one in its own right. Allegorical figures fill the vault spandrels, while the stucco work over the nuns' choir evokes the mystery of the Eucharist celebrated at the high altar. The overall effect binds the Mass, the choir prayer, and the visual programme of the church into a single spiritual unity.

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The original baroque furnishings of the church were largely dismantled after the 1803 secularisation, and a Neo-Renaissance high altar was installed during renovations between 1878 and 1883. After World War II, this was removed and replaced with two baroque side altars and a matching pulpit acquired from Altsteußlingen, alongside figures salvaged from the earlier 1763 altars. The altarpiece of the high altar — depicting the Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven — was originally painted by Matthäus Zehender in 1684 for the medieval predecessor church and has been preserved throughout these changes. The pulpit and side altars, together with Zehender's painting, give the interior the layered character of a space whose furnishings have been gathered and restored over several centuries.

 

[Shotbycurtin]

Oulton Park today to catch up with a racer mate.weather was overcast and rain. Managed to snap a few cars,

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[THXGEEK]

Vroooom!

(Sorry, revisiting my muscle-car days!!

 

[ACEkin]

The tree peony is in bloom in our backyard.

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[VanDyck]

Night Sky petunias waiting to be transplanted.

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A local squirrel buddy stops to inspect our gardening efforts.

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