The beautiful ancient Waresley Woods are famous for the rich carpet of native bluebells, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, that turns the understorey a vivid blue in spring. Bird song and the faint hyacinth perfume of the bluebells fill the air. Few visitors resist the temptation to take photographs; and it’s not difficult to capture a reasonable visual impression of this too transient spectacle.
It’s a spectacle that’s all about colour, of course. What did visitors do before the advent of reliable, cheaply available colour photography? Maybe not bother to take a picture at all; or, in less conservation conscious times, take home an armful of the blooms. I’ve tried to try to make a passable black and white image that looks beyond the bluebells to some other qualities of the Woods.