Through remarkable wrought-iron gates

     I've walked through these park gates countless times and often thought of photographing them and I finally got them at dusk the other day. I particularly like the nautilus shape and the thistle at the top, and stepping back you can see they are surmounted by a pediment and a little unicorn.



I had to reject several pictures as they were just a bit too far out of focus, but looking at them again they have a slightly spooky, almost sinister quality which would look very atmospheric on the cover of a book of that type.

The picture below was made by overlaying several shots and that would do for something with a ghostly element in it, I think!



     What is it about gateways that catch the imagination so? Who hasn't peered through a gate and up a long drive trying to catch a glimpse of what lies beyond? They suggest mystery, secrets, something to discover, so they are quite a powerful image. A few years ago I read Sandor Marai's novel Embers, drawn to it partly by its synopsis but almost equally by its cover (click on the link there to see it). I happened to be in a bookshop one day and couldn't remember either author or title but I described the book, lamely, to the assistant ("It's got gates on it") and he knew what I meant and found it for me. Susan Hill's The Risk of Darkness  is another book with a gate on the cover, though of a very different style, as is Kate Morton's The House at Riverton. They all seem to draw the eye and make you want to find out what's inside.

By the way, the post's title comes from Sir John Betjeman's poem "Pot pourri from a Surrey garden".