I've recently acquired this watercolour and have yet to find anyone who can come up with a likely location - nothing written on it, just the date...Sept 1958. Maybe someone's reading this who lives nearby or perhaps has climbed/ scrambled on it........?
I’ll take a punt on it being Roseberry Topping but I’m far from certain.
The part on the right resembles RoseberryTopping, but not the part on the left
A high hill overlooking farmland fields with more high ground in the distance. I wonder if it's somewhere like the Malverns or Shropshire?
The picture took me straight back to a roasting hot summer day quite a few years back when I climbed Truss Buttress and a couple of other easier routes at Gouther Crags with a friend I don't see much any more.
My only visit there, so I have no idea if it really looks much like the place or if it's just the colours or some little detail that triggered that memory.
That's interesting. Gouther did spring to mind when I first saw the picture. I think the shape and layout are similar but the details and situation don't bear closer inspection.
Surely that's the answer. I've not visited Gouther but the resemblance is uncanny from the pictures I've seen. If there are discrepancies, they must be down to the artist.
Tryfan with llyn Ogwen to the left, if you squint your eyes, you can make out, milestone buttress and notched arrete
This is difficult to identify because it's a painting, not a photograph and painters usually plead artistic licence. It doesn't resemble Gouther Crag in the least, to me. The distant left part of the painting looks very agricultural and flat, so to my way of thinking the idea of The Malverns (with a lot of artist's licence as far as the crag is concerned!) is much more likely. Is Dutch Maori's suggestion just a joke?
I think it could be Craig Cwm Silyn:
https://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Cwm_Silyn#/media/Delwedd:Craig_Cwm_Sily...
Actually, the crag itself is called Craig yr Ogof.
Hen Cloud ?
https://pixels.com/featured/hen-cloud-sunset-the-roaches-staffordshire-peak...
I just thought Spain, Costa Blanca, when I saw it!
Looks like a nice watercolour. I thought JLS's suggestion of Roseberry Topping is as good as any.
If you get it framed make sure you get it done with 'white core' mounts. The acid is bleached out of the mountboard and is a good choice with regard to the consevation of an original painting. Also consider glass with a UV filter. This will stop it fading any more in the years to come.
I was a bit confused by the scale initially, but I also thought that it could be Shropshire given the background. I thought perhaps the rocks below the summit of the Wrekin, or Caer caradoc. I'm not sure about the well-defined nature of the arete, however, from memory I can't recall such angular features (but I could be wrong). A nice painting, which looks as if it's been done on toned paper.
Intake ridge, but the background isn't correct.
Gosh, UKC is weird. I came up with the suggestion that it was Craig yr Ogof in Cwm Silyn, but no one took it up, and one person (as so often here) simply 'disliked' on some principle best known to themselves. Well, here it is again, another shot:
https://v-g.me.uk/Trips/T0990/Photos/IMG_20160815_154740.jpg
I know what you mean Gordon. On the recent math thread I put a lot of effort into answering a question posed by one poster, as did the poster to whom the question had been addressed. Neither of us got a response let alone a thanks from the questioner, but both of us got a dislike for our troubles.
I got very used to that very steep scree and grass slope ...
https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/dbpage.php?id=398015
... during a big photoshoot I did of my brother on Outside Edge Route in May 1969
Thanks for so many thoughtful and interesting replies...although I can't understand why anyone would want to employ the dislike button!
I thought Roseberry Topping was the one to begin with, - and I have a non-climbing friend who lives nearby so I'll be contacting him tomorrow - the hills of Shropshire came to mind as I live quite near to there and Gordon's second view of Outside Edge also looked a strong possibility.
Will spend tomorrow pm doing a load of 'cross-matching' and see where that goes.
Thanks again!
I'm approx. 90% sure that it is Craig yr Ogof.
I'm convinced it is Hen Cloud, painted from slightly lower than the photo I linked in exactly the same direction. The background is a perfect match and the vegetation is right. Wolverhampton artist ?
Easy to check. Go and compare the rock from the lower point. (Not my dislike of course.)
> I'm convinced it is Hen Cloud, painted from slightly lower than the photo I linked in exactly the same direction. The background is a perfect match and the vegetation is right. Wolverhampton artist ?
It’s Arete Climb on Hen Cloud isn’t it, looking out towards the reservoir?
I think so.
It would be very helpful if someone could go out and take a picture matching this angle of 'Hen Cloud' to put our minds at rest. I can see where you think the line of Modern would be, but it makes no sense to the right of that. E.g. What's happened to the top of Bachelor's Buttress?
On the other side, facing the Roaches ?
Shouldn't there be some slate quarry slag heaps in the middle ground if it's Cwm Silyn?
Also, I thought the grassy ledge low down to the left of the Kirkus face was a bit more prominent. Although it's been a long time since I've climbed there.
An artist doesn't necessarily go for the 'warts & all' approach. 😉 it's a painting, not a photograph.
I'd put money on that being an artists impression of Hen Cloud.
It looks very similar to the mid section of the ridge on your photo, painted from closer in and lower down. I don't think it is Hen Cloud but I can see why David thought it might be.
> I'd put money on that being an artists impression of Hen Cloud.
It could be an artist’s impression of a lot of things but it did remind me of Hen Cloud - the rock doesn’t look very much like gritstone and it’s not quite steep enough, but the landscape in the background looks right.
On the other hand, Gordon’s right that the rock looks like Craig yr Ogof, but I’m not sure the background fits.
> Surely that's the answer. I've not visited Gouther but the resemblance is uncanny from the pictures I've seen. If there are discrepancies, they must be down to the artist.
I'm not getting Gouther from that, the crag layout might be similar but the background is all wrong.
. Wolverhampton artist ?
No evidence but it's certainly possible.....picture belonged to my late brother and he'll probably have picked it up at a local ( Staffs/Shropshire) auction room - no records available unfortunately!
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/hen_cloud-899/the_arete-16127#phot...
The second picture of 'The Arete' looks fairly similar. Obviously not exactly the same, and from a different angle but could definitely be the same place.
I've lost count of how many times I've been up Roseberry Topping, several dozen, and frequently seen it from other nearby places. It doesn't remind me at all of Roseberry. The slope to the right of the crags is wrong, the rocks wrap around the summit there, it's not a grassy slope. Also the base of the crags and the angle the crags meet them doesn't look right. Mostly its the top of the crags that's wrong, in the painting the top dips to the right to a vegetation covered hollow before rising to the summit. On Roseberry the entire summit is flat and rocky with a uniform dip to the right.
Sorry, I can't help you with where it is but it's not Roseberry
Yeah, Roseberry was my opening gambit to bump the thread along. I now think the Hen Cloud people have it right.
My thoughts too Caer Caradoc maybe - the network of fields and small hills fit. Turn this through 90 degrees!
That is remarkably similar. I wonder if the original artist worked from a photograph printed off a reversed negative? I've come across lots of unintended 'reversed' photos in mags and leaflets.
Rights sort of shape but you'd think they'd have included the lake/sea though
Google earth was fun to use, flying around Cwm Silyn. Though the relief isn’t that great.
That was my thought - that could be Bredon hill in the left background. But if that's supposed to be Ivy Scar Rock, the artist was employing a lot of wishful thinking!
Turn it 180 degrees and you have my vote!
> That was my thought - that could be Bredon hill in the left background. But if that's supposed to be Ivy Scar Rock, the artist was employing a lot of wishful thinking!
Some of Turner's renderings of places I've visited are hugely exaggerated. Waterfalls cascading out of the sky kind of thing for a sixty foot waterfall in the Dales.
Perhaps it is simply a work of fiction that incorporates aspects of what the painter knew of rocky outcrops, without intending to be a depiction of any one place.
Indeed…in fact if you look closely and squint a bit you can see a snow leopard at the base of the crag in the grass 😀
If there is only a date , and not even a signature, presumably it could even be somewhere abroad.
> I know what you mean Gordon. On the recent math thread I put a lot of effort into answering a question posed by one poster, as did the poster to whom the question had been addressed. Neither of us got a response let alone a thanks from the questioner, but both of us got a dislike for our troubles.
Odd the dislikes for those posts, but more annoying but is the absence of recognition from the questioner for the time and effort we both put into the replies. I had thought that they were putting forward a genuine query. I doubt I'll bother again with such things.
Thanks again to all who have taken the time to reply!
I have looked at photos of all suggested locations from as many angles as possible and am unable so far to come to any definite 'conclusion', although, to me, Hen Cloud and maybe Caer Caradoc are now looking likeliest. Although only circumstantial, the local (West Mids/ Shropshire) artist could fit in here.
As some have pointed out, this is a painting not a photograph, and elements of artistic licence may be present, eg the background....
and I am also finding a tendency here to 'see what I want to see' when getting close to a match!
I'm thinking a wander up Hen Cloud may be needed.....
Artistic license and one or more of the above crags seems most likely. Here's the mighty north face of Ben Lomond for an example of the extremes that can get applied. https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/48644
(btw, when I 1st saw the post I thought Gouther too but thats the only one of the offerings I'd been to)
my initial thought was that that is the sea in the background and it resembles bosigran ridge
Look at the good detail on the light face in the centre of the painting. On the lower right of it there is a stack of rectangular breaks / blocks. Compare that to Ancient. You could pencil in the climber. https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/hen_cloud-899/ancient-16131#photos...
The black and white photo.
> Rights sort of shape but you'd think they'd have included the lake/sea though
You can see what appears to be a coastline half way up on the left.
You could argue the lakes are out of shot.
Is that Snow Leopard I can see?
As I said above, I can undestand why you think that, and you might well be right, but the outline of The Arete behind should be steeper (as Dave pointed out.... and see also one of the other photos of Ancient, from its rhs). If the painting is less realistic and more impressionistic, the detail you evidence might be illusory.
Love this comment. Gave me a good laugh, thanks.
> As some have pointed out, this is a painting not a photograph, and elements of artistic licence may be present.......
More than elements! My great-great-great-great x 20 aunt knew the Mona Lisa very well (they used to go out for pizza together) and said she actually looked like the back of a bus and her eyes were only 1 inch apart
Are you sure its not The Edge area at Loudoun Hill, painted from the "other" side from where you climb it?
Definitely not Loudoun Hill. Wrong colour of grass.
how about Slape Crag on Barf (looking SE across Derwent valley)?
The crag would be on the other side of the picture and the background would be hillier?
Gouther looks good - really good - to me. Re the background, it's all in the angle, isn't it - a bit like Japan's goal against Spain - looks very like that bleak bit of land towards Shap to me.
And have a look at Rog Wilko's photo of the descent from Gouther
https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/dbpage.php?id=376840
with the route traversing across the ledge on the subsidiary buttress - a great match for the picture.