Photos, Farming in East Yorkshire: old and new - memories and nostalgia

 Photos, Farming in East Yorkshire: old and new - memories and nostalgia

Haymaking in the East Riding of Yorkshire, c.1905

Work on the land continues today, but  methods have changed. In the vintage photograph above we see some weary farm workers posing in front of their machinery, and in the photograph below, a later image, in the Booth area..

Reaping at Booth

Farming today, near Drax

Larkin was interested in this flat, fertile land which runs alongside the Humber estuary. He visited many villages on his bicycle and took photographs en route.

 Larkin's photographs of the area, about the time of the poem "Here", 1961, see footnote

A barn at Oxfleet today

My en plein air watercolour sketch of the barn (above) tries to capture the delapidated nature of its wooden structure - which had seen better days.

Footnote: Bradford R. The Importance of Elswhere: Philip Larkin's Photographs, 2015, Frances Lincoln Ltd, London, p.143