Forum menu
That article ticks a lot of boxes for me.
I too have discovered all kinds of things since lockdown began, it's been great fun going for a run and thinking "I wondered what's down there?", then going to investigate. The joy of being relatively fit is that if the path takes you a bit farther away then you planned you can still get home easily.
What worries me is a lack of appreciation of radio masts. I always stop and photograph them on my ride, check out the antennas and lattice structure design. They also make great navigation aides when out cycling on random country lanes, I can spot a mast and know pretty much where I am straight away. Totally lost on the youth of today.....
On of my faves, near Clare in Suffolk, a local told me it was the local Police mast...
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51062686556_02b405acd0.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51062686556_02b405acd0.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2kNeBHw ]Suffolk Police Radio Mast nr Clare[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr
Then there's this weird one, which I need to find out more about - very unique design...
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51062761397_62ecb398ec.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51062761397_62ecb398ec.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2kNeZXT ]Weird mast just N of Henham[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr
When we moved to our house in Penicuik we bought a 1:25,000 OS map with our house at the centre.
It's roughly 20km by 20km which means it has 400 1km squares. We set ourselves a challenge to find something interesting in each square.
We did discover a lot of weird and wonderful stuff that we would never have seen but for the challenge! I would recommend this to anyone who wants to get to know their local area!
Some examples of the things we found:
The Gowk Stane: https://www.ancient-stones.co.uk/lothian/031/034/details.htm
Talla reservoir aqueduct pillars: https://rumblingtam.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/deepsyke-tower/
Jenny Barry's Cave Carlops: http://northtweeddalepaths.org.uk/pages/a13-jenny-barry.html
Wallace's Cave Roslin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace%27s_Cave
Also lots of nice walks out where we didn't see any one thing that was really interesting, but got a new perspective on the place.
I'm definitely regard pouring over maps purely just to have a look as one of lifes great pleasures! OS Maps and big monitors are perfect for it! Even better when you find an old building/monument and wind up down a wiki-hole!
When we moved to our house in Penicuik we bought a 1:25,000 OS map with our house at the centre.
It’s roughly 20km by 20km which means it has 400 1km squares. We set ourselves a challenge to find something interesting in each square.
Challenge accepted!
This is our secret castle btw:
And this is allegedly the most boring map square in the UK so NRT is lucky (on many levels) he doesn't live in Lincolnshire:
https://streetmap.co.uk/map?x=483050&y=422050&z=0&sv=SE830220&st=5&mapp=map&searchp=ids
I love maps, started with looking at old cloth OS maps to discover routes to rivers to fish as a kid, progressed to Merchant Navy Nav officer (OK, they're charts) for 10 years, Road rallys in the 1980s, GP4 round the lanes, stages in the 90s, mtb and road for last 15 years.
OS rules OK
And this is allegedly the most boring map square in the UK so NRT is lucky (on many levels) he doesn’t live in Lincolnshire:
Ahh... SE8322.
Very near to where i grew up. I would say that it is one of the most interesting grid squares though, rather than the most boring.
If anyone has access to PC VR kit, I love exploring with google maps VR. Just feels so natural striding about the landscape like a giant, peering down at stuff for more details. Discovered loads of interesting little details to then look out for on lockdown walks locally.
someone should tell them about Totnes castle then…
It was a pub when I lived in Devon. 😁Possibly the only one in the county without beams on the ceiling and agricultural implements on the wall. And better still, it was a very loud heavy metal type pub. It may have closed down in the last 25 years though.
(And everyone knew where Berry Pomeroy castle was - the most haunted castle in the UK, or something similar.)
nope. definitely a castle not a pub.
Totnes Castle | English Heritage (english-heritage.org.uk)
there is a castle inn just below it...
What worries me is a lack of appreciation of radio masts
Appreciated by Russian bomber pilots 😉
Then there’s this weird one, which I need to find out more about – very unique design…
[url= https://flic.kr/p/2kNeZXT ]Weird mast just N of Henham[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr
Ahhh..thats my local tower - easy to answer this one.
its part of what was known as 'backbone' which was a system built in the 1950's to give a microwave comms network that could be used to route phone traffic as an alternative to landlines. the thinking was in any nuclear conflict major trunk phone routes could be disrupted and a microwave 'line of sight' system could act as alternative.
The 'backbone' network linked towers that were usually around 25-30 miles apart - this one at Henham was linked to the south via the tower at Kelvedon Hatch (near brentwood) and to the north
it would have gone via repeater stations up to Kings Lynn.
The most well known tower in the whole system is the Post Office tower in London....
https://www.subbrit.org.uk/features/backbone-microwave-relay-network/
nope. definitely a castle not a pub.
Totnes Castle | English Heritage (english-heritage.org.uk)
there is a castle inn just below it…
Err yeah. I was jokingly referring to the pub. That's why I put an emoji after that statement.
There is a "castle" in the woods about half a mile from my house in SE London that I didn't know was there for the first year or so I lived here. Now I know it's there I can actually see it from my front door so I can see how this could happen.
Severndroog castle