Bletchley Park

bletchley park

In the middle of September, Dad and I visited Bletchley Park, somewhere I'd wanted to go for a very long time. I find the history of what went on there fascinating and I've read a lot around the subject; Alan Turing's biography, memoirs of the ladies of Bletchley, Gordon Welchman's story of Hut 6 as well as more general histories of the war effort.

Bletchley is situated just outside Milton Keynes. Dad had been before about a decade ago and couldn't believe the wonderful restoration work that has taken place. The way the exhibits and stories are laid out is amazing. Everything is beautifully presented and you are either free to wander at will, take a guided tour or use an audio guide. Dad and I wandered freely around the huge and impressive site.

The big house is stunning and the rooms are staged as though their occupants have just stepped out for a breath of air. The huts are probably the most interesting and, although the layout of each is not known specifically, they are set out as though work is still ongoing. The interactive, touch screen exhibits are fantastic - you can have a go at cipher and code cracking, mathematical problem solving, pattern spotting or memory puzzles which are all fascinating. They also have holographic projections of characters on the walls, so it's like you're joining a conversation that started just before you walked in.

an enigma machine

inside one of the huts

There is also a fascinating museum with huge number of Enigma machines, films, deciphered messages, a lot of examples of Alan Turing's papers and books and crucially, his apology.

The reconstruction of the Colossus machine is, as you might imagine, colossal, although it would also have been incredibly noisy, oily and filthy. Soundtracks of the experiences the female operators had working with the machines play over speakers as you walk round.

miles of cables, hundreds of bulbs

A few minutes walk to the far end of the park brings you to the Museum of Computing which houses the only replica, fully functioning Bombe machine in existence and we had a fascinating talk from one of the 15 people who built and operate it. Miles of cabling, thousands of bulbs, hot, noisy and a bewildering array of turning, clicking dials - it's mind boggling that people could have invented and built a machine like it.

the replica bombe machine

how anybody can work this out…..

Bletchley is well worth a visit and I would allow a full day to explore and take it all in. Your ticket will also be valid for a year from the date of issue, so you can go back for free if you wish. It's such a fantastic reminder and memorial to those special, brilliant, dedicated, brave and loyal people who helped us win the war, but were never allowed to tell anyone what they did.

www.bletchleypark.org.uk

Things that go bump in the night...

I love a spooky story. Those that know me know I love anything mysterious, weird, strange, odd or bizarre. So what can I dig out about the great outdoors? These are a few things I've come across recently and one or two I've known about for a while.

The Grey Man of Macdhui

For ages there has been talk of a presence on Ben Mcdhui, the highest mountain in the Cairngorms. There have been no actual sightings, but many reports of strange noises or people being aware of something; hearing footsteps, but much larger strides than their own or crunching behind them. Many theories exist, but perhaps one suggestion is that people are seeing Broken Spectres where, usually in the mist, you see your shadow against the cloud, surrounded by a rainbow but, as many people have experienced irrational and unexplained fear on Ben Macdhui, perhaps there really is something there on that wild and lonely mountain....

The Black Eyed Child of Cannock Chase

Cannock Chase in Staffordshire is an area of outstanding natural beauty, but it also has a slightly less attractive side. Reports of aliens, UFOs, strange lights and the Pigman but also the Black Eyed Child. Photographers and drone footage have captured what appears to be the spirit of a young girl with a pale face and very dark eyes. Stories of black eyed children have been around since the 1990s, many from America, but urban myth or truth, who knows?

The Hellfire Caves of West Wycombe

These man made caves and tunnels extend nearly half a mile into the chalk and flint around the village of West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. They were dug in the 18th century for Sir Francis Dashwood who founded the Hellfire Club which held its meetings in the caves (the name actually came later - Sir Francis called the club the Brotherhood of St Francis of Wycombe, among others) and their use was most definitely pagan. Rumours of satanic practices, black magic and one unexplained death abounded at the time although no-one knows for sure what actually went on. The caves are said to be intensely paranormally active.

Schiehallion

Schiehallion is mountain in Perth and Kinross which has lots of myths and legends attached to it. It's situated almost smack bang in the centre of Scotland and translates as the Fairy Hill of the Caledonians but not the cutesy, bottom-of-the-garden variety; no, the aggressive type who drag intruders down to the underworld. It's also said to be home to Cailleach Bheur, the hag of winter who freezes everything and everyone who is unprepared. Interestingly, it was also the mountain used to calculate the weight of the Earth (or average density) and was apparently quite accurate (5.972 sextillion tons since you ask - a sextillion is 1000 trillion apparently) 

Black Shuck

Black Shuck, Old Shuck. Padfoot, Skriker, Old Scarfe or Old Shock is said to roam East Anglia; a phantom shaggy black dog the size of a labrador, calf, donkey or horse with red eyes, flaming eyes, green eyes or one eye, an omen of death or misfortune, a terrifying apparition or a benign presence guiding the lost home, depending on where you live. The best recorded story is that Black Schuck appeared in 1577 in a thunderstorm and burst into a church in Blythburgh in Suffolk, ran up the aisle, killed a man and a boy and made the steeple fall through the roof. He then ran out and disappeared, leaving claw marks on the door which can still be seen today. People in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex still claim to see Schuck to this day....

Howden Moor

In March 1997 a strange incident happened over Howden Moor in Northern Derbyshire. Two loud 'booms' were heard, then reports started coming in from people saying they had seen a low flying aircraft, smoke and an orangey yellow glow on the moors. Police in neighbouring South Yorkshire also received similar calls. Military and civilian airports were contacted, but no one had anything flying in that area at that time. The search and rescue services carried out a huge and thorough all night search of miles of moorland but no one found anything at all, and this was from well over a hundred people. The search was eventually called off and it was concluded that there hadn't been a crash. Over the following weeks, people speculated; a UFO being the most popular theory and there were eye witness accounts of strange lights and noises in the sky that night. It was also claimed that a UFO had been tracked on local radar, but no more information was given when pressed. The RAF confirmed they had not been flying that night and hadn't picked anything up on radar. However, no rational explanation has been given for the two sonic booms heard and the UFO theory remains...

Dale Head

My own slightly odd experience was on a beautiful sunny day in June on Dale Head. Blue skies, quiet, warm and not a breath of wind. We had been on Hindscarth and were making our way back up to Dale Head, when we stopped to admire the view down to the Honister Pass and Buttermere. I had taken a photo and Bro was having a drink and we were standing on a small lump of rock when we heard a noise like a rustling Tesco bag. We looked around us to find it, but then realised it seemed to be a wind, and it literally went right round us at about knee height in a circle, moving our trouser legs and the grass but nothing else, all the time rustling loudly and then it disappeared. Very strange.

Sleep tight.

Making Tracks

green lanes of the KENtmere valley

Having just discovered my first lonning in Cumbria last week, I though I'd look into old trackways a little more and it turns out to be a vast network; in fact the United Kingdom is crisscrossed with ancient paths and tracks.

As well as the longer, more well known paths, there are hundreds of small, secret, almost forgotten pathways that go by many different names: holloways, green lanes, barfs, sunken lanes, greenways, trods, byways, driftways, lonnens, loanins, lonnings, lons, droveways, pilgrimage routes, miners paths, trading paths, packhorse routes, reivers roads, military roads, turnpikes, shieling paths, boreens, bealachs, casans, smugglers paths, timber trackways, corduroy trackways, herepaths, herewags, heargways, toghers, slighes, ridgeways, watershed routes and many more

Huntingstile Lonning, Grasmere

TICKLE BELLY alley lonning, boot

ticklebelly alley

Many follow the natural contours of the landscape; rivers, ridges, valleys; perhaps more solid ground or firmer sand, over mountain passes and through marshy or boggy ground and to fording points of rivers and streams. Many have neolithic origins such as The Ridgeway which was in use 5000 years ago or the Sweet Track which is perhaps 5800 years old. Some are Saxon, some Celtic, lots are Roman such as the Fosse Way or Watling Street and were built over older trackways, some are medieval - the Long Causeway - and some are later still; 17th or 18th century such as the Keighley and Kendal Turnpike or the Sparrow Herme Turnpike.

However, these routes, which also include the Corlea Trackway, Icknield Way, Harrow Way, Pilgrim's Way, Mariner's Way, Saints Way, the Old Way, Broomway, Kennet Avenue, Ermine Street, Dere Street, the Peddars Way and the Devil's Causeway were all well used. The green lanes or lonnings or holloways were more rural; used for driving livestock, travelling between settlements, or were eroded by water, marked boundaries between two landowners and some do date back to the Romans and Iron Age.

Sunken lanes are characterised by quite steep sides and hedgerows, packhorse routes tend to be narrower, drovers routes are wide, trods are fairly indistinguishable, barfs are quite steep and green lanes were unpaved and sometimes only known to locals.

green lanes of the KENtmere valley

the Ridgeway

What is sad today, is that a lot are disappearing; either through a lack of use and have become too overgrown, some are being upgraded to byways, some have become proper roads, hedgerows have being grubbed up to make way for larger fields and these beautiful little corridors through the landscape have been lost  - occasionally just a rut in the landscape is all that's left.

Let's not lose them. Let's search them out and use them. Let's listen to Joni Mitchell and not go down the 'pave paradise, put up a parking lot' route; there are hundreds of better paths to choose.

old woodland paths

now this i swear is a hobbit hole

Orchids and Nature Reserves

On late May Bank Holiday weekend, Bro and I did something we've never purposefully done before. Visited a nature reserve. In fact two nature reserves and in areas we know very well and have walked in many times over the years, but they're really, really tucked away; to the extent you probably wouldn't find them if you didn't know they were there. Which is exactly the way they want it I expect.

I also did something I've never done before which was to look actively for wild orchids. I can't remember ever seeing, or realising I'd seen one, before. I grabbed an information leaflet at the very small visitor centre and we set off, but, as is our wont, we turned the whole afternoon into a walk, trying to make it longer and longer as we were off the the Lakes a few days later.

poor dead mole

Consequently, we saw some beautiful views, vast woodlands we'd never visited and a huge area of wildflower common we'd missed, but we didn’t actually see any living creature or anything resembling a flower. The dog, crashing around in the undergrowth, blew any chance of seeing butterflies, deer or rabbits and the only thing we did see was a dead mole…

Back at the car, I was a little disappointed in my nature spotting abilities, when an older man came over and asked if we'd seen one of the three orchids that were in the reserve just under a bush as you left the car park. He also said he was bursting to show someone the other, rarer orchids he'd found, which was kind of him and I jumped at the chance.

We went through a small nature garden behind the little visitor centre, up to a tiny gate and there, behind a fence, was a small, delicate looking plant he told me was a Lady Orchid and next to it was a Fly Orchid. They were beautiful and so unusual. He suggested we visit another Nature Reserve nearby where there were great drifts of them including the very rare Monkey Orchid. We did go the following day and I must say it was a lovely way to spend two afternoons, seeing well known areas from new angles and spotting beautiful flowers. Even Bro can now identify a Common Spotted.

We just have to keep the dog and his great feet away - he couldn’t care less…

lady orchid - like ladies in bonnets

fly orchid

common spotted orchid

the very rare monkey orchid

twayblade orchid

beautiful pyramid orchid

hybrid lady/monkey orchids

A walk in the chalk

As much as I love the Lakes and the high fells, living as we do for the time being in the South and making the most of the area, I also have a real soft spot for the chalk uplands that characterise great swathes of Oxfordshire and which are fortunately within a 10 mile radius of home in North Berkshire.

The huge sweeping landscapes, big skies, skylarks singing in the summer and lots of ancient hillforts, longbarrows and burial mounds make for some really interesting walks. There are a number of long distance paths and in a walk last weekend in beautiful sunshine, we touched on three of them in a six mile circular route; the Swan's Way, the Icknield Way and the Chiltern Way.

big skies

The Swan's Way is a long distance bridleway (and we did meet lots of riders that day) that runs from Salcey Forsest in Northamptonshire, through Buckinghamshire and ends at Goring on Thames in Oxfordshire - a distance of 65 miles.

The Icknield Way is an ancient trackway that starts in Norfolk and includes the Berkshire Downs, the Chilterns and ends in Wiltshire.

The Chiltern Way is a 125 mile circuit taking in the Chilterns from north to south; from Ewelme in the south west to Chorleywood in the south east and the wonderfully named Sharpenhoe Clappers and Great Offley in the north east.

It really is a beautiful, pastoral landscape, with a palpable feeling of antiquity.

long views

golden fields

church of st mary, ewelme

jerome k jerome’s grave in st mary’s churchyard

Wiltshire Weekend

wiltshire views

We decided to have a couple of nights away to break up the month and we plumped for Wiltshire. It was really a case of looking for a decent, dog friendly hotel and The Moonraker Hotel between Bradford on Avon and Trowbridge had some good reviews, wasn't too far to drive and so sounded like an interesting option.

We love Wiltshire; great open, sweeping chalkland landscapes that have a palpable air of age and antiquity because of such historical sites as The Ridgeway, Silbury Hill, Avebury, Stonehenge of course, and numerous hillforts, longbarrows, white horses, stone circles and earthworks. There are also some beautiful towns; Salisbury, Marlborough, Chippenham and Devizes and numerous picture postcard villages.

the moonraker

kennet & avon canal towpath

The Moonraker Hotel, (nothing to do with Bond) was named after a group of local smugglers trying to avoid import duties on spirits by hiding barrels of contraband in church crypts or village ponds and who, one moonlit night, were caught trying to get those barrels out of a pond. Pointing to the moon reflected in the water, they told the officials they were trying to rake in wheels of cheese and they were believed although the officials did think the smugglers were just simple local folk...!!

The hotel was lovely and very comfortable, with the dog friendly rooms in a little separate courtyard area on the ground floor which was very convenient for late night walks.

That afternoon, we walked from the hotel down to the Kennet and Avon canal and along the towpath to Bradfield on Avon's wharf which was pretty, busy and bustling. We stopped for a while watching the boats and barges from a pretty, tiny tea shop garden right by the water. A little further along the path brings you to a 14th century tithe barn which was just magnificent and there were little cafes and shops surrounding it as well as a lovely park. A circular route down wooded lanes, across fields and through a narrowboat marina brought us neatly back to the hotel again.

bradford on avon wharf

the 14th century tithe barn

inside the barn

The following morning, after spying a white horse on a hill from the bedroom window, we drove to Bratton Downs. You can drive right up to the top and there are miles of walks to choose from starting from the car park. We had a walk round the 2000 year old earthworks and the Westbury White Horse enjoying the stunning views all around us.

We then drove back into Bradford on Avon for coffee and then lunch, but we also had a wander and found the tiny St Laurence Church, one of the only surviving, and most complete, Saxon churches dating from around 700 AD. We admired the Bridge Tea Rooms dating from 1502 and crossed the Town Bridge which was originally a packhorse bridge and has a curious building in the middle of it which was a tiny jail; it has a fish on the top of the weathervane, so if you were locked up, you were said locally to be ‘under the fish and over the water’.

WESTBURY white horse

the views FROm the white horse

plenty of walking

On the last morning, we drifted slowly home via Lacock, a beautiful National Trust village which is always used in period dramas as it's totally unspoilt by streetlights or overhead power lines. Lacock Abbey and its large tithe barn dominate the centre of the village. We also made a stop at Avebury although we’ve been many times, but it’s such a pretty village and has the largest stone circle in Europe, forming part of a huge neolithic complex including the mysterious Silbury Hill; in fact, there are longbarrows and burial sites all around this area.

It's certainly an area we'll go back to and explore as Wiltshire has so much to offer that is unique and unspoilt, and all against a landscape that's rich in history over the millennia.

tudor tea rooms

the only surviving saxon church

the tiny jail

lacock bakery

lacock abbey’s cloisters - harry potter was filmed here

AVebury stone circle

avebury