The East Anglian fishing village of Sizewell has had its image swallowed whole by the two nuclear power stations. Sizewell A was opened in 1966 and has just recently begun decommissioning. Its large nondescript square concrete bulk sitting in drab contrast to Sizewell B's metal domed roof. Sizewell B opened in 1995 and is due to close in about 30 years.

Sizewell A and B dominate the village's beach and public image. They dominate the coast, sitting side by side beach, staring blankly out to sea.

Like middle class oap's nuclear plants like living near the sea. Drawing in cold water for cooling and steam generation, often pumping out heated water back out to sea (just like a pensioner). Sizewell's inlets and outlets are marked by what look like two marooned seaside piers, which at night reassemble two skeletal fairground relics, details picked out once every two seconds by the blinking red light.

We visited at midnight. It would have been noisy trudging across the stones if it weren't for the loud evil growling sound coming from Sizewell A (which had yet to close). It sounded as though every single character from the Trap Door wanted to escape.

Standing on the beach between the power stations and the outlets is an eerie sensation. Beaches are supposed to be about fun and novelty. Sizewell beach is anything but, two grim concrete structures sat next to a shingle beach with two isolated piers and no ferris wheel. Even sand castles are unlikely as there's not much sand on the shore (although there's some attempt at sand dunes near the car park). Even if there was enough sand you wouldn't want to dig too deep when making the moats for your sand castles.

Continue reading "Sizewell Power Stations, East Anglia" »

Posted by Ben C on October 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

I must have driven past the turning for the A4180 a couple of hundred times before finally flicking the indicators and directing my car away from the terminally busy lanes of the A40. Previously my desire to either get to, or escape from, the congested delights of London had always persuaded me to speed past the west and east bound road signs which point towards Yeading and Ruislip respectively. Yet, delightful as these towns may well be, it was the words Polish War Memorial, emblazoned in white capitals across the top of the metal rectangle which always tempted me to deviate off course. I was intrigued as to what sort of a monument would warrant such a grandiose notice and always imagined that the post-war government in Warsaw had commissioned some brutal piece of communist commemoration to sit in capitalist Britain. So, cruising up the slip road, I twisted my neck searching for a memorial of Soviet proportions, all shards of concrete and square jawed figures, striking determined poses.

When I drew up alongside the monument I realised that my socialist fantasy had gotten the better of me. The structure which remembers the 2,165 Polish airmen killed during WWII is the work not of bureaucrats but rather surviving comrades who sought to build the memorial soon after the armistice in 1945. The Polish air force association commissioned Miecystam Lubelski, a craftsman recently released form a Nazi labour camp, to construct the memorial and his plan exudes gravitas through simple design. A set of small iron gates lead to a needle of Portland stone fronted by a shallow pond and flanked by two low walls. On top of the central column is a bronze eagle, symbol of the Polish air force, and to the rear a sunken half moon walkway is inscribed with the names of the fallen as well the insignia of long disbanded squadrons. Despite its proximity to a busy roundabout, and given that the dead end approach road is used as a car park, the memorial manages to radiate a serenity which succeeds in blocking out the distractions which surround it.

Continue reading "Polish War Memorial, Northolt" »

Posted by Maurice on October 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Opened in 1951, the Tyne Cycle & Pedestrian Tunnels join the communities of Howdon and Jarrow on the north and south banks of the river Tyne. At their peak 20,000 people travelled 900 ft (274 m) through them each day to get to work in the nearby shipyards. While pedestrian river tunnels are nothing new this was the first with a purpose-built cycle tunnel - still in regular use today as it forms part of the C2C cycle route running from coast to coast across the north of England.

Above ground at each end there is a dinky red-brick rotunda, quiet apart from the faint whirr and clank of machinery. Going in is like entering a station, but with no ticket office or trains. It's a slightly mysterious affair, just two escalators marked Up and Down that descend, seemingly, into the bowels of the earth. The directions need to be marked because they aren't moving. As you approach, a speed ray regulator powers the one you need into life. Legend has it the more people on them the faster they go although as it was quiet for our visit we didn’t get a chance to test this.

When they were built, they were the longest single-rise escalators in the world at 60m (approx 200 feet). Today they are still the longest wooden ones in the world, and a rarity now that wooden escalators such as those in the London Underground have been phased out. Built by Waygood-Otis, they have a solid charm, each of the 306 steps numbered and stamped, and they make a fantastic noise - a sort of gentle clank. The journey up or down feels like travelling in style.

Continue reading "Tyne Cycle & Pedestrian Tunnels, Tyne & Wear" »

Posted by Anne on October 22, 2006 | Permalink

For some buses are an unnecessary evil – late, overcrowded and filthy, but for others they’re a way of life. The bus enthusiasts of Glasgow have taken over the former Bridgeton Bus Garage and turned it into the Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust. Make your way inside the huge doors to find a shed full of beautiful old buses – all shapes and sizes, and an overflow area out the back for vintage fire engines, more buses and a rather bizarre home-made Glasgow rickshaw consisting of a sofa with two bikes stuck to the front.

Taking a look round it’s almost impossible not to be transported back to your youth, wherever and whenever that was. Although the Routemaster has become the megastar of the bygone bus world it’s the green and orange Glasgow Corporation double deckers that take me back. The length and breadth of Britain is represented with buses from Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Blackpool, London and further afield. If you’re lucky you might get a chance to get on board and sit in the driver’s seat. Who can resist a shot at the big wheel?

For visitors who are pretty vintage themselves the buses of their youth might be some of the beautifully restored old coaches – wonderful colours, beautiful logos and the odd crank handle on the front. For all the buses that have been brought back to life there are plenty that have seen better days, waiting for a little TLC.

Continue reading "Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust, Glasgow" »

Posted by Anne on October 14, 2006 | Permalink

Burgess Park is certainly not one of the most famous parks in London. Situated just off the exhaust choked tarmac of the Old Kent Road this large open space offers a green refuge from the madness of the capital's wild south east. On first inspection the park appears fairly undistinguished. It has a large lake where optimistic locals dangle rods and the largely treeless expanse plays host to impromptu football matches. It also stages the largest South American carnival of the year. But the strangest thing about Burgess Park is the iron canal bridge which sits alone like a forlorn bachelor on its southern most edge. This gently rusting structure is totally land-locked, spanning nothing but earth. Its existence is incongruous, canals and the Old Kent Road are not recognised bed fellows. Was I the first to wonder if its location hadn’t been the result of some eccentric copying the efforts of Robert McCulloch in transporting London Bridge to the USA? After all, that seemingly crazy inter-continental shift has transformed Lake Havasu into the second most popular Nevadan tourist attraction after Las Vegas.

If this were true then the experiment has failed in Burgess Park, there are no tacky gift shops or tourist hoards in evidence. However, by following the path leading from the bridge towards Peckham it soon becomes apparent that you are following the bends of an old water course which winds under two classic Victorian bridges. The physical scars of nineteenth century engineering are still evident on the landscape and when following the canal route it requires only a smidgen of imagination to visualise barges floating past the modern houses of north Peckham estate.

A little research reveals that at one time The Grand Surrey canal ran through what is now Burgess Park. Poor road links in the reign of George IV resulted in the proposed extension of the waterway to link London with Portsmouth. Unfortunately the money ran dry in 1826 with the canal only dug out as far as Peckham. The stunted waterway was adapted to ship softwood and materials were floated to Eagle Wharf, not far from where Whitten Timber merchants stands today on Peckham Hill Street. It’s worth popping into the shop to look at the old black and white pictures of the working canal and sniff the odour of freshly cut wood.

Continue reading "The Lost Canals of Peckham, London" »

Posted by Maurice on October 09, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

A visit to the Galloway Hydros Visitor Centre is a joy in 3 parts. Firstly, the beautiful art deco power station is a wonder to behold, all creamy and geometric against the Galloway countryside. Inside the displays are simple but effective. One room is full of papers, plans and photos showing the early days of the power plant – its construction in the 1930s is as remarkable at the fact that it's still going today, pretty much unchanged. There is an instructive video, not all that interesting to be honest, and for the younger members of any party who may not find hydro-electricity all that enthralling there is a room with safety-based computer games and Lego.

Hang around for the tour which takes you behind the locked doors of the control room and the turbine hall. The control room is full of huge machines that look like they might be props from some 1950s sci-fi movie. You know the type – lots of dials and switches and lights blinking on and off. One dial is labelled “Slow/Fast” which doesn’t seem very scientific. Still, it's unfair to poke fun at these wonderful contraptions. When this was set up it was years ahead of its time – the first power station to be operated by remote control through a telephonic system. Next stop the turbine hall – a beautiful high-windowed room with three large turbines in a fetching shade of industrial green. Only one was whirring away when we were there but it was still deafening.

With you on your journey is an informative guide (a lovely old man in our case) who explains how hydro-electric power works, and how the Galloway Hydros (6 in all) came together. In the 1920s the network was the ambitious brainchild of two local chaps, Major Wellwood Maxwell and Captain Scott Elliot. It took the advent of the National Grid in 1926 to make the project (involving sophisticated civil engineering and a good deal of mess) economically viable. It's certainly impressive, and well-considered - the same water passes through all 5 power stations, coming out as clean as when it went in, and a bonus of hydro-electricity is that it's easy to start and stop making it useful for sudden surges in demand. Electricity generated here often contributes to the nation's post-Corrie cuppa.

Continue reading "Galloway Hydros Visitor Centre, Galloway" »

Posted by Anne on October 04, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Apologies for the lack of entries lately - work and travel (to some places which will be appearing here soon) is getting in the way of actually writing anything.

So in the meantime, here's a photo from the Nothing To See Here Flickr pool. For those that don't know, Flickr is a photo-sharing website. It's one of the best websites around - and pools collect photos by different photographers on a particular subject. In this case, anything that fits in with the Nothing To See Here ethos. This wonderful picture was taken by NancyO and shows a rather unpicturesque scene from the town of Concrete. Nancy describes the town thus:

Concrete is a town of 790 people in Skagit County. You would probably only stop there to gape at this thing and get gas on Hwy 20 on your way to the North Cascades and Winthrop. The actual town which is a detour off the highway, is kind of cute in a depressed kind of way.

Sounds right up NTSH's street. There are some other Flickr groups that might be of interest:

• The Seaside Town They Forgot To Close Down
• The World of Alan Bennett
• Vanishing Beauty
• Boring Postcards
• The Village Green Preservation Society
• Model Villages

...and lots, lots more. If you aren't a Flickr member signing up is free, and easy so do join the club if you're out and about with your camera.

Posted by Anne on October 01, 2006 | Permalink