Only the truly hard-hearted can clap eyes on a bubble car without breaking into a smile. These days it's rare enough to see one never mind 70 in a row. So the fact that the National Bubble Car Museum exists at all is cause for celebration. Here it is in Byard's Leap in deepest darkest Lincolnshire, second only to the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum in Dubble Bubble Acres, Madison, GA.

Inside a huge barn there are bubble cars or to use the more accurate term "microcars" everywhere. Their cheery countenances give the impression that they might get up to mischief once the visitors have left for the day. They're safely behind ropes lest they break free and run amok, parping out the Benny Hill theme on their horns. A colourful symbol of the freedom and optimism of the post-war era, they're just made for jolly jaunts with a wicker picnic set and tartan travelling rug, provided there's only two of you and you're not over 5'6".

The Register of Unusual Microcars (yes, there really is one) defines microcars as "economy vehicles with either three or four wheels, powered by petrol engines of no more than 700cc or battery electric propulsion, and manufactured since 1945". So within the world of microcars there are bubble cars - the ones that look particularly bubbly, either in shape or personality. The most iconic are here alright. The Messerschmitt, with its strange hammer-headed bonnet and tall bubble canopy has the air of a distinguished gentleman. It looks like it should be wearing a monocle. The cheeky Isetta, the bubbliest of them all has an unusual front-opening or "suicide" door. Funny how that didn’t catch on. They might look frivolous but they come from a prestigious background. Isettas were manufactured by BMW and Messerschmitts were made by, er, Messerschmitt famous for their WWII bombers. The bubble canopy wouldn’t look out of place on a fighter plane.

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Posted by Anne on September 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

The trouble with TomToms, and I’m talking sat-navs not drums, is they take all the fun out of finding those tucked away places like Norfolk’s Baconsthorpe Castle.

Of course where I say fun, you might say frustration, but ask me the way and I’d delight in giving you these directions. ‘Follow the Baconsthorpe sign from Holt. Much of the road is single track, so be prepared to pull over when meeting the occasional bit of traffic. Unless the oncoming vehicle’s a tractor or a 4X4, then say your prayers, because the drivers of neither seem to take any prisoners.

Once you’ve entered Baconsthorpe, you want the last left before you leave the village. Don’t look for a sign, because there isn’t one; well there is, but it faces the other way and is sustaining a good growth of ivy.

A short distance on, you’ll see a smaller sign at a field edge. Follow the pointing finger down a farm track towards the two silos, keeping the cabbage field on your right. Once you’ve passed the redundant liquid fertiliser tanker, there’s just three cattle grids to negotiate and you’ve arrived.

You might now be wondering what there ever was in this bit of the back of beyond that was worth defending. The answer’s probably nothing, because Baconsthorpe Castle, or rather what’s left of it, was never actually a castle, but a moated and fortified manor house, so maybe the grander sounding title was adopted by the upwardly mobile early Tudor occupants or is 15th Century Estate Agent speak.

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Posted by Andrew on September 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

The sixties were about to swing as 1961 saw the first appearance of the Beatles at Liverpool’s Cavern club. Above the earth Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, whilst back on terra firma the cold war heated up when the first blocks of the Berlin wall were cemented into place. In South East Asia, 18,000 US ‘advisors’ arrived in Vietnam.

Closer to home the residents of the Elephant and Castle in South London no doubt marvelled, ignored and tut-tut-ted at these developments in equal measure. After the severe bomb damage of WWII their little corner of the world was slowly being reshaped by planners and architects full of exciting new ideas. The future would be a better, sleeker, more exciting place to live, although the dislocation between these ideas of modernity and the ordinary people were already apparent. For one thing locals were pondering the appearance of a huge shiny futuristic metal box in the centre of a roundabout in the middle of the Elephant. Back in 1961 nobody really knew what it was. Thirty years later the same was still true when, in June 1995, the Evening Standard ran a story with a picture of the box headlined ‘But what on earth is it?’

One often repeated urban myth can be discounted immediately, as the steel cube is most definitely not a subterranean home for dance music pioneer Richard D. James (aka the Aphex Twin). Admittedly it would be a great rock ‘n’ roll story if an artist who credits synaesthesia as an inspiration for creating ground-breaking ambient, acid and techno music should chose to burrow a home under one of South London’s busiest roundabouts. Sadly he lives in a converted bank just round the corner.

In truth it’s easy to sweep the mystery away. Just use one of the pedestrian crossings that link the urban mainland to the traffic island and take a look at the stone inscription on the north side of the box. This tells you that the stainless steel structure is a memorial to local boy done good Michael Faraday, who, although not the most famous south Londoner, was one of the most amazing individuals the capital has ever produced. Born into poverty in 1791, Faraday received only basic schooling but in his teens a fascination with science led him down the road of self improvement. By his early twenties he secured a post as a chemical assistant at the Royal Institution. Over the following years Faraday worked extensively on the principles of electricity, discovering in 1831 electromagnetic induction, the principle behind the electric transformer. This pioneering research laid the basis for the commercial exploitation of electricity. So the next time you switch on your kettle give a little salute to Michael Faraday.

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Posted by Maurice on September 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4)

The place marked "Rumbling Bridge" on my map intrigued me for so long that eventually I had to take a look. Not particularly convenient for anywhere else in deepest Perthshire, it's a bit of an adventure. Often these places can be a bit of a let down, I was fully prepared for somewhere that didn't have a bridge, nevermind a rumbling one, but there it is - true to its name.

Rumbling Bridge is unusual in two ways - firstly there are two bridges. The original was built in 1713 by William Gray, a local stonemason. Another was added over the top in 1816, to make a picturesque double bridge. The second remarkable thing is the noise. At first I couldn't hear anything different, but then I realised that my ears couldn’t be hearing heavy traffic or a passing jet after all. Instead, this is the famous rumble.

Looking down 120ft from the viewing platform it's pretty clear where the noise comes from. There's a huge drop into a narrow gorge where the River Devon comes thundering down at great speed from the Cauldron Falls. It's pretty dramatic.

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Posted by Anne on September 09, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

You may already be familiar with the Golden Triangle in South East Asia, and no doubt you have heard tales of the strange goings-on in the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic, but did you know that Yorkshire is home to its very own brand of triangle… the Rhubarb Triangle!

This mysterious land sits between Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell and despite being only nine square miles in size it used to produce 90% of the world’s forced rhubarb crop. Special Rhubarb Express trains would leave from Wakefield headed for London’s old Covent Garden Market where it was distributed. In its heyday there were over 200 rhubarb producers who were the first in the World to erect special “forcing” sheds where they perfected the art of growing rhubarb out of season.

Forcing rhubarb is a very labour intensive method which hasn’t changed much in 200 years. First the rhubarb is left to grow outside in a field for two years where it stores energy in its roots. It is then exposed to a frost and the entire plant is lifted out of the ground and placed on the floor inside a warm, dark forcing shed. These sheds have no soil so the plant must use the energy reserves in its roots to grow stems. The dark and the warmth encourage this growth and it is said that the plants grow so quickly under these conditions that you can hear the buds popping. The resulting forced rhubarb is much more tender and sweeter than rhubarb grown outside.

With the advent of exotic fruit importing in the sixties, Britain’s love of this vegetable began to wane. Today there are only a handful of producers left. One of the most well-known is E.Oldroyd & Sons Ltd who have been forcing rhubarb since the thirties. Janet Oldroyd Hulme is often referred to as the “High Priestess of Rhubarb” and every year between January and March she opens up her forcing sheds to the likes of you and me.

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Posted by Jasia on September 03, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)