Situated in the remote hamlet of Low Moor in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, The Band Room is an unlikely concert venue and well off the beaten track. Built in the 1920s for The Farndale Silver Band it holds one hundred people. However, recent visitors come to enjoy more modern music from a small but carefully selected list of international visitors, giving the Band Room the reputation as “the greatest small venue on earth”.

On our journey the roads got smaller and the surroundings more beautiful as we drove into the valley of Farndale. It was the building itself that originally interested me and seeing it 'in the flesh' wasn't a disappointment - a charming small corrugated iron structure with porch and red roof, the Yorkshire Moors sitting high on the hills behind it. The interior is as lovely as the exterior, white washed wooden panelled floor and ceiling with a strikingly simple red lit stage edged with white fairy lights.

We navigated through the small crowd and sank happily into the laid back atmosphere sitting on the floor near the front with the local kids surrounded by their pop and crisps. The band came on stage. Citay, the six piece from San Francisco, were obviously delighted to be there, "why can't every day be like this?" asked their lead singer. The small stage and friendly people gave the venue a wonderful old fashioned charm but as the band started up with four electric guitars the place was brought alive.

How to get there

The Band Room is at Low Mill, Farndale, Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, YO62 7UY.

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Links

• The Band Room website

Kelburn Castle is no ordinary castle, not on the surface anyway. For years it was a perfectly standard Scots Baronial castle which didn’t stand out in a country full of them. But when the owner, The Earl of Glasgow discovered that the render covering the building needed to be renewed, his son David, an architect, persuaded him to send it out in style. The Graffiti Project was born.

In May 2007 four Brazilian graffiti artists, Os Gemeos (identical twin brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo), Nina, and Nunca transformed the south façade of the castle into one huge mural. The grey castle wall has become an amazing piece of art designed to both delight and to challenge people’s prejudices against graffiti.

The mural covers one wing of the castle, turrets, chimneys and all. Each artist has their own distinctive style, but their work interweaves to create a strange and magical tableau. The blank-looking yellow fellows with spindly legs are an Os Gemeos trademark. The big-eyed wistful looking creatures surrounding by nature are by Nina, and Nunca’s indigenous South American people join the crew, all living in magical harmony.

What’s great about the graffiti project is that it’s so audacious. There is a lot of public art in Scotland and plenty of murals around, but this is different. The sheer size is remarkable but the way that it’s so colourful and unconventional is very fresh. It won’t be to everybody’s taste of course, and allegedly the owner hates it but hey, it won’t be there forever. The harling covering the castle walls will be renewed at some point (no set date at time of writing) so this wonderful piece will disappear forever. Catch it while you can.

If the castle isn’t your thing Kelburn Country Centre is still a great day out. The gardens are beautiful, there’s a small museum and the country walks are a pleasure including the Secret Forest which is great for kids.

How to get there

Kelburn Country Estate is on the A78 between Fairlie and Largs. There is an admission charge for the estate. Parking on site.

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Links

• Kelburn Castle and Estate website
• Boyle Clan website: the Boyles of Kelburn

Margate is a town in the throes of attempted gentrification, hoping to shed its tacky image with a new art gallery and renovated heritage theme park planned for 2011. Yet little is made of an existing attraction which is little known but simply astonishing. I can’t help but echo the Victorian novelist Marie Corelli who blamed its “plebeian” location for a lack of recognition:“[i]f the curious and beautiful subterranean temple … existed anywhere but at Margate, it would certainly be acknowledged as one of the wonders of the world”.

The Shell Grotto was discovered in 1835, prior to which date there are no maps, records or any indication of its existence, whomever may have created it and why they hid it again. It remains a mystery, with estimates of its age varying from 200 years to 2,000 year, with guesses ranging from it being a Masonic Sun Temple from the Middle Ages, to having been created by Roman soldiers. It has proved impossible to carbon date the shells due to contamination by soot from Victorian gas lighting. The material used to attach the shells, too, has been unable to shed any light but is similar to Roman cement, and seems to have been used to affix the shells while still alive.

Regardless of its origins, the Shell Grotto is an incredible place. 4.6 million shells cover almost every available space, their natural colours now covered in a patina of black and grey. Victorian damage is visible not just in the lack of colour, but in occasionally visible antique graffiti marking the shells. Finding shells with 19th century names and dates only adds to the Grotto’s charm.

A lengthy tunnel leads to a circular Rotunda passage, from which a further tunnel leads to a rectangular room known as the Altar Chamber. The images in the Grotto are open to interpretation although religious and ritual interpretations are the most common, with most seeming to pertain to fertility, birth, death and the sun. At the centre of the Grotto is a dome open to the sky which recent research has found to function as a solar calendar, forming a dramatic pattern at noon on the summer Equinox. While the mystery surrounding what ceremonial uses the Grotto may have once held are fascinating, the Shell Grotto stands alone, and would be no less intriguing if it were simply what it also appears to resemble, a work of outsider art.

While the Grotto is undoubtedly obscure because of its location in tourist-light Margate, the lack of other visitors is a benefit to those who do reach it as solitude heightens the unsettling, haunting atmosphere of the Grotto. The entry charge of £3 is a steal and afterwards you can visit the tea room with its friendly tortoiseshell (naturally) cat. I hope that any gentrification of Margate benefits its unforgettable Shell Grotto, and brings it to the attention it deserves and needs.

How to get there

Margate Shell Grotto is located on Grotto Hill, Margate, Kent CT9 2BU.

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Links

• Margate Shell Grotto

As you wander around the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum (or Museo de Saleros y Pimenteros) in Guadalest, you can’t help but smile at the display of fat chefs, ruby red tomatoes and, guardsmen in bear skins. What’s more, there are Beatles, Santa’s feet sticking out of a chimney, pistols and potatoes and, a copy of the salt and pepper shaker cufflinks that Lady Diana wore. Fortunately, they are sealed, or their contents would have sprayed everywhere when she shook hands.

The twenty thousand pairs on display are only half of the collection of Andrea Ludden. The rest are on display in another museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The collection was started by the simple purchase of a pepper mill at a garage sale – but it didn’t work! So Andrea bought a couple more and neighbours thought she was building a collection – the last thing on her mind at the time. Eventually she had about 14,000 on shelves all over the house, even in the bedrooms, so the family decided to create a museum.

“It’s amazing the things you learn without expecting it.”, says Andrea. “For example, the word salarium, salary, comes from the fact that Roman soldiers were paid part of their income in salt. It’s also thought that the word ‘soldier’ itself comes from the Latin sal dare, to give salt. If you look at common phrases such as ‘the salt of the earth’, he’s not worth his salt’, ‘below the salt’, etc. you get an idea of how important salt was.

It wasn’t until the 1920s, when Chicago-based Morton Salt added magnesium carbonate to their product, that it was possible to pour salt from a sealed container.

Morton’s development was the beginning of the salt shaker but it was the automobile that lead to them becoming collectable items. Because people could travel more freely, either for work or on holiday, the souvenir industry came about. Salt and pepper shakers were cheap, easy to carry, colourful, and made ideal gifts. Imagine you lived in an isolated village somewhere and your son or daughter brought you a set in the shape of the Buckingham Palace when they came on their annual visit home. It wouldn’t get used, it would be carefully kept as a decorative item. That’s how many of the early collections began.”

There’s almost nothing you can imagine that hasn’t been copied as a salt and pepper shaker, and a fair few of them are on display in Guadalest. Many of them reflect the designs, the colours, the preoccupations of the period. For example, a cooker from the 1940’s will look totally different from the cookers of the 1990’s, and it’s through using these differences and the materials they were made of that we can get an idea of how people lived at any given time.

Read more of this article on Derek Workman's blog.

How to get there

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Links

• The Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum (Spanish)
• The US Salt and Pepper Museum

There are many islands in Scotland, over 790 at the latest count. Easdale is the smallest permanently-inhabited one in the Inner Hebrides, lying just off the west coast near Oban. To reach it, get the ferry from the small settlement of Ellenbeich (also known as Easdale) on Seil Island (not actually an island). The ferry is no CalMac behemoth, but a 12-seater motor boat which nips over to the island as and when required. Just push the button in the waiting room to summon the ferryman. How’s that for personal service? A quick zip over the water, with plenty of spray in your face and you’re there.

Easdale is an island of two halves. At one end there is a tight-knit community made up of a few small cottages, a community hall, one restaurant and a museum. The further you get from the hustle and bustle (what there is of it), the more Easdale’s past reveals itself. There is slate everywhere – in the walls, on the roofs, on the beaches and sitting in great piles all over the island. In fact, it’s pretty hard to spot anything that isn’t made from slate. Remote and rocky, it suddenly feels like landing on another planet.

On the western edge, where the Atlantic batters off the rocks and sea foam flies everywhere, derelict buildings are all that remains of Easdale’s busy slate-mining industry. It’s hard to believe but at one time Easdale was the centre of Scottish slate production with over 500 residents employed in up to seven quarries. Slate from Easdale and the other Slate Islands – Seil, Luing, Lunga, Shuna, Torsa and Belnahua – built settlements locally and across the world until the last slate was quarried in the mid 1950s.

This was almost the beginning of the end for Easdale. By 1965 the population was down to five plus the ferryman and his wife. The prospects for Easdale looked bleak. However, the community pulled together and with the help of a sympathetic owner, families returned to the island to rebuild its fortunes. It now has a population of 65 and is particularly popular with artists and musicians. For them the isolation is a plus point, not a barrier. The distance to the main land is short enough to build a causeway but the residents don’t want one. There is no room for cars anyway, so what would be the point?

Today the quarries are deep, tranquil pools and the slates make perfect skimmers, which is why Easdale plays host to the World Stone Skimming Championships. For one day a year the population of the island increases dramatically as aspiring “tossers” come to try their hand. It’s fun for some and deeply competitive for others. Whether you take part or not it’s a great time to visit the island and enjoy the entertainment which is specially laid on. If you do go, don’t forget to see the other side of Easdale. A walk round the island takes 20 minutes or so. It’s like stepping into another world before the quick skip back to reality.

The World Stone Skimming Championships take place on 26 September 2010.

How to get there

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Links

• Easdale Island
• World Stone Skimming Championships

Gruinard Island looks peaceful enough today but in 1942 it was a different story. The small island sits quietly in Gruinard Bay halfway between Gairloch and Ullapool without causing much of a fuss, but when top MoD boffins from the Porton Down military research laboratory in Wiltshire wanted a quiet spot to test their new weapons it suddenly became hot property.

As the Second World War escalated, there was a worry that the Germans would attack Britain with germ warfare. Gruinard Island was deemed far enough away from anywhere important to be used as a testing ground for the anthrax bacterium. It is fatal in 95% of cases when ingested - not something to be messed with. So this innocent piece of land became Scotland’s top secret ‘Anthrax Island’.

As part of the experiment, 60 sheep were penned up and exposed to anthrax-infected bombs. Within three days they were dropping like flies and the scientists had the proof they needed. The plan was for anthrax to play a part in Operation Vegetarian - a deadly programme designed to cause maximum damage. Linseed cakes contaminated with anthrax would be air dropped over Germany. The cattle would ingest the spores and contaminate the meat supply, killing swathes of German citizens in the process.

Thankfully that particular scenario didn’t come to pass. The linseed cakes were incinerated at the end of the war, but it was too late for the Gruinard locals. The island was abandoned and covered in ‘Keep out’ signs. Everyone did until 1986 when an English company was brought in to decontaminate the land. It took 280 tonnes of formaldehyde to do the trick. The topsoil was removed in sealed containers and a test flock of sheep was sent over to graze on the island once again. When there were no ill effects the island was declared open again.

Today, there are no outward signs that anything happened. It’s a particularly scenic and sleepy part of the country. Round the coast, there are more visible wartime relics with the concrete gun emplacements and memorial at Aultbea. Gruinard’s only recent claim to fame has been Private Eye’s suggestion that Guardian typesetters, famous for their misprints, should retire here.

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Links

• WW2 in the Highlands: Gruinard Island
• Wikipedia: Gruinard Island
• YouTube: 1940s film of anthrax testing
• BBC News: Britain's anthrax island

There aren’t many rules at Nothing To See Here, but here’s one – if you’re ever near a camera obscura go and see it. Scotland is blessed with three, in Dumfries, Edinburgh and Kirriemuir. Edinburgh’s has the best views, Kirriemuir’s has a literary connection (gifted to the town by Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie) but Dumfries’s is the oldest of the three and in fact, the oldest working instrument of its type in the world.

Plans for the camera obscura started in 1834 when local businessman Robert Thomson heard that the old windmill at the top of Corbelly Hill was going to be demolished. With local support he purchased the building for £350 to create the Dumfries and Maxwellton Astronomical Society. The tower was converted into an observatory and the camera obscura was brought all the way from Kilmarnock on a horse and cart.

Initially, the tower was only open to members and selected ones at that. The writer Thomas Carlyle was one of the first to arrive. It was 1849 before members of the working class were allowed in and even then it was only on Saturdays. As donations from patrons grew, the adjoining museum began to grow as the observatory went slowly out of fashion. It stopped operating as an observatory in 1870s.

Providing the weather is amenable, its operation is fairly simple. An angled mirror on a long pole poking up at the top of the tower (like a periscope) projects images of the outside world onto large flat table below. That may not sound very exciting considering that you could look out of the window and see more or less the same thing but it feels magical, like floating invisibly around the world with an all-seeing eye. It’s fun to play God, picking up passing cars with a piece of paper or making an invisible bump in the road for buses to shuffle over.

With technological advancements, camera obscuras have no practical purpose, but that doesn’t diminish their appeal. It’s a chance to catch a little glimpse of the present through the eyes of the past. Dumfries is lucky to have this illuminating little gem.

The Observatory, Rotchell Road, Dumfries DG2 7SW

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Links

• Dumfries and Galloway Museums website

The Toothbrush Fence in Te Pahu, New Zealand is exactly what the name suggests, a fence adorned with toothbrushes (and a few dish brushes). While the Toothbrush Fence was name checked in TV’s “Flight of the Conchords” as boasting over 50 toothbrushes, they now number in the hundreds. In all their variety they hang from the fence, their plastic still vividly coloured although their bristles are largely worn down from long service. Children’s toothbrushes stand out as makers have gone all out to make oral hygiene attractive to the young with Narnia, Lord of the Rings films and Looney Tunes all represented.

The Toothbrush Fence is located on a farm on a quiet rural road and if you weren’t looking for it, it seems unlikely you would stumble across it. We saw no other people while visiting but the bull in the nearest field stared at us, and a goat tethered to a fence across the street also ambled into the road to greet us.

A sign under the farm’s two letterboxes instructs “DIY (wire in bucket)”. The fence goer can hold their toothbrush in a clamp and drill a hole in the brush before helping themselves to a pre-cut piece of wire to attach their brush. If you need amusement while your friends drill their toothbrushes, the post boxes have games attached to the fence to play, in the form of a Rubik’s Cube and a peg based game of uncertain rules. The fence also displays a painting of Betty in her 1950s blue sedan visiting the Toothbrush Fence. The identity of Betty is unknown but her image also adorns one of the village’s other attractions – the Helen Clark Celebrity Bus Shelter.

Former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark is a native of Te Pahu. The Celebrity Bus Shelter is wooden, green and houses paintings including one of the then PM in the bus shelter and the depiction of Betty’s visit. The Helen Clark “self portrait” may be a reference to “Paintergate” where as PM she signed a painting which was, alas, not her own work.

Te Pahu also boasts an information centre in a shed, which a sign informs you is closed 24 hours a day. Peering through the window it has a "You are here!" map, a Te Pahu School t-shirt, a handful of leaflets and a Hamilton Underground Map. Hamilton (the nearest metropolitan centre) has yet to build a subway system, although it does boast a tribute in statue form of its own celebrity, Richard O’Brien as Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The creator of all the Te Pahu attractions is the self proclaimed Laird of Hamilton, Graeme Cairns. His inspiration for the Toothbrush Fence apparently came from the now sadly bare Cardrona Bra Fence. Cairns is best known for his attempts to evade the census by various methods including claiming to be possessed, completing the form in Latin and nailing it to a tree, ascending to international air space in a hot air balloon and being cryogenically frozen and declared legally dead by a “Dr Qualified”.

While his Te Pahu website claims “Te Pahu is a great place to live, and the less people who know that the better” the closed Information Centre is intended to frustrate any potential visitors, it’s well worth making the effort to stop in Te Pahu if you are ever nearby.

The Toothbrush Fence is located at 294 Limeworks Loop Road, Te Pahu, R D 5,
Hamilton, New Zealand. You can send your toothbrush to The Toothbrush Bucket at this address to be added to the fence.

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Links

• Te Pahu website
• Te Pahu: Toothbrush Fence

Quiet spaces near Edinburgh’s Royal Mile are few and far between, but if you look hard enough they are there. On the Canongate, just passed the Kirk, the entrance to Dunbar’s Close looks like any other Edinburgh wynd. Its well-kept secret is a beautiful 17th century secret garden. Walking through its gates is like stepping into another world from the hustle and bustle of the Royal Mile.

Neatly laid out like a traditional Burghal garden over three quarters of an acre, it packs a lot into a small space. Trees and manicured bushes create a shady area at the entrance, opening out into a suntrap full of lovely flowers and unusual plants. Two small squares with classical stone benches provide quiet places to sit beside a shady wall that could fool you into thinking it was in Tuscany. It’s worth stopping a while to enjoy the wonderful symmetry of the design and the spectacular views of Calton Hill beyond.

The garden was created by Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) who lived on the Royal Mile at the time. He was an eminent Scots biologist who stressed the connection between health and the environment. Geddes had the vision for a network of gardens around the city of which Dunbar’s Close is one. By the 1970s the garden had fallen into disrepair. It was saved by a bequest from The Mushroom Trust which gifted the land to the City of Edinburgh Parks Department. In 1978 it was rebuilt by landscape architect Seamus Filor and has remained a delightful public space ever since.

Few places in Edinburgh are really secret, and even this quiet spot fills up at regular intervals with small groups of people on walking tours. However, the groups leave as quickly as they arrive, and after that peace reigns again. It’s fun to watch the tourists mingle with Auld Reekie aficionados who obviously know that this is the place to go for a quiet moment.

How to get there

The entrance to Dunbar's Close is on the left-hand side of the Canongate as you go towards the Scottish Parliament. It is just passed Canongate Kirk beside Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe.

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Links

• Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust
• Gazetter for Scotland: Dunbar's Close Garden
• Green Yonder Tours: Hidden Gardens of the Royal Mile

Over the years Coventry has had a bit of a hard time. Bombed heavily during World War II, the Modernist post-war reconstruction which was groundbreaking in its day has few fans left. However, in Broadgate - the dead centre (as it were), a building with a facade that only its mother could love has a special treat for keen-eyed visitors.

Above the Lady Godiva News kiosk (oh yes) there are two doorways with black eagles on them, signifying Coventry rising from the ashes, and a triangular window above. On the hour, Coventry's most famous heroine Lady Godiva comes rolling out of one door on her horse, buck naked of course with only long hair to cover her modesty. As soon as she appears, famous voyeur Peeping Tom pops out of the window above to get a good eyeful. She rides from one doorway to the next as bells alert goggle-eyed onlookers. In a flash it’s all over.

Both Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom are local heroes. Lady Godiva has another statue in the centre of Broadgate and she looms large in Coventry’s history. Another Peeping Tom statue watches the shoppers in Cathedral Lane shopping centre and the bizarrely-titled Peeping Tom News, a sibling of Lady Godiva News, lurks round the back of the clock.

The legend goes that Lady Godiva, an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, threatened to ride naked in protest at her husband’s decision to raise taxes. He ordered the populace not to look and everyone obeyed apart from local tailor Peeping Tom, who was cheeky enough to catch a quick eyeful. He paid a high price for his moment of pleasure and was blinded.

It’s not entirely clear why this hasn’t become one of Britain’s top tourist attractions. After all it is free and contains nudity. Mechanical clocks were at one time an essential feature of any self-respecting shopping centre. If you can’t manage a peep at Coventry’s, Masquerade author Kit Williams designed ones in Cheltenham, Telford and Milton Keynes or you could catch the magnificent Roland Emett’s The Aqua Horological Tintinnabulator in the Victoria Centre, Nottingham.

How to get there

The Godiva Clock is in Broadgate in Coventry city centre, CV1 1NE.

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Links

• YouTube: Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom in action
• Wikipedia: Lady Godiva

Tove Jansson’s Moomins, created by her in the 1940s, have been popular with children and adults worldwide (but particularly in Scandinavia and Japan) ever since. In Jansson’s native Finland, a theme park was opened with her blessing in 1993, with the understanding that it would be non-traditional, close to nature and made of stone and wood.

Located on the island of Kailo (the original choice, Ruissalo, is now home instead to the Ruisrock music festival), Moomin World (Muumimaailma) is accessible via a bridge from the harbour of the old town of Naantali.

There are no rides in Moomin World and while there is no shortage of places to buy snacks and Moomin merchandise, these don’t seem to be the park’s raison d’être. Instead visitors can visit buildings featured in the Moomin stories such as the many-storied Moominhouse, Sniff’s Summer Cottage, the Snork’s Workshop and the Witch’s Hut.

Where Moominworld does resemble traditional theme parks is in the abundance of teenagers dressed in character costumes. We saw Moominmamma, Little My, Too Ticky, the Hemulen and many more swarmed by adoring children (and one little girl whose curiosity lead her to try to unzip the Snork Maiden!).

Some of the characters also appear on stage at Theatre Emma, which gives regular performances in Swedish and Finnish. As English speakers the dialogue may have been lost on us but we enjoyed the spirited dancing of the octopus, Little My’s impudent faces and the revolving stage sets.

The park’s key demographic, families with small children wearing headscarves, loved the play together with walks through attractions like the Hattifatteners’ maze, the Whispering Woods and the Barefoot Trail, stopping in the many picnic areas and swimming in the sea at the secluded beach area. (Otherwise scarily well-behaved Scandinavian
children do splash each other!)

Moomin World is a gentle, friendly place, which reflects the imaginative landscape and idealism of the Moomin stories and can be enjoyed by children, adults, Moomin fans and Moomin neophytes.

How to get there

Moominworld is located in Naantali, 16 km from Turku on the west coast of Finland. It is accessible by bus from Turku. If travelling by car there is a Moomin Train from the Moomin car park in Naantali.

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Links

• Muumimaailma
• Moomin Characters Ltd

Pennan, on the Moray coast of north-east Scotland is a tiny village with a big reputation. It is hard to reach, down a steep, narrow, serpentine road, but many visitors make the effort. There’s one reason why – they all love Local Hero. In Bill Forsyth’s 1983 film, Pennan has a starring role as Ferness, which will become an oil refinery if some American businessmen (led by Burt Lancaster) have anything to do with it. Like Forsyth’s earlier masterpiece Gregory’s Girl, the film has a great cast and an understated sense of wonder that people fall in love with.

When you arrive it’s easy to see why Pennan was chosen. There is only one street which runs along the shore, lined by clothes poles, lobster baskets and the odd hammock. The houses turn their gables against the sea to shelter from the harsh north wind. The harbour is small and functional and the cliff that towers above the houses threatens to engulf the village every few years. There is no shop (unlike Ferness) and the Pennan Inn has been closed for some time, only recently reopening. It’s not exactly bustling. In fact, it is the opposite of the skyscrapers and long-distance speakerphone conversations of the Texan oil industry.

There is no shortage of little villages with picturesque harbours round these parts, but here the all important troika of harbour, phone box and inn (essential to the plot) are within spitting distance of each other. The famous red phone box, from which Peter Riegert phones home to report on the 'acquisition of Scotland' was added as a prop. When it was removed after filming there was an outcry so it was replaced in a slightly different location where it still stands today. Even the perfect driftwood on the beach has a cinematic quality although the beach scenes were shot on the sands at Morar on the west coast.

Its appeal has endured over the years and in 2005 Pennan topped a poll for the best film location in Britain. A plaque on the Pennan Inn opposite the famous phone box commemorates its fame. In 2008 The Culture Show brought Bill Forsyth back to the village to celebrate Local Hero’s 25th anniversary with a showing in the tiny community hall. The film and the village are so inextricably linked that you can almost hear Mark Knopfler’s famous theme ‘Going Home’ as you approach. As the film suggests, it's difficult to leave without taking a piece of it away with you.

How to get there

Pennan is off the B9031 which runs between Macduff and Fraserburgh.

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Links

• Undoscovered Scotland: Pennan
• IMDb: Local Hero
• YouTube: Bill Forsyth visits Pennan on The Culture Show

Anderby Creek is not somewhere you arrive at by accident. In fact, I went looking for it and still struggled to find it after driving through deepest and darkest Lincolnshire. Part of the problem is due to the fact that it doesn't consist of a great deal bar a large number of caravans and a wide expanse of (very pleasant) sandy beach. However since 1 April 2009 it has also been the location of the world's first 'Official Cloudspotting Area'. As member number 14364 of the Cloud Appreciation Society it was a personal must-see.

The Anderby Creek Cloud Bar, to give its official title, came into being after a disused beach shelter was given a new lease of life as part of the Bathing Beauties project. Designed by Michael Trainor, it's a simple wooden (larch I believe), building featuring a number of cloud spotting menus, some cloud viewing seating, (which admittedly is better to look at than to sit on), and some slightly Heath Robinson styled self-operating parabolic cloud-mirrors - to aid in the viewing of clouds across the wide East coast skies.

I arrived as the sun was coming up and if nothing else, the view of the North Sea from the Cloud Bar’s viewing platform was worth the journey alone. When it opened earlier in the year the weather wasn’t very kind at all, in fact the day was marred by, well, by clear blue skies. I had no such problem during my visit, in fact quite the opposite in so much that almost as soon as the sun appeared it disappeared behind a thick unrelenting band of Altostratus. Not the most attractive of clouds I suppose, but cloud all the same.

It may seem a little perverse to travel any kind of distance to view something that’s available to you outside your front door but the Cloud Bar is worth a visit nevertheless. As Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society, said: "The Cloud Bar is an inspired way to remind the public that some of nature's most varied and beautiful displays take place daily above our heads". Something we could all do with being reminded of, eh?

How to get there

Anderby Creek is on the Lincolnshire coast between Chapel St. Leonards to the south, Sutton-On-Sea and Sandilands to the north, and Anderby to the west.

Turn of the A52 towards Anderby and follow the road until you get to the sea.

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Links

• Lincolnshire County Council: Anderby Creek
• Bathing Beauties
• The Cloud Appreciation Society