Trip: UK 2017

I was a nice sunny day, but with a stiff cool breeze so we needed our warm jackets.  We parked at the end of the road out of Seaford, and walked the 1 km or so down to the beach.  You get great views along the coast as you approach the old Coastguard Cottages.  This track is their only access to the outside world.

A selfie!

Walking down to the beach approaching the Coastguard Cottages.

Cuckmere Haven, the mouth of the Cuckmere River.

This World War II Spitfire zoomed past low overhead!

The view inland from Cuckmere Haven, toward Exceat.

The Seven Sisters

(19 September)  Today we moved again, leaving Cornwall and heading east and north toward London again.  We will stop on the way for three nights in Lyme Regis.  We planned a few stops along the way to visit places associated with Sue’s ancestors.

Sue’s g-g-g-grandparents were Edward and Elizabeth Tregenza (“Edward the First” and “Elizabeth the First”, say). According to census information, Edward the First was born in Lelant (in 1814) where we had lunch today at the railway station.

Lunch at Lelant Station.

The Lelant Station is a quiet secluded place, with a nice view over the estuary, so it was actually not a bad place to have lunch.

Edward and Elizabeth probably met in Barripper, which we also passed through. The 1841 census records Edward as being a copper miner, living in Barripper next door to Elizabeth Collins, a “mine girl”. Elizabeth was living with the Thomas family along with her sister Maryann.

Sarah Jane Lukey (Sue’s g-g grandmother) lived with her parents (Joseph and Sarah) in Liskeard around 1860 in one of the Trevecca cottages which still stand today.

Sarah Lukey emigrated to New Zealand in the “Tiptree” arriving in Lyttelton in 1864, and later married Edward Tregenza (Sue’s g-g-grandfather, Edward II), son of the Edward I mentioned above, after he emigrated to New Zealand, via Adelaide (in the “Electric”) in 1865.

Trevecca cottages circa 1918 (the Lukey house is no 11, third from left).

Trevecca cottages in 2017, and Sue.

We found more or less the same viewpoint as the old photo above and took this photo.  Where those cows stood is now a construction site, so from next year this view will be gone forever as the foreground will be blocked by new houses!

The cottages up close.

Sue in front of number 11.

We chatted to a woman gardening outside Trevecca Cottage Number 1, and when we came back from taking photos from across the road, she hurried out again to show us a book, “The Life and Work of Henry Rice: Liskeard’s Foremost Architect”. He apparently designed the Trevecca Cottages, which were built in 1847. The cottages were therefore quite new when the Lukeys lived there.

We also had this old photo of the fountain in Liskeard (on the right), also designed by Henry Rice, so took the same photo again just because we were there:

Liskeard Fountain circa 1914-19

Liskeard Fountain 2017 (on the right)

Edward II and Sarah’s daughter, Elizabeth II, travelled to England in 1891 as a nursemaid for the Hamlyn family, and was able to visit her grandmother (Elizabeth I) in Callington.  Her diary reports they went for a walk which took in “Doublepools”, and nearby Hangman’s Lane.  Edward and Elizabeth were living in Callington in the Doublepools cottages at the time of the 1851 census.

Doublepools cottages 2017.

Hangman’s Lane 2017.

On another day we walked to Land’s End from Sennen Cove, a distance of a couple of kilometers.  Marion’s photos include this one of Sennen Cove from the past:

Sennen Cove near Lands End.

Sennen Cove today (Google image) – many of the same houses are still there.

It was a nice day, although a bit blustery.

I know of many of these old aircraft, but found that up close they are generally much larger than I had imagined.  Those on display here are ingeniously packed into several large halls with their wings cunningly intertwined like a huge jigsaw puzzle.  They are several layers deep with the smaller ones under the big ones or suspended from the ceiling on wires.

The Lancaster bomber.

When I was growing up there was always a photo in our home of a Lancaster bomber with a couple of hundred men lined up on its wings and on the ground for a group photo, taken during World War II of the New Zealand Squadron 75 which was based in England.  Somewhere in that photo was my uncle Gerry (Gerald) who flew in one of these bombers over Germany, as the wireless operator.  He took part in night raids over Germany, when sometimes over a thousand bombers at once would conduct raids on German cities.  It was very interesting to see a real Lancaster bomber up close.

This is the nose of the Concorde.

They also have one of the few surviving Concordes, the supersonic English/French airliner which operated for 27 years between Europe and the USA until economics, noise complaints, and a disastrous accident ended its career about 2003.  Today there are still no supersonic airliners.

Sue below the engine exhausts.

Inside.  This was a test Concorde, fitted with test equipment and fewer seats.

The cockpit – not complicated at all.

My father was stationed in Noumea for part of the war, where as a technician he serviced and repaired the radio equipment on the aircraft operating there.  One he told us about was the Catalina flying boat, able to land on water or land.  He remembered feeling seasick having to work inside these planes in the 40 degree heat while they slopped about at anchor smelling of oil and kerosene.  I assembled a kitset model of one, so I knew what it looked like.  Today I saw a real one for the first time, which was quite exciting.  They are a weird looking aircraft.

The Catalina.

Duxford also has a larger Sunderland Flying Boat on display, which I believe were among the first aircraft to fly to New Zealand as commercial airlines, landing on Auckland Harbour at Hobsonville, from about 1940.  I see that today there is a new housing development at Hobsonville called “Sunderland”.

We visited the main museum, the Fitzwilliam.  Here are a few photos from there:

A decimal clock.  Ten hours per day, ten minutes per hour.  The small face within is a normal 24 hour clock.

A fabulous nautilus shell.

This huge slab is the lid of an Egyptian sarcophagus.

A face from the decoration on a 3000 year old Egyptian coffin.

Yes, that is a man busking from inside a rubbish bin.

The autumn leaves are starting to gather on the ground in thick layers.

 We bought our tickets for a punt on the river Cam on Monday, where it was much quieter than the previous weekend days.  Your punt-man propels you up and down a stretch of the river which takes you past many of the famous colleges – Trinity College, Kings College, Queens College, etc.  These all back onto the river and their properties extend across to the the land on the other side, so most have their own bridges across.  Cam-bridge == Cambridge.

A quiet day for punting on the river Cam.

Our punting guide, Ben, a student.  We are passing under the Bridge of Sighs.

This is called the “Mathematical Bridge”, made from wood.

 Next on the agenda was a look inside one of the colleges, in our case Kings College.  You buy a ticket, and are then allowed to wander through the chapel and around the grounds (but NOT on the grass).

Inside Kings Chapel.

The famous vaulted ceiling, 40 metres above.

A trumpeting angel.

Amateur and professional punters going in all directions.

 If you prefer you can hire a boat without a guide, and propel yourself down the river.  Judging by the efforts of those we watched, this is not as simple as it might appear.  On this quiet Monday in October there were plenty of near misses, so in July and August when the town is packed with tourists it must be chaotic!

A side view of Kings Chapel, across the immaculate lawn.

 I loved this amazing mechanical clock – the “Corpus Clock”.  The alien-looking beast on top (the “Chronophage” or time-eater) walks atop the turning second wheel, occasionally blinking and yawning. I will try and put up a video of it to show it working (actually of course Youtube has it already, for example this video ).

The Corpus Clock and Chronophage.

 We also checked out the Sedgwick Earth Sciences museum, since we are now amateur ammonite enthusiasts.  It is full of fossils of all ages from around Britain and the world, including some big dinosaur skeletons.

Sue blissfully unaware of the danger!

Thousands of catalogued items of every type and size.

These ones were quite like our own little ammonite.

Glad these spiders are now extinct!

Cambridge is flat, and there are bikes everywhere,

Sue contemplates a wardrobe update.

It would have been nice to have a few more bright days, to give more life to our photos!  But it has been quite warm, with just occasional rain.  Not bad overall.

Bletchley House, the original grand house, viewed across the lake.

 The Germans used an “Enigma” machine to encrypt all their communications.  The machine itself was fairly well known and had been used before the war.  The problem was that it could encode messages in over a billion different ways, so the British needed to work out what settings were being used each day.  Even after they learned to break the code they had to keep doing it again every day, because every day the Germans changed the code.

The German Enigma machine, thousands of which were used by the Germans to encrypt messages.

 The British secret weapon was the “Bombe” machine they developed, which was sort of primitive computer which could run through a huge number of possible combinations in a short time.  The one pictured here is a faithful replica built from scratch over 13 years, finishing in 2009.  All the originals were destroyed to maintain secrecy after the war.

This replica is a fully operational one, and they run it every 15 minutes every day to demonstrate it to visitors.  All these wheels spin, at various speeds, until the machine detects a possible solution to the day’s code.  It may have to be run numerous times before the correct answer is found, but it massively reduces the number of combinations which have to be checked by hand.  It is much more entertaining to watch than a modern computer!

The British “Bombe” machine, which helped break the Enigma codes.

Around the back of the machine, some of the whirring cogs and shafts.  Also an elaborate oiling system!

Some of the relays which trip to capture the correct solution.

The top wheels spin twice per second; the second row step once in 13 seconds, and the last row once in 5 minutes.

A man warned us there had been a “pecking incident” yesterday – keep a safe distance!

It was very pleasant looking around the park and gardens, and through the main house.  It seemed quite well run, and they are working to raise money and restore more of the 1940’s buildings.

Trampolines everywhere, and a lot of yelling.

Mally, Zoe and friends preparing the cake for candle-lighting.

Sue, Marilyn, Stephen, Ivana, and Kieren in the beer garden.

After and hour of trampolining followed by the blowing out of the candles and the cutting of the cake, we all retired to the Duke of Kent pub down the road, which has a large beer garden out the back which include a children’s playground.  Perfect for everyone, in other words.

Halfway to London we stopped to revisit Stonehenge, having last been there in 2004 with Lisa and James.  They have completely altered the nearby roads and built a large new visitors’ centre about 2 km away.  Now you have to park at the visitors’ centre, buy your ticket and take a shuttle bus to Stonehenge itself.  I noticed that Google maps still shows the now-disappeared road, so it must have happened fairly recently.  We had a nice sunny day, similar to the last time 13 years ago.

Found a gap in the crowds to take a photo.

Stonehenge, still impressive.  The big stones are 4 metres high and weight about 25 tonnes.

Hmmm, coffee and mobility scooters together.  Perfect for my old age.

Salisbury Cathedral.

Salisbury cathedral was consecrated over 750 years ago, and has the tallest spire in Britain, at 123 metres.  The huge font (below) is filled with absolutely still water, forming a mirror surface.

The perfect mirror surface of the water in the Salisbury Cathedral font.

The Cobb is a massive stone wall to protect a man-made harbour from the sea.

British seaside towns all have these little huts you can hire, to make a cup of tea out of the wind.

The town mill has been around since the 1300’s, and is now maintained in running order as one of the few remaining examples.  They still mill wheat and other grains, and sell the flour.  The guided tour was given by a very knowledgeable man who explained the whole system to us, and started the mill up from scratch so we could all see it working.  He reminded us of the many figures of speech which came from milling, e.g. “grind to a halt”, “rule of thumb”, “show one’s metal”, and “run of the mill”.

The waterwheel inside the town mill.

The town mill running, milling wheat into flour.

Our flat here is on top of the garage.

Fine pumpkins!

Our host said she didn’t quite know what to do with these.

Topiary caterpillar?

The huge cliffs at West Bay, as seen in “Broadchurch” on tv.

In Lyme Regis the streetlights contain ammonites!

On Chippel Beach searching for fossils.

Traces of a large ammonite in the rock.

A bigger ammonite – not something you can put in your pocket.

 After finding no take-home fossils on Chippel Bay, next day we drove along the coast to nearby Charmouth, where they are so easy to find that even children will have no trouble!  It was raining and stormy, but we gritted our teeth and set out along the beach.  They say that wild weather is the best time, and a falling tide, because all the freshly-exposed fossils will be there for the finding.  There are high, soft cliffs along the beach, displaying many layers of sediment and obviously eroding quickly and falling onto the beach.

Sue wrapped up against the weather.

I got my feet wet several times when I was too slow to beat an incoming wave!

Finally!  A beautiful little ammonite, and some other stuff.  Fossil poo?

The results of our day’s efforts.

The breakthrough came when we gave up all hope after about an hour and a half, and starting heading back along the beach.  Suddenly there it was – a real ammonite just lying on the sand.  A moment after I picked it up another man walked past and stooped to pick up another just a metre away, but i could find no more in that area.

It was harder than we expected, but we did come away with a real ammonite.  It feels almost like a piece of metal.  It is amazing the amount of detail that has been preserved in something 200 million years old or so.

There are two huge “biomes”, the tropical one (beyond) and Mediterranean one on the right.

Inside the tropical biome.

Those distant people high above give some idea of the size of these domes.

They grow crops here, such as pineapples and rice.

Unusual flowers – the stalk grows right through the middle of each.

Looks like some pagans decided to party here.

Even the bees grow unusually well here.

This area produces white clay used for ceramics, and has huge clay-mining pits which are clearly visible on Google Earth.  The Eden Project was built inside one of these pits.  We tried but found despite their huge size they are well-hidden from the road – it’s actually easier to see them from space!

We paused in Truro, the capital of Cornwall, for lunch and a bit of a wander, then continued south to Lizard, the most southerly point in Britain (Land’s End is the most westerly point).  After paying the usual parking man we walked down to the point.

What we really came for – coffee!

Sue and the southern tip of Britain.

Nearby Kynance Cove, where some brave tourists were swimming.

A panorama of Kynance Cove.

I’ve noticed that they like the letter “z” down here.  There is the Begg family “Tregenza” ancestral branch of course, and places like Lizard, Penzance, and Marazion.