Wallerscote Island, Northwich

Between the River Weaver (bottom of above picture) and the Weaver Navigation stands, on Wallerscote Island, the last remaining part of the giant soda ash works that once dominated Northwich. Brunner Mond was founded in 1873, built its chemical works in Winnington, by the navigation, and produced its first soda ash - sodium carbonate, used in glass making, dyeing, detergents and cooking - in 1874.

BM became a limited company in 1881 and grew like Topsy, was one of the five largest soda ash producers in the world. In 1926 it joined with the British Dyestuffs Corporation, Nobel's Explosives Ltd, the United Alkali Company, and many smaller enterprises, to form Imperial Chemical Industries - the once mighty ICI.

The Brunner Mond name reappeared in 1991, when ICI divested itself of its UK and Kenya soda ash businesses. The new BM grew once more, and in 2010 acquired British Salt, a provider of one of the key ingredients of soda ash. BM was itself acquired by Tata Chemicals in 2005, and rebranded as Tata Chemicals Europe.

The main chemical plant was the other side of the Weaver, and from this led conveyor belts, running in a huge gantry over the river, to the storage, packing and loading facility on Wallerscote Island. The main plant closed in the 1980s, and has already been bulldozed - the two last photographs are taken from where it once stood. Tata closed its Northwich operation in 2013, blaming the price of gas, and the Wallerscote Island facility is being run down before demolition.

Nottingham's Rive Gauche

The Wilford Suspension Bridge crosses the River Trent to link West Bridgford and the Meadows area of Nottingham. Although the bridge can be used by pedestrians, this is at the discretion of its private owners, Severn Trent Water. It was built by the Nottingham Corporation Water Department, to a design by architect Arthur Brown, principally to carry a water main to the nearby Wilford Hill reservoir, and opened in 1906.

Adjoining the 1¼ mile long Victoria Embankment, constructed between 1898 and 1901, stands Nottingham's principal war memorial. This, and the associated memorial gardens, was laid out on land donated in 1920 by Nottingham's most famous son, Sir Jesse Boot, he of Boots the Chemist.

Work on the gardens and memorial commenced in 1923. Both opened on 11 November 1927, nine years after Armistice Day. The memorial, designed by the City Engineer of the day, T Wallis Gordon, is truly monumental, a trio of archways flanked by colonnades, all in Portland stone, with a terrace behind that overlooks the gardens.

The Orthodox cross-like ornamental pond has recently been renovated at the expense of a private benefactor. Unfortunately, the statue of Queen Empress Victoria, relocated from the bottom of the city centre's Market Street, is surrounded by an ugly anti-vandal fence.

Nearby stands a beautiful little Moderne bandstand of 1937, which was threatened with demolition by the City Council as part of its flood defence scheme, but is now protected by a Grade II listing.

Karan Anne Porter

Thursday 4 March 1965 to Wednesday 4 February 2009.
Photograph: University of Lancaster, 1988.

First Chermayeff Ekco

The architect Serge Chermayeff designed four of Ekco's Bakelite cabinets - the AC86 of 1935, the AC77 of 1936, and the AC64 and this, the AC74, both of 1933. The set was available in alternating current, direct current (DC74) and battery (B74) versions, and two colours - the pictured 'walnut' and black and chromium. It features a light beam and shadow tuning indicator. The station indicator strips, of engraved celluloid, are affixed by pairs of metal studs over the permanent wavelength scales beneath, and could be changed as new radio stations appeared. A wooden stand was available for the 'walnut' version of the set, and a chromed tubular steel stand for the black and chrome version.

The Folly of Hope

Alan Terrill runs the website of the Folly Fellowship. He and his wife Claire live in the Hope Valley, near to Minsterley, Shropshire, where their garden is itself home to a couple of follies, plus various welded metal animals. One of the follies is a shed in the guise of a tin tabernacle, its front influenced by the spa building in Tenbury Wells.

The tortoise tunnel was built, in rendered blockwork, into the side of the steep garden. At one end is a round room, about six feet across, the roof of which was formed using the top of an old circular gazebo. The sides of this were used as a former for the tunnel roof, a painted Gothic arch about six feet above ground level.

The façade of the tunnel was built up with sandbags, over which is mortared stone from the nearby stream. Sedum matting was pinned over the top. The tunnel has a solid floor, that part in the round room sporting a mosaic in the pattern of a tortoise shell. The exterior of the room's roof is a three-dimensional mosaic in the shape of a tortoise, the head and legs of which were fabricated from wood covered with lead sheet.

Alan plans to build, in wood, a tower at the currently open end of the tunnel, likely about twenty feet tall, and in the shape of the grain elevators of Saskatchewan. This will look great against the background of the wood-clad house, almost Alpine in its lime green woodstain.

Limassol, Cyprus - Town

With a population of just over 100,000, Limassol - also Lemesos, its older name - is the largest town in Cyprus. The town is one of contrasts, touristy lanes in the centre and the more interesting dusty corners of the area immediately outside this.

Limassol makes a strong claim to be one of the oldest continuously-inhabited towns in the world, its roots stretching back to 2000 BCE.

Richard the Lionheart, on his way to the third crusade, called here in 1191, when Cyprus came under the control of the Anglo-Normans. It was sold a year later to the Templars.

It can seem as though everyone has controlled Cyprus at some time. The French, the Venetians, the Ottomans, and again the British, from 1878. The British Sovereign Areas of the island remain a key military asset.

Limassol's role as a tourist destination took off when the Turkish invasion of 1974 lead to Famagusta and Kyrenia, the previous key resorts, being occupied. They continue so, in defiance of numerous United Nations resolutions.

Limassol, Cyprus - Carnival

Limassol is home to a number of festivals, principal amongst which is Carnival, which lasts for a full ten days.

Like all good celebrations, Carnival is pagan in origin. There is much eating, drinking and otherwise making merry.

Carnival commences with King Carnival, heading a large parade of wood, chicken wire and papier-mâché characters on floats, akin to the tableaux of Lewes Bonfire.

There follow fancy-dress balls and competitions, masquerade parties, folk dancing, and more eating and drinking.

Cyprus Car Graveyard

In eastern Cyprus, on the road north from Dhekelia, towards Achna, is a house-cum-workshop surrounded by dozens of British, French, Italian, German, Swedish, Japanese and American cars of the 1960s onwards, awaiting restoration.

Many are in remarkable condition, and could be easily recommissioned, including a lovely Mercedes 220 (top). There are at least half a dozen Audis: 80s, 100s, an 80 Fastback (above), a 5S, a couple of proper early Quattros, and a muscular Coupé (below).

The Brits are represented by a Triumph 2000 and a number of Jaguars, including two XJS V12s; one set of the colonial cousins by a Chevrolet Beretta, a Lincoln and a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro (below, identified by Rupert Lloyd Thomas); and another set by a couple of Holdens, one a Premier 202 (next below).

The dry conditions have been kind to very many of the cars, which whilst most have suffered some form of accident damage, it would be nice to think might again see the open road. There are quite a few Volvos, including a beautiful P1800 ES, in that icy blue that so suits them.

It is to those Italian cars that are so prone to rot to which the weather has been most kind. Fiat is represented by a 130, a 131S and a 132. There's a bevy of Alfa Romeos, including an early Spider and a pair of Alfettas, the paintwork of one well protected by foliage (below).

One might expect the Saabs to have survived without difficulty - these include a 95 (below) and a 99. Even a Datsun ST is still in one main piece.

It is though on behalf of the French machinery that one is most grateful to the weather. The collection includes a Citroën CX, a Peugeot 604 V6, and no fewer than two instances of the stunning Citroën DS Pallas (below).

First Bakelite Ekco

Ekco's first Bakelite-cased radios were the 312 and the 313, both released in 1930. At this time Ekco, the first wireless manufacturer to make Bakelite cabinets, had these moulded for it by Allgemeine Elektricitätz-Gesellschaft (AEG). The company installed its own presses, under AEG supervision, at its Southend-on-Sea factory in 1931, upon the imposition of high import taxes. The exquisitely-detailed cabinet of the 313, which was available from July 1930 in mahogany (this example), special order medium oak, and special order dark jade, was designed by L. Smithers. 

The set had a drum-drive scale, was available in AC (pictured) and DC versions, and cost £22.10s.0d. One then had to buy a loud-speaker. There were two options, the pictured moving-iron cone LS1 Ekcone, at £5, or the moving-coil LS2 Ekcoil, at £11. The wireless and cheapest speaker would have cost over ten weeks' of the average wage of the time, putting it out of reach of all but the most affluent. 84 years on, this 313 is in remarkable, and full working, condition.

Hobbit Mill

Birmingham was once home to innumerable watermills. Grade II-listed Sarehole Mill, on the River Cole in Hall Green, is one of only two left. The mill was founded in 1542, and has gone by various names, including Bedell's Mill and High Wheel Mill. Its true fame lies in it having been leased by the industrialist Matthew Boulton, who used it for rolling iron and drawing wire.

































The current building, of 1771, post-dates Boulton's use of the site, and was operated until 1919. The period after WWI saw the ending of very many ways of life that had previously seemed resistant to major change. JRR Tolkein lived immediately nearby as a child, and the mill is cited as inspiration for that in The Lord of the Rings' Hobbiton. Tolkein would be appalled by all the litter in and along the Cole.

Jellied Eels

Pie 'n' mash shops were once common across East and South London, but are now few and far between: tastes and quality expectations have moved on. Few would frequent Cockneys, in Frith Road, Croydon, for the standard of the fayre. The menu consists of 'beef' pie, stewed or jellied eels, mashed potato, liquor (once made using the water in which had been cooked the eels, but now parsley sauce), and tea.

Yet the plain decor of clean white wall tiles, half a dozen booths of wooden benches and marble-topped tables, and black-framed monochrome photographs of pearly kings and queens, is very inviting. Vinegar, the traditional condiment for pie 'n' mash, is supplied in the form of large reused Jack Daniel's bottles.

Shrewsbury Battlefield, 1403

On 21 July 1403, the armies of King Henry IV and Henry Percy engaged each other about three miles north of the centre of Shrewsbury. The Battle of Shrewsbury was an exceedingly bloody one, the first occasion on which English longbow archers had fought each other, and resulted in an estimated 5,000 deaths.

The Percy family had backed Henry in his war with Richard II and had helped him to the throne in 1399. Henry, however, reneged on his promise of reward lands, and failed to provide funds to help the Percys protect the north of the kingdom. The Earl of Northumberland, with others, set out a list of grievances and demands, and his son, Henry Percy, known as Hotspur, headed south. In Cheshire he recruited experienced archers, but his army likely consisted of no more than 14,000. Hotspur's expected reinforcements, under Owain Glyndŵr, never arrived.

Henry IV was already on his way north, ironically to assist the Percys against the Scots. The king was apprised at Burton-on-Trent of the revolt of the Percys, and headed west to address the new threat, with a force estimated at anything up to 60,000. Battle was joined about a mile south of where now stands Battlefield Church.

The Cheshire bowmen inflicted much damage, and Henry's right wing broke down. Hotspur led a charge directly upon the king in an effort to capitalise upon a temporary advantage against superior force. The battle ended when it became known that he had been killed in the attempt: "...time, that takes survey of all the world, / Must have a stop" (Henry IV, Part 1, Act V, Sc. 4).

A chantry chapel, reputed to lie above a mass grave associated with the battle, was completed in 1409. A year later this became a college of chaplains. There are remains of the fishponds that sustained the chaplains. The chapel was integrated into a larger church, completed about 1460, which itself became a parish church in 1548. Heavily restored in 1860-62, the church was declared redundant in 1982.

Gerry Wells - Valveman

The British Vintage Wireless and Television Museum, Dulwich, is housed in the home in which its creator, Gerry Wells, was born in 1929. Gerry has spent his life in the world of radio and television, building them from scratch (including his WADAR brand), repairing them, stealing them, and collecting them.

His interest in everything electrical started at age four, and truly amounts to the Obsession that is the title of his fascinating autobiography. The museum commenced in 1974, when it was focused on wireless - it has subsequently expanded into 405-line television.

Many of the vintage TVs on show are in full working order, fed via standards converters. These include that used by the BBC to convert from 625 to a transmittable 405 lines, when they were running dual standards - being the size of a double wardrobe, this is appropriately housed in Gerry's bedroom.

This and the kitchen are the only rooms of a normal domestic character. The rest of the house is full to the gunwales with vintage wireless and TV sets. There's a room of 1920s equipment (top), one largely of Ekcos (second photo), another of early transistor portables (third photo), and yet another partly fitted out as a period wireless repair shop (above).

It doesn't end there though. At the end of the garden is a series of interlinked sheds, one with a clerestory roof, all built by Gerry. These are also full of sets, grouped by manufacturer, and of display cabinets of various components; and house Gerry's workshop. In all, a staggering 1,300 sets are on display.