Satellite Television

At its Foot Cray factory, Kolster-Brandes made televisions alongside radios. Trading on its long association with Cunard, KB gave a number of its TV sets the name Royal Star. The 17-inch PVP20 model is a classic of 1950s colouration and Sputnik-inspired design -  lilac-grey wrap-around wood fibre cabinet, salmon mask, white urea formaldehyde controls, gold trim, and bright red feet. When first sold in 1958 the set cost £61 19s 0d including purchase tax.

Vélo Moto Auto

The National Weapons Factory at Châtellerault, in the department of the Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, was established in 1819 to manufacture swords. It later made rifles, such as the Lebel type. The factory closed in 1968.

Housed in one of the former factory's buildings is Châtellerault Motor Museum, built around the personal collection of Bernard de Lassée. The collection includes a representative selection of early vélos, including hobby horses, penny-farthings, and safety bikes.

It moves through the history of the moto and the auto, and includes gorgeous examples of Panhards, Delahayes, Darracks, and, of course, Peugeots. There's a smattering of American cars, but it's the French weird and wonderful that catches the eye. Hautement recommandé.

Steaming Sewerage

Coleham Pumping Station was built inside-out. W.R. Renshaw, of Stoke, built on site two steam-driven Woolf beam engines in 1897/8, to pump Shrewsbury's sewerage. The building was then erected around the engines in 1900, and opened a year later.

The rotative beam engines are compound, with side-by-side high pressure (13 inch bore) and low pressure (20 inch bore) cylinders, together producing about 25 horsepower. The piston rods connect to the beam by means of James Watt's parallelogram coupling, enabling the up-and-down movement to be connected to a beam that moves in a slight arc.

With the pistons moving in a straight line, they can be driven from both above and below. Watt's double-acting cylinders saved greatly on coal, and he took a share of the saving on an ongoing basis. Fitted to the side of the cylinders is Watt's device for measuring the efficiency of his engines, his means for checking the amount due for energy not used.

The engines drive flywheels of about 16 feet diameter and 10 tons weight, the inertia of which then drive the pumps, able to move about 1,200,000 gallons per day, exceedingly smoothly. A two-pence piece will balance on its side upon the moving beam without falling over.

Two Cornish boilers by W&J Galloway, of Manchester, 21 feet long and five-and-a-half feet wide, provide the steam. The fire sits at the front of the furnace tube, through which pass the fire's hot gases. The tube runs to the back of the boiler, then under it, and finally along its sides, such that the water is heated from both within and without.

The coil-fired boilers and beam engines drove the pumps until 1970, when submersible electric pumps were installed in the sewerage pipes. It wasn't until 2003 that the pumping station was disconnected from the town's sewerage system. The Shrewsbury Steam Trust has restored the boilers, engines and pumps to the highest of standards.

ROC Post - Inside View

As previously documented, over 1,500 underground posts were built across the UK during the 1950s, from which the Royal Observer Corps would, it was naïvely supposed, report on the number, location and strength of nuclear explosions.

The post at Nesscliffe, Shropshire, has no padlocks on the hasps of the access hatch, and the Torlift lock is easily opened with the aid of the right tools. Although the paint is peeling, the shaft is in good condition.

The sump pump at the foot of the shaft is still in place and serviceable (above). To the right of this, the toilet cubicle retains its Eltex chemical toilet.

The chamber of the post has been largely stripped, but there are small remains of the Bomb Power Indicator (above). As was common, the post was built at the same site as the aircraft spotting and identification installation associated with the ROC's earlier function.

At Nesscliffe there remains a hut associated with the earlier spotter facility. Inside there is an old stove at one end, and the ubiquitous chemical toilet at the other.

Psychedelic Warlords

40 years ago, 'cosmic rock' group Hawkwind released their live album Space Ritual. A double LP, requiring three changes of side, the album was an hour-and-a-half long.

The Psychedelic Warlords, named for the 1974 Hawkwind track The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke), are in 2013 playing the whole album, live, at a number of smaller venues across the land. At the Llanfyllin Workhouse they were booked to appear the same weekend as the entirely separate, but appropriately hippy, Audio Farm festival.

The group is fronted by saxophonist Nik Turner, of the original 1969 Hawkwind line-up, and includes bass player Alan Davey, who played with Hawkwind in the 1980s.

Back in 1973 Stacia (Blake) featured with Hawkwind as an interpretive dancer. The Psychedelic Warlords features in like vein the belly and burlesque dancer Demolitia. Recommended.

Brymbo Iron & Steel Works

The Brymbo Estate was bought in 1792 by John 'Iron Mad' Wilkinson, the ironmaster of Bersham, as it boasted supplies of both iron ore and coal. Wilkinson built his ironworks at Brymbo in 1796, and likely, as part of that, a blast furnace known as Old No.1.

Wilkinson added a second furnace in 1804, but when he died four years later the ironworks was mired in legal disputes. The order book dried up following the end of the wars with Napoleon, and the estate was sold in 1829, the works lying idle for over a decade.

It passed in 1841 to the Brymbo Iron Company, and  the famous Scots engineer Henry Robertson was engaged to help make it viable.  Robertson, backed by investors, built a new foundry and machine shops, improved the blast furnaces, and sank a new colliery.

Robertson had determined that key was improved transport. In 1845 the Brymbo Mineral and Railway Company opened a branch line that connected the works to the mainline network. However 1854 saw further disputes, with the directors of the company each seeking to gain outright control.

Robertson won out and in 1884 formed the Brymbo Steel Company. The first steel was made at the site a year later. Production doubled between 1898 and the start of WWI, but post-war the works was closed by first the miners' strike of 1921 and then the General Strike of 1926.

The Great Depression ultimately killed off this incarnation of Brymbo - the works closed once again in 1931. A new company was formed in 1933 and Brymbo once more recommenced production. It produced special steels for aero engines, using electric arc furnaces.

The works saw further modernisation under the aegis of Guest, Keen & Nettlefold (better known as GKN) - a new electric melting shop in 1959 and a new cogging (drawing) mill in 1961. Brymbo became part of the nationalised and monolithic British Steel Corporation in 1967, and remained a specialist steel maker.

A new bar and billet mill was built in 1976. This was perfectly timed to coincide with a further recession. The new owners, United Engineering Steels, invested in continuous casting at its Rotherham plant, which finally killed Brymbo for good.

The last furnace was tapped on 27 September 1990. The bar and billet mill was shipped to China. The whole of the twentieth-century plant has gone, but what remains is the older works, as substantially developed by Robertson, alongside Wilkinson's blast furnace (photo four).

There are also a number of items from the age of steel, including giant ladles, some of which are mounted on railway wagons. The site is dominated by the stacks of two cupola furnaces - the business end of one is shown in photo nine.

In April 2013 weight of snow collapsed the roof of the pattern shop (photo two) and a large part of that of the foundry. The way into the site remains guarded by a real Tonka toy, a truck by Euclid of Ohio (now part of Hitachi).

From Little Acorns Mighty Oaks Do Glow

Take one chimney spinner cowl, one 11" x 11" x 15" block of solid oak, three halogen lamps, lamp fittings and vintage cable. Apply plane, sander, very long auger, stain, and furniture wax. Result: one floor (or, provided it's capable of supporting 71 pounds, table) lamp.

Timber Movers & Shakers

Based at what was once RAF Rednal is North Shropshire Timber, the yard of which is stacked with sawn timber and virtually whole oak trees, and home to a variety of workhorses. Atop a container is a long wheelbase Land Rover, in need of some recommissioning.

In common use though is an AEC Matador artillery tractor. The Associated Equipment Company's Matador, with an ash-framed cab, was built from 1932 as a two-wheel drive civilian truck, and gained four wheel drive during WWII - known as the Mat.

AEC produced a six wheel drive version that was also known as the Matador, but officially designated the Marshall. This was developed into the Militant (above), available in both 6x4 and 6x6 variants, a vehicle still in use by the military in the 1990s.

A set of wheels has a suggestion of traction engine about it. Only slightly more complete is a Douglas truck, possibly one of their AEC Matador-based load-movers. Douglas, now part of Dennis, still makes specialised tugs, very many of which are seen at airports and docks.

Farmer Phil's - Tanks on the Lawn

Held each year since 1998 at Ratlinghope (pronounced "Ratchup"), 15 miles south of Shrewsbury, is Farmer Phil's Festival. The festival attracts about 3,000 people, some of whom arrive in style. Above is a 1964 Bedford CA Dormobile Romany.

Up a notch scale-wise is a 1953 ex-MOD Austin K9 tipper, towing a vintage caravan. Farmer Phil Harding wins out though, with a 55 ton Chieftain main battle tank.

Altogether more ethereal is the display of inflatable kites. The larger of these - the newt is a good 25 feet long - are hoisted into the air with the assistance of a lifter kite.

On a windy day the kites demand tethering using rope rated to 1,000 pounds - the sort of thing used to land giant tuna or marlin.

Ekco - Rounds Three & Four

Taking full advantage of the plastic properties of Bakelite, Ekco introduced in 1934 the first round radio, the AD65. The cabinet of this was largely designed (two years earlier) by the ex-patriate Canadian architect Wells Coates, famous for his Isokon building, Hampstead - the Lawn Road Flats in which lived Agatha Christie. Coates was interested in circular motifs, at the time to the fore in the drum-shaped London Underground stations of Charles Holden, best seen in Arnos Grove and Southgate, on the Piccadilly Line.

Over the next eleven years, Ekco brought out another four round designs. The AC76 (left) was released in 1935, and sold for eleven guineas. A black and chromium version was £12.1s.6d. An AC/DC version was available as the AD76, and a wooden stand, rather like a stool, could be bought for £0.29s.6d.

The AD75 (right) was released in January 1940, its rather plainer design and smaller diameter, 14 instead of 15½ inches, a reflection perhaps of wartime economies. It sold for seven guineas. The set was re-released in October 1946, now four guineas more, and can be distinguished from the 1940 version pictured by an on/off switch to the side of the cabinet.

Note: Ekco's ADs ran on both alternating and direct current, whilst their ACs ran on alternating current only.

Cley (No More) Next the Sea

Cley Mill, a tower windmill, was built about 1819. It consists of five storeys, the sails originally powering two pairs of stones, increased to three pairs by 1876.

The mill was converted to residential use, as a holiday home, in 1921, when the machinery was removed and the sails and cap immobilised. The brake and crown wheels were cut in half and used as door arches, their morticed teeth still very much in evidence.

The sails were replaced in 1960, and a new fantail was fitted in 1987. The mill has been run as a bed and breakfast since 1983, the granary and outhouses providing additional accommodation.

When built, the mill was next to the village's quay, but the port silted up in the nineteenth century. The beach is a 15 minute walk away. Even so, the mill flooded to a depth of eight feet when north Norfolk was inundated by the great sea flood of 1953.

Amidst the marshes is an Allan-Williams Turret, a pre-fabricated steel defence installation of WWII. This housed a crew of two and a light machine gun, and could be rotated through 360°. The design was not favoured by the army, and only 199 were built, most upon airfields.

Taking the Chiltern Hundreds

Watlington lies close to the ancient Icknield Way, and was likely in settlement from the sixth century. The little town was famous in the nineteenth century for the large number of its inns. Methodist George Wilkinson alone bought up and closed six, in a religiously-inspired effort to limit human enjoyment.

The Watlington and Princes Risborough Railway opened in 1872, but closed to passengers in 1957. The Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway preserves that section of the line between those two places, which ran until 1989 to carry cement.

Historical note: MPs are not allowed to resign from the House of Commons. Persons appointed to Crown offices of profit may not be MPs. Thus, a legal fiction provides a get-out, in that MPs wishing to resign are appointed to such a post, for as little as part of a day. The two offices currently employed for this purpose are the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham, and the same of the Manor of Northstead.