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About this blog

Other than going to heritage railways one of the things I like doing is visiting historic sites and museums, especially those relating to our industrial past and collections of vehicles. So here I will be sharing some of the places I've visited.

Entries in this blog

General

Bodium Castle

Bodium Castle is an impressive fortress, built in 1385 by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a former knight of Edward III, with the permission of Richard II. The castle has no keep and all the rooms and chambers are built around the outer defensive wall. This was characteristic of castle architecture in the 14th century. Sadly, while the exterior of the castle has survived largely intact the interior has not, although enough of the walls and foundations survive to allow some reasonably educated guesses ab
General

The Hovercraft Museum

The hovercraft museum is on the seafront at Lee-on-the-Solent and is situated in one of the iconic Type J hangars within “Seaplane Square”, an important part of the former HMS Daedalus Royal Naval air base. The Type J hangers are all Grade II listed buildings and provided essential storage and maintenance facilities for seaplanes in the early 20th century and also played an important role in the development of hovercraft which were invented by British engineer Christopher Cockerell in the 1950s
General

Cleeve Abbey

Cleeve Abbey is a medieval monastery near the village of Washford in Somerset and was founded in 1198 by William de Roumare with monks from Revesby Abbey in Lincolnshire of the austere Cistercian order. The abbey was not among the more distinguished abbeys of the Cistercian order and suffered from poor governance and financial troubles. Although towards the end of its existence its fortunes, and living standards, had improved. A fact demonstrated by the expensive high status tiled flooring
General

Brean Down Fort

Brean Down is a headland between Burnham on sea and Weston super mare in Somerset and at the far end of it stands a fort. Brean Down Fort was a Victorian naval fortification built in the 1860s and designed to protect the Bristol Channel against a possible Napoleonic invasion. The fort is one of the "Palmerston Forts" which were built in several locations round the coast following a Royal Commission report about the defence of the United Kingdom prompted by concerns about the strength of the Fren
General

Blaenafon Iron Works

The Blaenafon Iron Works which started producing iron around 1789 is the best preserved blast furnace of its time to survive from the beginning of the industrial revolution. Because the blast furnaces couldn't be allowed to cool down, unless it was for repair and maintenance, they were operated 24 hours a day seven days a week. For 12 hours each day men worked in the blistering heat of the furnaces constantly at risk from fire, molten iron and poisonous fumes. The molten iron would be at 1500 de
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West Somerset Railway

Over the UK May Bank Holiday weekend, 2nd to 5th May 2025, I went to the West Somerset Railway's Spring Steam Spectacular. The railway has held these steam galas since the mid-1990s and I have attended most of them and have photographs of every Spring Gala since 2002. What's so special about these you might ask, well on a normal day the railway will run 4 or 5 trains in each direction per day with 2 or 3 steam locomotives in use. On a gala there could be up to 16 trains in each direction and 9
General

Glastonbury Abbey

The story of Glastonbury Abbey story starts somewhere around 670AD when a Saxon church was built on the site, this was later replaced with a much larger Norman church, which was destroyed in a fire in 1184.  The ruins we see today are all that is left of the Great Church which replaced the Norman church and work on it was started in 1189. You only have to look at what remains to get some idea of how huge and impressive it must have looked when it was finished. In 1191 while excavating
General

Kempton Steam Museum

he Kempton Steam Museum is the home of the world’s largest working triple-expansion steam engine. The engine sits amongst two steam turbines and opposite an identical twin which is currently being restored. The machines stand 62 feet high, which is as high as four stacked London double-decker buses, and weigh 800 tons. They are similar in design and size to the RMS Titanic’s engines. The two engines and two steam turbines provided huge volumes of London’s drinking water from 1929. In 1980 th
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General

The National Slate Museum

A few years ago I visited the National Slate Museum which is located at Gilfach Ddu in North Wales. It was originally the workshops of now disused Dinorwic (Dinorwig) quarry and was built in 1870. The workshops catered for all the repair and maintenance work demanded of the quarry and its locomotives. The quarry which once employed well over 3,000 men was at its height at the start of the 20th century the second largest slate quarry in Wales (and thus, the world). The quarry closed in 1969 mainl

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