When the sun is just coming up, and the empty roads up into Warwickshire are just made for a motorbike
So, a good excuse to pop up to Chesterton Windmill, before the rest of the world woke up.
I’d never even heard of it, but I guess you can see it from the M40, as it’s in quite a commanding position not far from Gaydon (amazingly excellent Motor Museum if you’ve not been).
Anyway, built around 1632 by Sir Edward Peyton, the local Lord, it’s the earliest tower mill in England to retain any of its working parts. It’s quite dumpy at 36 feet high - the milling itself would have happened on the first floor, while down below, under the arches, wooden structures would have stored the grain. Uniquely, the sails rotate counter clockwise (apparently one fell off in 2006 during an open day, injuring a visitor!).
So, marks out of 10 to Warwickshire County Council:
10/10 for restoring and looking after the windmill
0/10 for the wretched 50mph speed limit on most of the roads to get to it
I did think of that (after I’d folded up the Mavic, duh) and you may be right, but I think they just looked a mess to be honest
I’ve been tempted to ask a well-connected social media type of anybody’s seen one locally, but I don’t want to encourage people to go and make them, so I’ve resisted
Grimsbury Reservoir, Banbury. Built in the 1960s, the River Cherwell basically flows through it, so it stores some water from the river. Which is why it’s not dramatically half-empty!
There I was, lunchtime, taking a short flight over Rennitown, when I spotted on the railway below something amazingly rare - two record-holding trains, running parallel to each other - the world’s fastest diesel, and the world’s fastest steam loco. Truly amazing. I was so excited I almost crashed into the runner beans.
But then, looking more closely (hey, it’s not easy on an iPhone screen in the sunshine you know), I realised all was not as it seems, these weren’t steam and diesel at all, they were electric trains - even better!
But it IS electric! … and taken with a flying drone.
The category never said anything about the gauge.
I think it’s as brilliant as my sandcastle would have been had I used it. LOL!
Up super early this morning to stop at Charlecote Mill, Warwickshire, on my way to the office
I’m a bit confused, I must say. The Mill looks like a private house to me, but the website says its still very much alive, and has a few open days, the next in August
Charlecote is one of only a small handful of surviving commercial working watermills in the UK. Producing traditionally stoneground flours through French Burr Stones every weekday (when the water levels allow), the mill is a constant hive of activity (not before 7.00am it’s not!) but retains all the atmosphere and charm of a mill run in Victorian times. Almost everything is done using the power of the two waterwheels, as it always was, and all of its products are hand finished and hand packed personally by Karl, the Miller.
The present Mill was built in 1806, with the water wheels restored by the BBC in 1978 for their production of “The Mill on the Floss”
#4 Cooling Tower.
Various cooling towers around Cardiff docks and steel works at Celsa Steel, you can even see the ones in the fifth photo at Aberthaw Power Station on the horizon.
#7 Mill.
This is the former Rolling Mill at Treforest Tinplate Works, A Grade II listed building in Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taff.
It had two mills for rolling the iron into sheets and power was provided by 8 waterwheels. Rolling Mill at Treforest Tinplate Works
These won’t win any photography prizes, but it’s good to see the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway is still running steam. It’s a great line, now running from Cheltenham Racecourse to Broadway (the Broadway extension opened earlier this year). They do have much larger steam trains but this was forming the 1600 to Broadway
Like @OzoneVibe, the closest cooling towers to me are Didcot A, the now-closed oil/coal combined power station. Unlike @OzoneVibe I thought I’d take off from somewhere more rural to avoid the risk of nearly being arrested!
The cooling towers have had something of a reprieve as the whole demolition site has been a crime scene since the boiler house collapsed killing four men - it was announced in the last few days that the cooling towers and chimney will be demolished by the end of 2019.
Which will be a bit sad in some ways - they’re a real local landmark from miles around.
