A train and his blankee
Uncle B snuck into the engineering shed and took this picture. The blanket, he says, really is to keep the little sucker warm.
Today we rode part of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch line. Which really ought to be called the Hythe, Dymcurch and Romney, because Dymchurch is in the middle. Or, actually, the Hythe, Romney and Dungeness, as that’s the two ends and the middle, but the Dungeness part was added later.
Whatever.
The RHDR is a giant train set built in the Twenties by two eye-wateringly rich men: Captain J. E. P. Howey and Count Louis Zborowski (who built and raced the “Chitty Bang Bang” Mercedes). Zborowski wrapped himself around a tree in the Italian Grand Prix of 1924, before the first two engines were delivered, but Captain Howey soldiered on.
The trains are one-third full size locomotives, built to run at 25mph on rails 15 inches apart, from Dungeness to Hythe — which is maybe twenty miles. They’re butt-punishing miles — the coaches are tiny things with wooden seats — but it’s a great run. In addition to the usual sheep and cows and fields of ripe wheat, a large part of the route runs right past row after row of back gardens.
An Englishman’s back garden is an intensely personal space, so it’s fun to see a bunch of them (the ones that weren’t fenced off, anyhow), from the scruffiest to the manicured. There was one huge train set (natch). In some, people sat out on the lawn and waved as the train went by (a think I can totally see myself doing with a cup of coffee or bottle of beer).
The line was requisitioned during WWII and ran up and down — I shit you not — a tiny armored train with an anti-aircraft gun mounted on it — they have a reproduction in the yard. It was there to protect workers on Operation PLUTO, which was itself a pretty remarkable thing…for some other post, perhaps.
Our engine today was the Hurricane. But the one in the picture is The Bug, which started life on the RHDR but found its way to a scrap heap for many years. And then back again. Hurrah!
Have a good weekend, everyone!
September 3, 2010 — 10:40 pm
Comments: 18
Bedtime story
This creepy dude is from the church of St George in Brede, where yesterday’s creepy box came from.
Things we know about him that are probably true: his name was Sir Goddard Oxenbridge. Known as the Giant of Brede, he was a powerful but a pious and peace-loving man. He was knighted by Henry VIII in 1509 and his daughter was the Princess Elizabeth’s governess. He died in 1531 and is buried in the church (presumably, right here under this thing).
Things we know about him that are probably not true: he was seven feet tall and he ate children. He had a crow for a familiar and was enormously strong. He could not be harmed by metal weapons.
Children from all over Sussex disappeared without a trace for years and reappeared on his table, but Oxenbridge was so powerful that no-one dared complain to the king.
So one day the children of the county took matters into their own hands. They rolled a huge barrel of mead (or perhaps beer) to the Groaning Bridge on Stubb Lane and lay in wait. The giant loved him some booze. He found the barrel, drank it up and passed out dead drunk in the middle of the bridge.
Then the children leapt out with a special saw they had made out of wood — the children of West Sussex took one end, the children of East Sussex took the other — and sawed that sonofabitch right in half. You can see the blood stains to this day.
Mmmmm…okay, it’s rust. And the story probably comes from the smugglers who used Oxenbridge’s old estate, Brede Place, to store contraband when it fell into disuse in the 18th Century. They put it about that Goddard’s ghost still haunted the place to keep people away.
But there he is in the church. And the Groaning Bridge is still there. And Brede Place is still there, and persistently reported to be haunted over many years. So hold a happy thought…
August 31, 2010 — 10:22 pm
Comments: 7
I think the vicar sleeps in it
An old chest in a church we visited today. No idea what they use it for or how old it is, though this is an old, old one. Parts of this church are apparently Anglo Saxon — the parish was mentioned in the time of Alfred the Great (848-900) — but most of it was merely Norman. Ha!
It’s a three-day weekend here in Limeyland, so today continued our rounds of the Summer festivities. In addition to village fêtes, there’s also a tradition of church flower festivals, and some villages may have both a fête and a flower festival as separate events. Today we went to a flower festival.
This is an odd one. The church picks a theme — the one we saw today was “nursery rhymes” — and the ladies (presumably) make little tableaux and flower arrangements on the topic all around the inside of the church.
You’re handed a program explaining what’s what and by whom, and you walk around the church eyeballing stuff. Then you sit in the pews and drink tea and eat cake.
The cat and the fiddle on the high altar and fruitcake on somebody’s grave.
The English are weird.
August 30, 2010 — 9:43 pm
Comments: 24
Satan’s Circus is back in town!
Okay, okay…it’s really Santus Circus. Still, it’s awfully Bradbury.
Went tonight. Loved it.
This funky little troupe tours all over Southeast England in Summer. Has done for more years than we’ve been here. We go when it reaches Rye, which is always late August. It pretty much heralds the end of Summer for us.
As the circus hardware has gotten scruffier, the acts have gotten better. It’s the opening up of Eastern Europe and the Far East, I think — they have powerful circus traditions and lots of people looking for work.
This year, the stars were a troupe of acrobats from China, and man did they earn their billing. They did, like, six different performances in between the other acts.
Adorable little monkeys. I really, really wanted to take them home as pets, but Uncle B said they eat too much.
Poor Uncle B. He’s having a shit time of it lately. This morning, he woke to find his laptop computer had fallen six inches off the foot-stool and his brand new hard drive seized up tighter’n a tick. Stone dead. That’s his second new one this month; the first was faulty. (Yeah. You remember how much fun it is to reload your operating system from scratch).
Don’t get me started about the exhaust system falling off the car.
In conclusion — SQUEEEE:
Have a good weekend, everyone! Hey, our friend Monotone the Elderish has started a blog. Go pester him for a while.
August 27, 2010 — 10:29 pm
Comments: 19
Join us, won’t you?
Here you go — courtesy of Uncle B — six minutes of our adventure on the Kent and East Sussex. All the good video editing software was on the desktop machine, so he had to cobble this together using free crap. There was much growlings and swearings.
The videos in the YouTube sidebar aren’t ours, but there’s lots of good locomotive porn in there if you’ve a mind to see more of the K&ESR.
Not into trains? No problem! How about this adorable orphaned baby stoat raised in captivity and then released in the wild?
Yes, putting in all these text links was a huge pain in the ass, but WordPress auto-embeds the video if you don’t.
August 26, 2010 — 9:41 pm
Comments: 23
WOOoooooWOOOO!
We went and rode the puffer-trains today!
There are “heritage railways” all over Britain. This one is the Kent and East Sussex, which runs ten whole miles, from the lovely old town of Tenterden to the lovely old castle of Bodiam.
A long drive to a short train ride — which somehow abuses the very notion of transportation — but this one is a lovely run across open fields. And we had sammiches and tea and sunnenshine and…it was very nice.
Most of the things we do for fun here are almost entirely run by volunteers. From the steam lines to the old country houses, most of the work — including the really back-breaking work — is done by armies of unpaid staff.
I wonder if that’s taken into account when they tally up which countries give most to charity.
August 24, 2010 — 9:39 pm
Comments: 29
Oh, Pooh!
We drove home by an odd, roundabout route yesterday, trying to avoid a certain traffic bottleneck out of London. This took us into the Ashdown Forest, where I have never been (and where there doesn’t appear to be much forest, at least where we were).
When we got to the little town of Hartfield, I said, “look at that — there’s a tea room called Pooh Corner!”
And Uncle B said, “no, that’s probably the actual Pooh Corner.”
And I’m like, “fuck off!”
And he’s like, “no, really!”
Turns out, we’re both right. The Milnes lived at Cotchford Farmhouse, which is about a mile outside Hartfield. But Hartfield was the town they came into and it looks like this cottage — the website is a bit ambiguous on this point — might have been the shop Christopher Robin and his nanny always stopped into for sweeties.
Anyhow, they sell souvenirs. And tea. And maps to all the local landmarks which feature in the Pooh stories.
Meh. Not a big Pooh fan, me.
August 4, 2010 — 9:58 pm
Comments: 27
No better than she should be
Today we took Clan Badger to Smallhythe Place, an early 16th Century half-timbered house in, of all places, Small Hythe in Kent. Small Hythe was once an important port and shipbuilding center, until the sea hiked her skirts and skittered away. It is now miles and miles from the water (making the boat launch look rather silly).
A National Trust membership for two cost us £84 and we’re by-god going to get our money’s worth this year.
The house is in much the same Tudor style as Badger House, but maybe a hundred years older. That room farthest away in the photo was held in place by iron braces, and the floors were so outrageously wobbly and wonky that walking around the room made us all feel a bit ill, like one of those state fair funhouses.
From 1899 until her death in 1928, Smallhythe was home to Ellen Terry — the leading Shakespearean actress of her day. For which read: scenery-munching hambone.
She gave the house to the National Trust on her death, and it doubles as a museum of her life and acting memorabilia. Pretty cool stuff. She was the model for this iconic Sargent painting — the dress is upstairs in the Wonky Room.
Terry had three husbands, a series of lovers and a couple of illegitimate children (the son made eight bastards of his own; the daughter set herself up in the house next door to Smallhythe in a lesbian ménage à trois). Pretty good going for a woman of the High Victorian age.
Mother Badger seemed deeply perturbed by this information, although she mostly viewed it as a schedule management problem. “How did she have time?” she kept asking, shaking her head.
The gardens were lovely. And Uncle Badger was gratified to see they were laid out and planted up very similarly to our own — obviously aiming for a lush Tudor cottage garden effect.
But this sign was his favorite part. He refused to budge until he’d seen the odd stoat.
June 30, 2010 — 10:59 pm
Comments: 25
Field trip!
Today we went to Scotney Castle (click the pic to embiggen and becolor), which is actually two houses. This one, which is mostly a ruin, is Medieval. And up the hill, the family built a new, modern manse in 1837.
The last residents were childless. He left the house to the National Trust on his death, thirty years ago. His wife decided she was going to live to 99. So the gardens have been open to visitors for years, but the house only for three. Hence there’s an eerie sense of her about the place.
The last survivor is her cat, who was provided for in the will and still skulks about the place (but makes herself scarce during visiting hours).
And I thought Charlotte was spoiled!
June 23, 2010 — 10:47 pm
Comments: 17
Field trip!
Uncle B had to go on a business trip to Essex today, so I came with. I’m not usually up in his business, but this job might require a little storyboarding or page layout or some shit. Whatever. Train ride!
Essex, Northeast of London and basically an industrial suburb of it, is famous for the “Essex Girl” (Q: What does an Essex Girl say after sex? A: “So, you all play for the same team, then?”). It was pretty Soviet and horrible.
It was the usual getting off at wrong stops and running for trains pulling out of the station and delays. But we got to ride one leg on the bullet train! I don’t know if it got up to the full 140mph, but it went pretty fucking fast!
Oh, and we had a stop at Stratford Station, where they were busy building the 2012 Olympic Village. It looked really crap!
Anyhow, I’m wiped. Want food! Want drink!
Remember, Dead Pool tomorrow, 6pm WBT. If you’ve been chiming in on the previous DP thread, you gots to show up tomorrow and pick for real on the official thread. M’kay?
June 10, 2010 — 10:02 pm
Comments: 25