Scars of WW2 in South Kensington

If you’ve ever visited London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (commonly known as the V&A) in South Kensington, you probably went in via the main entrance on Cromwell Road. The museum also has a side façade running along Exhibition Road, but if you walked that way you were probably heading for the Science Museum, in which case you were on the other side of the road. If so you missed an astonishing sight, because that whole side of the V&A is disfigured by bomb damage that dates from World War Two – almost 80 years ago.

The museum was fortunate in that it never received a direct hit, but it bears countless small scars caused by shrapnel and debris from explosions nearby. The inscription pictured above reads:

The damage to these walls is the result of enemy bombing during the Blitz of the Second World War 1939 – 1945 and is left as a memorial to the enduring values of this great museum in a time of conflict.

The “enemy” in question was, of course, Germany – which is ironic, because the Albert in “Victoria and Albert” was a German himself. Officially known as Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Queen Victoria’s husband was born in a castle about a hundred kilometres north of Nuremberg.

Here is a wider angle shot of the area around the inscription:

The next five photographs form a sequence walking back towards Cromwell Road:

Even this telephone box appears to have suffered shrapnel damage:

For many more unusual sights in London, don’t forget to check out Random Encounters on the London Tourist Trail.

Pictures by Andrew May, October 2018.

James Bond's London Home

A few roads over from Chester Square in London where the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, lived from 1846 to 1851 is the home of another famous literary icon. The home in question can be found at 22 Ebury Street, and a blue plaque on the building reveals who the previous resident was. The blue plaque reads: “IAN FLEMING 1908-1964 Creator of James Bond lived here”.

Fleming's blue plaque.

Born into a wealthy family, Ian Lancaster Fleming had a privileged upbringing with an education that included studies at Eton, Sandhurst and the universities of Munich and Geneva. After completing his studies Fleming’s career initially saw him working as a journalist and then as a Royal Navy Officer for British Naval Intelligence. It was Fleming’s experiences in Naval Intelligence during World War II that give him the inspiration and source material for his famous literary creation, the fictional British Spy, James Bond.

Some of Fleming's wartime experiences found their way into his James Bond books. Like the fictional Bond, Fleming held the naval rank of Commander, and at one point he worked as the personal assistant to the director of Naval Intelligence, John Godfrey - believed to be the model for the character M, the head of MI6.

Fleming wrote his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952 and it was an immediate success, kick starting a worldwide phenomenon that would lead to sales of over 100 million copies of James Bond novels. During his writing career Fleming managed to author a total of 14 James Bond novels. The other 25 official James Bond novels to date being penned by other authors after Fleming’s death.

Due to his wealth and success Fleming could afford to live a lavish Bond-esque lifestyle. In the novels (for example Moonraker, 1955), James Bond is described as living in "a small but comfortable flat off the Kings Road" - a desirable address in Chelsea, but not in the same league as Fleming's own residence in Belgravia! However, the film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) shows a fleeting glimpse of a document giving his address as "61 Horsen Ferry Road, London S1" - a fictionalised version of Horseferry Road in SW1, just a short walk from Ebury Street.

22 Ebury Street

Fleming had other homes besides the one in London - including an estate in Jamaica, which he called Goldeneye. That was another reminder of his naval career - Goldeneye had been the codename of a British intelligence operation during the Spanish Civil War. Much later, in 1995, one of the post-Fleming Bond movies was given that title as a homage to him.

Fleming's years of good living (he was a heavy drinker and smoker) eventually caught up with him and he suffered his first heart attack in 1961. It was whilst recovering from a subsequent heart attack that Fleming dreamt up the children's story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. Apparently the idea for the novel stemmed from bedtime stories that he told his young son whilst he was convalescing. It seems that heart attacks would be the bane of Fleming’s later years, and it was a further heart attack in 1964 that claimed his life.

At the time of his death Fleming was living at Warneford Place, a mansion that James Bond would have been proud of in Sevenhampton near Swindon. Fleming was buried in the village’s churchyard (St James’) on the 15 August 1964, his resting place marked by a somewhat modest obelisk. His grave is not the only indication of his time in Sevenhampton, eagle-eyed visitors may notice the name of the nearby Ellipsis Farm, a name that may be familiar to some from Casino Royale.

Fleming's grave in Sevenhampton near Swindon.

A James Bond inspired Farm Name in Sevenhampton.

Pictures, London (February 2018) & Sevenhampton (July 2015).

Bomb Shelters and Ghost Signs in London

One of the fascinating things about London is the way some of its most unusual and little-known sights can be found just a stone’s throw from the big tourist attractions. A prime example of the latter is the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square (pictured above). Churchill’s fame, of course, rests mainly on his role in World War Two – a particularly unpleasant time for London, which suffered heavy air raids by German bombers. Another, less well-known, reminder of that time can be seen in Lord North Street, just 400 metres south of Parliament Square:

The above photograph shows a faded sign on a brick wall that reads “Public shelters in vaults under pavements in this street”. Although it was painted during the “Blitz” – almost 80 years ago now – it’s still there today! The public shelters, of course, are long gone, although there are a couple of places further along the street where signs can be seen pointing down into the basement areaways. Like this one:

Although the signs are easy enough to read in the above photographs, they’re actually very faded and difficult to spot unless you known exactly where to look. They’re an example of “ghost signs” – old signs that were painted on brick walls and are still faintly visible today, despite having long since ceased to be relevant. Another ghost sign that’s located close to the London tourist trail can be seen in Tisbury Court in Soho.

Soho is a bright, fashionable area that has been smartened up considerably in recent decades. Tisbury Court, however, seems to have been largely overlooked. Despite its posh-sounding name, it’s quite a sleazy little alley – and one end of it still bears a large painted advertisement on the wall:

Here’s a close-up of the upper part of the advertisement. Note that it dates from a time when Tisbury Court was called “Little Crown Court” – apparently some time in the early 20th century.

Pictures by Andrew May, January 2018.

Burying Scrooge

The church in the below photos is St Chad's Church in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. St Chad’s dates from 1792, and the church’s distinctive round profile (you can just see this in the second picture below), makes it somewhat of an eye-catcher. As interesting as the church is however, it is an oddity in the church’s small graveyard that really caught my attention.

Wandering St Chad’s graveyard the observant may notice a rather plain grave stone bearing the name Ebenezer Scrooge (the fictional character from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol). Scrooge’s gravestone was apparently created for the 1984 film version of this story (starring George C Scott as Scrooge), which was filmed in Shrewsbury. It seems that a weathered gravestone in the graveyard was re-purposed for the film with Ebenezer Scrooge’s name being engraved into the stone. In the last picture below it is just possible to discern at the bottom of the stone, the faint markings from the original inscription, presumably commemorating the previous owner of the gravestone. Once filming had ceased the stone was left in place and now probably confuses the occasional visitor to the graveyard who now wonders if Ebenezer Scrooge was perhaps a real person?

George C Scott who portrayed Scrooge in the 1984 film was rather famous during his career. Scott’s most notable performance was probably playing the title character from the 1970 film Patton, for which he was awarded, but did not accept, an Academy Award for Best Actor. Scott died in 1999 and given his fame one might expect that Scott would have a lavish grave, however it seems to be that he actually resides in an unmarked grave in the Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. I cannot find any clear explanation why Scott’s grave is unmarked, but it does seem rather ironic that he rests without a memorial stone, whilst one of the fictional characters that he portrayed has a memorial!

It does make me wonder if any other fictional character has a burial plot in a graveyard? If you know of one, let me know in the comments section.

St Chad's in Shrewbury, Shropshire.

Scrooge's grave is the horizontal stone at the bottom right of the photo. 

Here lies Ebenezer Scrooge.

Pictures: Shropshire (October 2016).

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Levitating Canal Boats and Massive Water Horses

This week’s post is a guest post penned by author and long-time Fortean Dr Andrew May. Andrew maintains his own blog “Retro-Forteana”, which in his own words "focuses on the weirder fringes of history (and other old-fashioned stuff)". Andrew regularly contributes to Fortean Times and was my co-author and editor for "Weird Wessex". Andrew's two most recent books are part of the " Pocket Giants" series looking at the scientific giants Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Andrew has previously written for this blog, with his previous post exploring some of Somerset's World War II oddities. Andrew's latest post describes two oddities that Andrew encountered during a recent visit to Scotland. Over to Andrew...

The Falkirk Wheel is a massive steampunk-looking contraption two miles west of the town of Falkirk in Scotland. It's essentially a giant lift, or elevator, designed to raise and lower boats between two canals at different levels. Although distinctly Victorian in its eccentricity and ingenuity, the Falkirk Wheel only dates from 2002. By that time, the series of eleven locks that used to connect the two canals - the Forth and Clyde Canal (lower level) and the Union Canal (upper level) - had fallen into disuse, and a new solution was needed. It used to take a boat almost a day to pass through all the locks - the new mechanism can do the job in just a few minutes.

Here is a view from the upper level, looking along the aqueduct leading to the "wheel". At first sight it doesn't look like a wheel, but the name becomes clearer when it's seen in action. The last section of the aqueduct is actually a sealable water tank which can hold up to four canal boats. Below it, at the lower level, there is another similar tank. The two tanks are attached to a central axle, around which they rotate - so one tank goes up as the other comes down (the tanks swivel so they remain horizontal). The total vertical distance travelled is 35 metres, and each tank can raise or lower 500 tonnes of water plus payload.

Here is the wheel as it starts to move...

And here it is just past the half way point:

And here is another sequence from the reverse angle:

Although the Falkirk Wheel was designed for a practical purpose, it has become a major tourist attraction with a large visitor centre. A significant proportion of the wheel's traffic is made up of tourist boats which spend the day going up and down from one canal to the other!

One striking feature at the visitor centre is a stainless steel sculpture of two horses' heads. In fact this is a one-tenth scale model of a towering modern sculpture, dating from 2013, which can be seen on the other side of Falkirk near the M9 motorway. It's called "The Kelpies", after the mythical water-horses of Scottish folklore. At 30 metres in height, it is currently the tallest statue in Britain.

Here is the small-scale version of the Kelpies at the Falkirk Wheel. If you look closely at the right-hand corner of the plinth of the left-hand horse, you can see a tiny human figure to the same scale!

... and here are the full-size Kelpies:

Pictures from July 2016 by Tomasz Babarowski (Falkirk Wheel), Andrew May (small kelpies) and Ewa Babarowski (large kelpies)

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The Sarsen and the Trap Door

Previously in this blog I have visited Knowlton Church and earthworks in Dorset, where a 12^th century Norman church resides within the confines of a much older Neolithic henge monument (dating from circa 2,500 BC). Knowlton Church and earthworks is cited as an example of a newer religion (Christianity) trying to assimilate an older religion (Paganism), by  adopting and repurposing the older religion’s place of worship. Recently I came across another possible example of this repurposing of an ancient religious site, when I visited All Saints Church in Alton Priors, Wiltshire.

All Saints Church also dates from the 12^th century and over the years it has undergone a number of major refurbishments and improvements. In the early 1970’s the church was declared redundant and today it only hosts three services a year. The church is however still open to visitors and based on the day of my visit it is rather popular! The day I visited there was a coach load of foreign tourists also exploring the church and its grounds.

The church itself is a relatively small barn like structure and the floor is home to two trap doors, both of which hide sarsen stones. It seems that the church was constructed over these sarsens, and presumably they were originally part of a much older place of worship. The hidden sarsens are not the only indication that the site of the church may have once held religious significance prior to the construction of the present day church. The churchyard is also home to a yew tree that is estimated to be 1700 years old. The aforementioned foreign tourists seemed to be captivated by the yew tree, with some of them taking turns to stand in its hollow trunk, others pressing themselves flat against its outer trunk, some leaving votive offerings, and even a few standing cupping the trees branches and needles in their hands! Clearly to these particular visitors the tree held some spiritual significance.

The other main feature of the church is a monument to local landowner William Button who died in 1590. The monument includes an unusual ornate brass plaque that shows a young man rising from the grave and looking towards the gates of what is presumably heaven. The inscriptions on the plaque and its overall design is somewhat complex, and it seems out of place in what is otherwise a rather simple and plain church. These complex inscriptions have led some to speculate that the plaque conceals a hidden meaning, as opposed to just being a grand attempt at a monument to a wealthy local!

All Saints Church.

Inside the church.

A trap door.

A hidden sarsen.

The monument to William Button.

Button's plaque. 

The churchyard's 1700 year old yew tree.

The yew's split trunk.

Pictures: Wiltshire (July 2016).

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The Headington Shark

I first saw the Headington Shark in March 1994 on the front cover of Fortean Times, and in June this year I finally got to see it in the flesh.

The Headington Shark “crash landed” head first in to the roof of 2 New High Street, Headington, Oxford early on the morning of Saturday 9th August 1986, 41 years to the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

The 299kg, 7.6m (25ft) long painted fibreglass shark was the brain child of the property owner Bill Heine and sculptor John Buckley. Known formally us “Untitled 1986”,  when Heine was asked what the purpose of the shark was, his reply was apparently: "The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation... It is saying something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki"

After its installation the shark became a local topic of controversy and a 6 year battle commenced between Heine and Oxford City Council, who wanted the shark removed. The Council first tried to have the shark removed on the grounds of health & safety. However, following an inspection, the structure was declared safe and secure. So the council pursued the line that the shark should be removed because planning permission had not been granted, and because of the precedent that it might set. If the shark was allowed to stay everyone might want one on their roof! Somewhat expectedly the council rejected Heine’s retrospective application for planning permission.

Undeterred, Heine and local residents battled to keep the shark and in 1992 the case was eventually escalated to central government. Peter Macdonald, a minister in the Department of the Environment, was asked to rule on the case. Heine's book "The Hunting of the Shark" outlines Macdonald's verdict:

"Into this archetypal urban setting crashes (almost literally) the Shark. The contrast between the object and its setting is quite deliberate. In this sense, the work is specific to its setting, and it would "read" quite differently in the context of, say, the foyer to an arts centre in Gloucester Green. 

It is (as the Council say) incongruous, and that incongruity is quite consciously sought by the artist. It is, indeed, out of harmony with its surrounds. It is that lack of harmony, that sense of being “out of place”, to which the Council objects, and which it equates with demonstrable harm to visual amenity. It is the very same feature which appeals to many of the Shark’s supporters, and which has made it an urban landmark… An “incongruous” object can become accepted as a landmark in some cases becoming well-known, even well-loved, in the process. Something of this sort seems to have happened, for many people, to the Shark.

There is a real sense in which permitting the Shark to remain is the “risky” option, the safe and easy thing to do being to remove it. However, I cannot believe that the purpose of planning control is to enforce a boring and mediocre uniformity to the built environment. Any system of control must make some small space for the dynamic, the unexpected and the downright quirky or we shall all be the poorer for it. I believe that this is one case where a little vision and imagination is appropriate, and I recommend that the Headington shark be allowed to remain."

So whilst the government is often accused of being bureaucratic, it seems that common sense and imagination can sometimes prevail!

The Headington Shark.

The cover of Fortean Times #73.

Pictures: Oxfordshire (June 2016).

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Willet's Hidden Tower

Willet Tower is a folly that can be found hidden in dense woodland on the summit of Willet hill, to the south of the village of Elworthy in Somerset.

The tower stands 15 metres tall and was apparently originally built to resemble a ruinous church tower. The exact date of the tower's construction is uncertain but it was documented in 1791, meaning it was built at some point before that date. Some sources say that the tower was built in 1774 with the required funds of £130 being raised by public subscription. Other sources suggest that the tower may not have been built until 1782.

It is also unclear if the tower served any purpose or was a pure folly. Perhaps it was just an eye catcher or a “steeple” for horse riders? When the tower was originally built Willet hill would not have been home to the dense tree coverage which now hides its summit. So the tower would have originally commanded views across the landscape and also could have been seen from a good way off. As it can be seen from the below pictures, the tower did once have an internal wooden staircase, so it is likely that the tower would have been used for viewing the surrounding countryside at some point in its lifetime.

British listed buildings website describes the tower as:

Folly in the form of a ruined church tower. Circa 1820. Iron stone random rubble, brick dressings. 3 stage crenellated tower, one merlon on South side larger to give the illusion of stair turret, stepped buttresses to second stage, arched openings third stage, arched entrance on East and West sides. About 5 metres of wall on South side, 6 metres high including arched opening. Remains of rafters inside and indications of stairway to viewing platform. The quality of the workmanship is poor, but the tower is a very prominent landscape feature crowning a wooded hill and visible for some distance. Probably erected for Daniel Blommart of Willett House (qv) and therefore perhaps by the architect of Willet House, Richard Carver.

Ultimately however, the detailed history of Willet Tower remains uncertain,  and this folly that was once built as a sham ruin of a church tower is ironically now a ruin itself.

Approaching the tower.

The remains of the internal staircase.

Pictures: Somerset (March 2016).

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Seville’s Post-Apocalyptic Future

The below photos show what looks to be an abandoned post-apocalyptic science fiction landscape, with weeds and decay slowly encroaching upon a futuristic building, a communications satellite dish and a rocket. This bizarre landscape can be found on the outskirts of the Spanish city of Seville on La Isla de La Cartuja. Despite its appearance the site is not an abandoned set of a science fiction movie, but is instead part of what remains of the Universal Exposition of Seville, also known at Expo 92. Expo 92 opened in April 1992 and ran for 6 months, attracting nearly 42 million visitors. The aim of the exposition was to celebrate the modern age and offer blueprints for the future, hence the science fiction feel. Over one hundred countries were represented at the event, with some of them sponsoring massive pavilions. Some of the biggest eye-catchers included Japan’s Pavilion (at the time, the world's largest wooden structure) and the Spanish Pavilion which included a modernistic cube and a huge sphere.

The facilities and Pavilions were all planned to be temporary and demolished in the months that followed the exposition, however only some of them were. Some of the facilities and Pavilions were converted for other uses and some of them were left to decay. The post-apocalyptic science fiction landscape pictured below is what remains of the “Plaza of the Future” - a vision of the future envisaged back in 1992.

The Plaza of the Future.

The Plaza of the Future overgrown and left to decay. Views of its original grandeur can be found here, here and here. 

The "Seville rocket", a replica of the European Space Agency's Ariane Four launch system, which graces the Plaza of the Future.

The biosphere - this huge sphere was used to spray micro-fine jets of water to cool visitors to the exposition.

The colourful tower hiding in the background is the European Pavilion, to see it in all its glory look here.

Pictures: Seville, Spain (November 2014).

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