Shanklin Chine

Shanklin Chine is a geological feature and tourist attraction in the town of Shanklin, on the Isle of Wight, England. A wooded coastal ravine, it contains waterfalls, trees and lush vegetation, with footpaths and walkways allowing paid access for visitors, and a heritage centre explaining its history.

Geology

A chine is a local word for a stream cutting back into a soft cliff. Formation of the Chine, which cuts through Lower Greens and Cretaceous sandstones, has taken place over the last 10,000 years. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, stones were laid at the top of the waterfall to arrest this progress. There are a continuous series of spring lines on the cliff faces in the Chine. The Isle of Wight has a number of chines, but the largest remaining is Shanklin. With a drop of 32 m (105 ft) to sea level, and a length of just over 400m (a quarter of a mile), the Chine covers an area of approximately 1.2 hectares (three acres).

History

Prior to the Victorian era Shanklin was merely a small agricultural and fishing community, the latter nestling at the foot of the chine, and it was not until the early 19th century that it began to grow. Like most of the chines on the south of the Island, Shanklin Chine was well-used by smugglers.

A romantic landscape

The Chine became one of the earliest tourist attractions on the Isle of Wight, with records of the public visiting the site to view it as far back as 1817. Keats found inspiration for some of his greatest poetry while staying at Shanklin in 1819 and wrote: "The wondrous Chine here is a very great Lion; I wish I had as many guineas as there have been spy-glasses in it." It was a favourite subject for artists including Thomas Rowlandson and Samuel Howitt. Descriptions of the site at the time are surprisingly similar to the present day:

‘The delightful village of Shanklin. In this sequestered spot is a good inn, fitted up for the accommodation of visitors. The object of attraction at Shanklin is the Chine, (which is situated at about ten minutes walk from the inn. This phenomenon of nature is a combination of beauty and grandeur; it is formed by the separation of a lofty cliff, whose height is 280 feet perpendicular, and 100 feet wide at the top. On entering the Chine from the shore, we pass along one side, rugged and barren; through which a winding path has been cut by a poor fisherman; while below the rippling stream urges its way to the ocean, which pours its rolling waters at its feet, and spreads its boundless expanse before it. On the other side the cliff is fertile, covered with hanging wood and bushes, adorned with a neat cottage, and having a little rustic inn. About the middle of the Chine is a small Chalybeate: and the path now conducts by a serpentine course to a scene of awful grandeur, formed by stupendous masses of matter on each side, and the rustling of a small cascade, which falls from the head of the Chine, and passes between the dark and overhanging cliffs.

Extract from Beauties of the Isle of Wight published by S Horsley 1828

And if you’re wondering whether I’ve been there, the answer is yes – Ted 😉

Text and images from Wikipedia

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The Blackpool Tower

Blackpool Tower is a tourist attraction in Blackpool, Lancashire in England which was opened to the public on 14 May 1894. (grid reference SD 306,360). Inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it rises to 518 feet 9 inches (158.12 metres). The tower is a Grade I listed building.

Construction
The Blackpool Tower Company was founded by London based Standard Contract & Debenture Corporation in 1890, when it bought an Aquarium on Central Promenade with the intention of building a replica Eiffel Tower on the site. John Bickerstaffe, a former Mayor of Blackpool, was asked to become Chairman of the new company and its shares went on sale in July 1891. The Standard Corporation kept 30,000 £1 shares for itself and offered £150,000 worth of shares to the public, although initially only two-thirds of these shares were taken up. This lack of interest forced the Tower Company to ask for further cash contributions from its existing shareholders, but the poor financial situation of the Standard Corporation, worsened by the falling share price, rendered it unable to pay. Bickerstaffe’s remedy for the potential collapse of the venture was to buy any shares available, until his original holding of £500 amounted to £20,000. He also released the Standard Corporation from their share commitments. When the Tower opened in 1894 its success justified the overall investment of nearly £300,000, and the Company made a £30,000 profit in 1896.

Two Lancashire architects, James Maxwell and Charles Tuke, designed the Tower and oversaw the laying of its foundation stone, on 29 September 1891 with a time capsule buried beneath it. By the time the Tower finally opened on 14 May 1894, both men had died. Heenan & Froude of Worcester were appointed structural engineers, supplying and constructing both the main tower, the electric lighting and the steel front pieces for the aquariums. A new system of hydraulic riveting was used, based on the technology of Fielding & Platt of Gloucester.

The total cost for the design and construction of the tower and buildings was about £290,000. Five million bricks, 2,500 tonnes of iron and 93 tonnes of cast steel were used to construct the tower. Unlike the Eiffel Tower, Blackpool Tower is not free-standing. Its base is hidden by the building which houses Blackpool Tower Circus. The building occupies a total of 5,050 square metres (54,400 sq ft). At the summit of the tower there is a flagpole.

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

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Harwich

For nearly 10 years during the mid to late seventies and early eighties I spent my summer holidays traveling around the British Isles, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. Nearly every time the trip started by going by car from Oslo to Gothenburg, then with the ferry over to Harwich – Ted

Image found at “Adventures of the blackgang”

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Stonehenge

Image text: One thing is for certain. Stonehenge is a work of creative genius, the most inspirational and mysterious of all megalithic monuments and of huge significance in the hearts and minds of people today who seek understanding.

Text and image found at “Hoka hey!”

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Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, England

Clacton-on-Sea is the largest town on the Tendring peninsula, in Essex, England and was founded in 1871. It is a seaside resort that attracted many tourists in the summer months between the 1950s and 1970s, but which like many other British sea-side resorts went into decline as a holiday destination since holidays abroad became more affordable. These days it is more popular as a retirement location.

Geography
It is located between Jaywick and Holland-on-sea along the coastline and Great Clacton to the north. The relevant local authority is Tendring District Council.

It is situated at the eastern end of the A133, accessed via a largely improved road from the A120 junction at Hare Green, four miles east of Colchester. Nearby to the north-east is the neighbouring resort of Frinton-on-Sea.

Amenities
Clacton has a pleasure pier, arcades, a golf course, caravan parks and an airfield. The town and its beaches are still popular with tourists in the summer, and there is an annual entertainment programme including the Clacton carnival held the second Saturday in August and lasting for a week. Clacton Airshow, an aerial display takes place on the Thursday and Friday before the August Bank Holiday involving historic and modern aircraft such as the Lancaster, Spitfire, Hurricane, helicopters, Harrier, Jaguar, Tornado, wing-walkers and the Red Arrows.

Clacton-on-Sea is served by a shopping area with many of the usual national chains represented and a Factory Shopping Village, in the north of the town.

Clacton-on-Sea has two theatres, the West Cliff Theatre and the Princes Theatre. The West Cliff is one of the last theatres in the country to put on an old style summer show.

History
Clacton was the site of the lower Palaeolithic Clactonian industry of flint tool manufacture. Great Clacton was founded by the Celts in c.100BC. There are some vague traces of Romans using the Clacton area as a seaside resort. The name Clacton dates from c.500 AD when the area was settled by Saxons. The original name, Claccingaton, means ‘the village of Clacc’s people’. The Domesday Book records the village as Clachintuna.

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Whitley Bay – Tyne and Wear, England

Whitley Bay is a town in North Tyneside, in Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the North Sea coast and has a fine stretch of golden sandy beach forming a bay stretching from St. Mary’s Island in the north to Cullercoats in the south. Historically within Northumberland, the town, which has a population of 36,544, became a holiday destination for the people of North East England and Scotland and remained popular in this regard until the 1980s. The town is now widely seen as a dormitory town for Newcastle upon Tyne.

History
The area is rich in history. Whitley was first mentioned about the year 1100 when King Henry I conferred it with other possessions on the Priory of Tynemouth being referred to in ancient documents and maps before that date as Witelei, Wyteley, Hwyteleg, Witelithe, Wheteley, Wytheleye, Whitlaw, Whitlathe and Whitlag. Whitley is also referred to in the charters of King Henry II, King Richard I and King John, confirming to the priors their possessions and liberties.

Whitley was connected with the Crusades when Pope Nicholas IV granted to Edward I the first-fruits and tenths of all ecclesiastical possessions for six years to defray the expenses of an expedition to the Holy Land. A valuation was made of the spiritual and temporal goods of the Priory on 26 March 1292, when the yearly rents from Whitley were returned as 20 shillings, and the tithes as 9 marks.

About the beginning of the 14th century, the manor of Whitley was held from the Prior of Tynemouth by a singular feudal service called the Conveyes which seems to have originated from John de Whitley. Richard de Emeldon, eighteen times Mayor of Newcastle and seven times its representative in Parliament, was the Lord of the Manor of Whitley in 1333.

On 9 April 1345, Edward III granted to Gilbert de Whitley a licence to crenellate his manor house at Whitley.

To crenellate a house was to place battlements upon it. Before this could be done, the sanction of the Crown was often sought. Although the battlements were largely symbolic, this practice is an indication of the degree of insecurity felt even this far south during the Edwardian wars with Scotland. The licence and crenellations were a display of status. Only 2% of the small tower houses of the sort Gilbert built had licences. The ‘sanction’ of the crown was a sought-after bonus, but not a requirement. (Davis, 2006)

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Whitley was held under the Crown for a time. By a grant of Edward VI dated 8 December 1551, it came into the hands of Dudley, Earl of Warwick who was created Duke of Northumberland. It remained in the Percy family until 1632 after which time the area appeared to be let at a yearly rental to various holders until it came into the possession of the Duke of Somerset on his marriage in 1682 with Elizabeth, the heiress of Joscelyn, the 11th Earl of Northumberland. Whitley subsequently passed by inheritance to her granddaughter Elizabeth Seymour who had married Sir Hugh Smithson, a Yorkshire baronet, afterwards created Duke of Northumberland. Whitley has since been retained by descendants and the present Duke of Northumberland is the Lord of the Manor and principal landowner.

Monkseaton, which forms the greater part of the north west of the district, is also very old and its industries were common with those of Whitley being chiefly coalmining and limestone quarrying.

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By the way, I’ve been to all the different places in Britain that I post about, most of them several times even like Whitley Bay – Ted

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London in the 1960s

A tour of the famous landmarks of London in 1960.

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Robin Hood’s Bay, Yorkshire, England

Robin Hood’s Bay is a small fishing village and a bay located five miles south of Whitby and 15 miles north of Scarborough on the coast of North Yorkshire, England. Bay Town, its local name, is in the ancient chapelry of Fylingdales in the wapentake of Whitby Strand.

History

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Toponymy
The origin of the name is uncertain, and it is doubtful if Robin Hood was ever in the vicinity. An English ballad and legend tell a story of Robin Hood encountering French pirates who came to pillage the fisherman’s boats and the northeast coast. The pirates surrendered and Robin Hood returned the loot to the poor people in the village that is now called Robin Hood’s Bay.

Early history
By about 1000 the neighbouring hamlet of Raw and village of Thorpe (Fylingthorpe) in Fylingdales had been settled by Norwegians and Danes. After the Norman Conquest in 1069 much land in the North of England, including Fylingdales, was laid waste. William the Conqueror gave Fylingdales to Tancred the Fleming who later sold it to the Abbot of Whitby. The earliest settlements were about a mile inland at Raw but by about 1500 a settlement had grown up on the coast. "Robin Hoode Baye" was first mentioned by Leland in 1536 who described it as, "A fischer tounlet of 20 bootes with Dok or Bosom of a mile yn length."

In the 16th century Robin Hood’s Bay was a more important port than Whitby, it is described by a tiny picture of tall houses and an anchor on old North Sea charts published by Waghenaer in 1586 and now in Rotterdam’s Maritime Museum. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, Whitby Abbey and its lands became the property of King Henry VIII with King Street and King’s Beck dating from this time.

Smuggling
The town, which consists of a maze of tiny streets, has a tradition of smuggling, and there is reputed to be a network of subterranean passageways linking the houses. During the late 18th century smuggling was rife on the Yorkshire coast. Vessels from the continent brought contraband which was distributed by contacts on land and the operations were financed by syndicates who made profits without the risks taken by the seamen and the villagers. Tea, gin, rum, brandy and tobacco were among the contraband smuggled into Yorkshire from the Netherlands and France to avoid the duty.

In 1773 two excise cutters, the Mermaid and the Eagle, were outgunned and chased out of the bay by three smuggling vessels, a schooner and two shallops. A pitched battle between smugglers and excise men took place in the dock over 200 casks of brandy and geneva (gin) and 15 bags of tea in 1779.

Fishing and lifeboats
Fishing and farming were the original occupations followed by generations of Bay folk. Fishing reached its peak in the mid 19th century, fishermen used the coble for line fishing in winter and a larger boat for herring fishing. Fish was loaded into panniers and men and women walked or rode over the moorland tracks to Pickering or York. Many houses in the village were built between 1650 and 1750 and whole families were involved in the fishing industry. Many families owned or part owned cobles. Later some owned ocean going craft.

A plaque in the town records that a brig named "Visitor" ran aground in Robin Hood’s Bay on 18 January 1881 during a violent storm. In order to save the crew, the lifeboat from Whitby was pulled 6 miles overland by 18 horses, with the 7 feet deep snowdrifts present at the time cleared by 200 men. The road down to the sea through Robin Hood’s Bay village was narrow and had awkward bends, and men had to go ahead demolishing garden walls and uprooting bushes to make a way for the lifeboat carriage. It was launched two hours after leaving Whitby, with the crew of the Visitor rescued on the second attempt.

The main legitimate activity had always been fishing, but this started to decline in the late 19th century. These days most of its income comes from tourism. Robin Hood’s Bay is also famous for the large number of fossils which may be found on its beach.

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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1911 United Kingdom Heat Wave

A group of girls wade into the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park to keep cool during the heat wave.

The United Kingdom heat wave of 1911 was a particularly severe heat wave and associated drought. Records were set around the country for temperature in England, including the highest July temperature of 36C (97F) in Epsom, Surrey only broken 79 years later in the 1990 heat wave.

The heat wave began around early July and ended 2 and a half months later, in mid September.

By 17 July temperatures were already 27C (80F) and by 20 July there had been no rain for 20 days, meaning a drought had officially begun. In the height of the heat wave, at the end of July, temperatures were 33C (92F) in Kings Lynn, breaking all previous records in that area. The heat wave and drought continued into August, with temperatures up to 81F on 1 August continuing throughout the month in London. Even into September, the heat wave was still continuing, with temperatures up to 33C (92F) in early September.

The heat wave and drought only ended on 11 September when average temperatures dropped by 20 degrees Celsius and the high pressure dominating the country receded, allowing rain over all parts of the country.

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Weymouth In Dorset, England

Weymouth ( /ˈweɪməθ/) is a seaside town in Dorset, England, situated on a sheltered bay at the mouth of the River Wey on the English Channel coast. The town is 13 kilometres (8 mi) south of Dorchester and 8 kilometres (5 mi) north of the Isle of Portland. The town’s population is 52,950 (2006).

The A354 road bridge connects Weymouth to Portland, which together form the borough of Weymouth and Portland. The history of the borough stretches back to the 12th century; including involvement in the spread of the Black Death, the settlement of the Americas, the development of Georgian architecture, and preparations for World War II.

U.S. soldiers marched through Weymouth to board landing ships for the 1944 invasion of France.

Fishing and trading employ fewer people in the area since their peak in earlier centuries, but tourism has continuously increased its presence in the town since the 18th century and is now the primary industry. Weymouth is a tourist resort, and its economy depends on its harbour and visitor attractions; the town is a gateway situated half-way along the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site on the Dorset and east Devon coast, important for its geology and landforms. Weymouth Harbour is home to cross-channel ferries, pleasure boats and private yachts, and nearby Portland Harbour is home to the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, where the sailing events of the 2012 Olympic Games will be held.

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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English Scheme Insures Against Rainy Holidays

Los Angeles Herald, Volume 37, Number 298,
26 July 1910
NEW YORK, July 26.—The latest Insurance scheme which has just been put in operation in England provides for compensation in case of wet weather during summer holidays. It is described as "holiday weather Insurance." The underwriters are prepared to compensate proposers in the event of rain falling on more than two days a week during their holidays at watering towns on the coast. The premiums are based on government statistics, and compensation will be given at the rate of from .2.50 a day upward.

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