DAY OFF

Last week played golf with Des, Rob & Pete at Dyrham Park, today visited Dyrham Park,  built in two stages between 1692 and 1704 for King William III's Secretary of State, William Blathwayt, Dyrham contains one of the best surviving Baroque interiors in the country. Small world. Talk about changeable, the weather today was 16 degrees C, rainy and blowing 25mph+. Took the buggy to & from the house, no walking. As I said - day off.

Visited Weston-Super-Mare and had fish & chips lunch in the oldest house in town. Nice house, good grub. Weston is a bit of a dump in some parts, has a drug reputation, but nice in other parts. Council said they were reviving the town with that spike & the big cock. There were toilets with a council message - " All toilets closed to improve the town". All pricks if you ask me.

Went to the oldest golf course in England - Burnham & Barrow. 

Now based in Bridgwater for next 2 days. Watching TV tonight with sushi and drinks - day off.

CORINIUM OR

Cirencester in modern day speak. Corinium was a major Roman town in England, probably the second largest. You can see from the map that it was centrally located with Fosse Way and Ermine Street passing through it.

We went on a wallywalk guided tour, around 2.5 miles, but it was hot & sunny, 35 degrees Celsius(86F) & up and down - so pretty tiring for old folks. It had a large amphitheatre holding 8000 people. It was converted to city defences after the Romans left.

The town is picturesque with a market next to the church and large open park area that was the former Abbey dissolved by Henry VIII & his mate, Thomas Cromwell. Nice view back to the church.

Despite the heat & exhaustion, we went to the theatre in the evening to see Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde - the musical. A very good show that had the most cast numbers I have seen in a provincial performance. I counted 45 on stage at once. After a hot day, the theatre was stifling, although a double Monkey's Shoulder & double Gin to Die For may have contributed.

The DIY hotel was good, nice room, no problem getting the keys & using the access codes.

ROAD TRIP 2

Visiting places in England we have never visited before. Today we drove to Cirencester(more about that tomorrow) via The Vyne, a stately home of nobility in Henry VIII court. It was huge, like the size of Hampton Court but two thirds was demolished in 18th century to save money. Henri is 8 had visited with Catharine of Aragon & Anne Boleyn (but not at the same time)

Lovely gardens & planting, nice walks through the grounds. That tree is an oak that was here when the house was built, so 500 years old. It called the the 100 guinea oak because in 1800 or so the Royal Navy wanted to buy oak to build ships to see off old Boney. They offered £100, but we're turned down. Six months later they upped the offer to 100 guineas but we're turned down again because the owner said if it had gone up by £5 in such a short period of time, it was an investment worth keeping.

We're staying in one of those hotels with no staff. They give you a code an hour before check in that gets you into the car park, the building & your room. Nice room.

TOP SECRET!

 Spent a lovely day with the National Trust, we have had drought now for several months with rainfall running at 81mm, the driest spring for over 100 years. With a full day in a very isolated place, we got a forecast of rain all day - not so it was dry, overcast and pretty warm. We were at Orford Ness, formerly recovered salt marsh that has a secret history for over 100 years. Firstly it was a research centre for the Royal Flying Corps from 1913, developing techniques & instrumentation for warplanes. This continued until WW2 when they concentrated on bomb development and the resilience of aircraft to machine gunfire.

This is the only way to get there, I said it was isolated! During the war they developed advanced methods of photographing falling bombs. So many bombs were dropped that you are not allowed off the paths because of the risk of unexploded ordnance. After WW2 they started on atom bomb development and the AWRE took over.

These are the Atom bomb research buildings, designed to contain blast in the event of accidents.

All very top secret.

I am waiting for the MOD police to call.

These are some of the last atom bombs worked on, carried by aircraft & helicopters, could be used as anti-submarine depth charges.

A lot of work was conducted on radar, the first of the chain of WW2 was constructed a few miles down the coastline. There was an advanced US/UK radar built on this site in the 1970's to detect missile launches in the USSR. It was code named Cobra Mist and didn't work. The politicians & engineers blamed the Russian spy trawlers, but I'm not sure, it sounds like an excuse no one could disprove.

This is the Black Beacon, an experimental aircraft radio navigation aide from the 1930's. 

There is a resident artist from Suffolk University who has workshop right at the end of the island, Sarah was working on pinhole camera shots that gave nod to the bomb ballistic photos and some interesting wind driven art works.

Orford Ness is now a nature reserve with hares, Chinese water deer, seals and a varied bird population. It's a desolate place with a kind of mysterious beauty.

FALAISE

 Falaise is a town where the Germans got squeezed between the armies that had landed at Omaha/Utah and those landing on the other 3 beaches. There were many tank battles in the build that mostly went the German's way with many allied tanks lost. The German Tiger & Panther tanks were superior to the allied Sherman's & Churchills. The Tiger was twice the weight of allied Sherman, as you can see.

The tank that really matched them in tank-tank battles was the Firefly which was a Sherman converted by 2 British officers to carry a 17 pounder anti-tank gun. It could out range the German tank guns & penetrate their armour. Using his Firefly together with 4 standard Sherman's, "Firefly Harris" destroys 5 enemy tanks with 5 shots.

The Canadians & Polish were involved and the Canadians suffered badly at the hands of Kurt Meyer's SS battalions. 20 of them were captured, interrogated & then murdered by Meyer's men. They were found at nearby Ardennes Abbey.

Kurt Meyer. He was captured, tried for war crimes, but released after 9 years.

Stanislaw Maczek, a much decorated Polish tank general. Smoked 40 a day - lived to be 102

William the Conqueror was born in Falaise, some his troop still there!

Coach, called Lulu was very comfortable. Grub in hotel good.

Once the Germans tried to flee from Falaise toward Paris they were slaughtered by artillery, rocket firing Typhoons & Thunderbolts. One RAF officer said he could smell the carnage in his cockpit at 6000 feet.

CANADIANS & FALAISE

 We visited Juno beach where the Canadians landed. This was equally as deadly as bloody Omaha. The Canadians did a better job of planning & getting armour ashore but still suffered badly from the well sited German bunker system. The bunkers were designed looking along the beach at each & not out to sea. Anyone caught in the crossfire between 2 bunkers was really in trouble.

This is the view from a bunker.

This is the same spot on 6 June 1944.

The Americans on Omaha suffered from sinking their tanks & also not having specialised weapons to deal with the dug in Germans.

This is an AVRE, Amoured Vehicle, Royal Engineers had a massive mortar that lobbed a shell on top of any dug in troops. It was like a dustbin of explosives sailing through the air.

STANDING WITH GIANTS

 The British memorial overlooking Gold Beach is very touching.

It has inscriptions of those who died & the others who survived. Many of the "giants" have crocheted or knitted poppies at their feet.

The personal touches of poems & letters written by the soldiers are something to see. The Mulberry Harbour which you can see in the top photo & in close up lower down was a very large harbour made of concrete caissons that were towed across the channel & moored to form 2 harbours, one on Omaha/Utah and this one off Arromanches on Gold. These were completed in only a few days and millions of tons of supplies were landed. Later in June they were severely damaged in a massive storm.