Cragside and Slag Alice

The weather, coupled with a slightly later start than intended due to general lethargy, dictated a swap round in the day’s planned activities so the first visit was to Cragside. I’ve been wanting to go to the estate for many years but it’s not worked out previously so this was an ideal opportunity. 

The house was initially built as a hunting lodge then extended by George Armstrong, the armaments and engineering pioneer. Whilst providing the means of conquering and controlling the empire may be a bit dodgy these days there is no doubting his vision and innovation. He was actually trained and practiced as a solicitor before his interest in mechanical matters took over and he founded the manufacturing dynasty that built the mechanisms for the Low Level Bridge in Newcastle and the slightly more famous Tower Bridge amongst many other marvels. . 

The house itself is spectacular, perched on the side of a crag (hence the name) but isn’t all that grand in itself,  it was mainly a holiday home and place to entertain visitors, once the Armstrongs had purchased Bamburgh Castle they’d a much grander residence! In any case I wasn’t there for the house itself but to see the innovations introduced such as electric lighting (first incandescent bulbs used to light a room), a hydraulically driven lift and kitchen appliances, etc. it was also the first house powered by hydro electricity, something they still do when there’s sufficient water having installed a Reverse Archimedes’ Screw a few years ago. 

The electricity came about partly due to Armstrong’s friendship with Joseph Swan, one of my heroes. Most people will tell you that Edison invented the electric light bulb, however he didn’t! In fact several people were working on it independently at the same time. We do know for a fact that Swan demonstrated a sustained light (ie more than a second or so) before Edison. This lead to a patent dispute which was resolved by Swan holding the patents in Britain (and hence the empire) and Edison for the rest of the world. I understand that in reality Swan’s bulb wasn’t suitable for bulk manufacture so they set up the joint venture EdiSwan company to make and sell bulbs in the UK. The original table lamps are still in the house, although these days they have LED bulbs in and have been fitted with modern switches, originally they were turned on and off by lifting them in and out of dishes of Mercury. 

Armstrong was a visionary in that, at the height of the coal powered industrial revolution, he was already propounding the need for sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels, not for “green” reasons but the fact that the coal would  eventually run out. 

I’m not sure just how far I walked, probably about three miles and much of it was up and down and on some rough ground, so I reckoned I deserved lunch at the tearooms. One notable thing is that, for a National Trust property, they’re quite blasé over health and safety. As examples, the steps down from the house through the rockery are steep and very uneven but you can still use them and to join the 6 mile carriage drive (and it’s well worth doing so) you drive through the archways and across the main courtyard of the house where visitors are wandering about. It would be difficult for them to do anything about either of these but it’s refreshing that they haven’t just closed them off. 

The second visit was to Northumberlandia - The Lady of the North or, as she’s generally known, Slag Alice! Many years ago the doyen of North East newsreaders, Mike Neville, did a parody report about a Northern Arts project involving digging holes in the ground and piling up the the waste, well it’s now true, sort of. The pit waste was readily available so Charles Jenks designed a huge sculpture of a lady made by piling it up. Photographically the visit was a bit of a waste of time as I didn’t have a helicopter handy and frankly even looking at aerial photos I have difficulty recognising it for what it’s supposed to be. 

If I didn’t know better I’d say it looks more Iron Age than modern day. 

The Scottish Trip 2020 - A Late Start

Yes, the title is confusing, this trip should have taken place two years ago, but then COVID hit so it’s a very late start! The plans I made back then were a bit ambitious (particularly with the rise in fuel prices since then) so I’ve simplified them considerably.

It was actually an early start this morning as I wanted a haircut, the barbers I use open at 7am so having done that and had a coffee and sausage inna bun I was still on the road from Market Harbotough by 8. I’d largely loaded up the ‘van last night, trusting the fridge would stay cold, which helped. Not having the cycling kit gives me a bit more storage and the overhead Net worked for its intended purpose of being somewhere to put my suit (we have a posh dinner next weekend). 

It was as good a run up the A1 as I’ve ever had, despite warnings of doom and gloom with rail strikes and holidays, so I reached the first destination by 11:20. I’d been debating what to do on the way up but once I confirmed that the Bowes Railway was open that made my mind up. I’ve been before but I was hoping to get some decent photos of hopper wagons for the current model layout build. I wasn’t disappointed, I’ve got some good pics of three different hoppers and the Jubilee 5 plank wagons as well. At least two of those will be transferred to the 3D modelling program I use and printed on the resin printer. I also got some photos of various underground locos and wagons for a possible future project, although that will be some way away. 

You’re guided round most of the site and the guide we had was good, although I will say some of his tales were rather tall and he muddled up some facts, none the less he was entertaining. Having been a miner, fireman, mine rescue, etc. he did dwell on the loss of life, understandable when he was involved at Flixborough and various pit explosions. 

From the railway it was a quick trip through the Tyne Tunnel, they’ve gone over to pay on the ’net instead of at toll booths - I’m sure it took longer to sort that later than it had to actually get through! The site for a couple of nights is the Club one at Old Hartley near Whitley Bay; I’ve stayed here a couple of times before and whilst it’s not very spacious it’s ok. The view makes up for it though, helped by the fact it slopes down towards the sea, this was taken from the ‘van side door…

The phone camera was at maximum zoom so there’s a foreshortening of perspective, the ‘vans aren’t actually as close together as they appear.

Once pitched* (which consisted of putting out my Pitch In Use sign) and having had an ice cream from the reception I decided to go for a wander. One of the reasons I’m here is to try and get some decent photos of St Mary’s Island and the lighthouse. The sunshine died on me a little but I think I got some OK shots from a couple of locations, I may try again tomorrow afternoon if it’s sunnier. I walked back towards the site but then carried on past it to Seaton Sluice for a pint. I followed that with fish and chips overlooking the harbour, surprisingly it was a blackbird trying to mug me for the chips not a seagull, before walking back to site and settling in for the evening. 

*After my fridge works (see previous blog post) I decided I’d run it just on battery to see how well it holds up, if I have problems I’ll plug the mains cable in but otherwise it’s one less thing to unpack and pack away. 

Woe, Woe and Thrice Woe

I’ve been sorting some ‘van issues, some have gone well, others not so much. 

The buzzing from the audio was very quickly diagnosed - I could see daylight through the driver’s door speaker so with a little fettling, and some 3D printed spacers, a new pair of speakers were installed. It would have been a good idea to turn the volume down before testing though, the bass response is fantastic. 

I also fitted a new DAB aerial as it’s been showing No Signal for quite a while, unfortunately this hasn’t fixed the problem. I’m disappointed, especially as it took a couple of hours, but there’s not much I can do about it. 

The coolbox problems proved a lot more complicated! 

Back in 2021 I found the coolbox wouldn’t run off the battery overnight, but was OK during the day when the solar panel is charging. No real problem, I’m normally on hookup anyway but I diagnosed a dying leisure battery, probably from lockdown. Move on to 2022 and I installed a new battery prior to a weekend away without hookup, all worked perfectly, problem solved, except it wasn’t. A few weeks later I had a few days camping followed by a few days in a hotel, during the latter I found the coolbox wasn’t staying down to temp again. The compressor would fire up, run a short while then cut out, with no error showing. 

Possible issues were the wiring to the coolbox socket, another dodgy battery or the battery wiring. The first I tested by wiring in a direct feed from the solar panel controller. All seemed ok briefly but then the coolbox started cutting out. The useful thing was that having it on the controller I could see the voltage pulling down to 11.9 volts, sufficiently low for the battery protection to kick in. That eliminated one bit of wiring but strongly suggested the battery was faulty. Now you do occasionally get a duff battery but it’s unusual so my worry at this point was it had been “cooked” and I had a charging system fault. 

The next test was to remove the battery, which was showing fully charged, and test it off the ‘van. The green indicator was showing, a good sign, and a quick check showed no shortage of fluid, which suggested it hadn’t been overcharged. After a minor bit of faff I hooked the coolbox up directly to the battery with a multimeter attached and it all behaved. The battery voltage steadily dropped to 12.4v with the coolbox running, 12.6v without which is about perfect. It came down to temperature as well. 

That left me with the battery wiring. I’d used the original wiring from the ‘van conversion so rather than try and fault find it I decided to just replace it. I had some of the 4mm2 cable left over from the solar panel installation so I used that and kept the runs as short as possible. I decided to take the battery feeds directly to the solar controller and then feed from the controller’s Load output to the lights, etc. There was a minor hiccup in that having bought new battery clamps they’ve got M8 screws, and I didn’t have terminals that large, so I had to use the old ones temporarily. With everything reconnected I tested it all, first without the solar connected, and bingo, it was all fine with no noticeable voltage drop. The final job was to wire a new feed to the tap and water pump as that was tapped of the redundant battery feed, a quick 15 minute job.