Kent Trip - Conclusions

Just a few conclusions from the trip. 

The two hotels I used weren’t cheap, but that’s partly down to where I visited. The Premier Inn was OK, no more that that, and I’d be wary of another one with The Social as the meal option other than for an odd night. The Hythe Imperial was great, one of the most comfortable hotels I’ve stopped in, and wasn’t a silly price. As a guide the Premier Inn averaged £109/night for B&B, the Imperial was £149. Both hotels were perfectly located for the planned activities so I don’t think I could have done better. 

Could I have managed without the mobility scooter? Sort of, but the visits to Chatham and Greenwich would have been very truncated and I’d have struggled with some others; I’d also have had to take the car into Hythe. Whether it goes on future holidays will depend on the state of my sciatica and likely activities while I’m away. 

The car behaved impeccably, and with a lot of traffic jams I’m really glad I bought an auto. The only issue was the puncture but, having been fortunate, that cost me about an hour and £280 for two new tyres that I’d have needed soon anyway. I deliberately bought a smaller size SUV, I’m not regretting that but a slightly larger boot would make things easier! 

Overall a great holiday to an area I’d not previously explored, thoughts are now turning to 2026 when the North East is definitely on the agenda. 

Kent Trip - Day 8, Ashford and Home

Sadly all good things must come to an end. 

Some years ago plans were announced for a major international model railway centre at Ashford. Premises were identified, layouts donated and some funding secured. Sadly it then all fell apart, money wasn’t forthcoming and then COVID hit so the project was never completed. Today I was able to visit the Phoenix that’s risen from the ashes of that project. 

As things settled down a small industrial unit on a farm was secured and the Ashford International Model Railway Education Centre was born. I was aware of this but also that it mainly opens up for prebooked groups however, on checking their website, they were open today and as it’s only a few miles off the route home I decided to visit. Currently they have several smallish layouts on show, including the three built by The Men of Kent for the 2019 TV series of The Great Model Railway Challenge, which include the winning layout. They also have a small shop and serve drinks and excellent home-made cakes!

The Series Winning Layout

N Gauge - Originally built for a book. 

I arrived a bit early but was immediately treated to some breaking news, although it’s also hit the press this week. They’ve now leased another, much larger, unit on the same site and will finally be able to display the layouts they have in store including The Gresley Beat, one of the finest layouts ever to grace the show circuit, but only for a while as it was too large and too expensive (it needed 4 7.5t vans just to transport it) for regular showing. I was given a brief tour of the new facility which was supposed to be open for August but issues over a fire break wall (it was used as a hay barn and the wall separating it from the tractor shed was just plain block) have delayed things to October. One other thing they’ve been building is a 5” gauge miniature railway, it’s still a work in progress but they were running today. 

I’ve signed up for their email list though and we’ll definitely be back. I have to say it was also busy with visitors, whether for the refreshments or the layouts didn’t really matter. 

I’d like to say the journey home went smoothly, but it didn’t. Sheer weight of traffic caused significant delays at the Dartford Crossing then there was a long, and largely unnecessary, 40mph stretch on the M11 where I was nearly taken out by a VW that sped off a slip road just missing me then had to stand on the brakes to avoid running into the back of a van. 

Kent Trip -Day 7, Hornby

I hadn’t planned anything for today and was contemplating just having another mooch around Hythe but the forecast for a very warm day made me think of looking for somewhere indoors!

One of the places I had considered for the trip, but that didn’t really fit into the plans, was a visit to The Wonder Works, the Hornby Group’s exhibition and shop. Having checked on the map I found it wasn’t too far from Hythe and the thought of sitting in the car with the air con on was quite appealing so that decided it! It did mean I could also have a lazy start as I didn’t need to leave the hotel very early. 

It was interesting, and the exhibition side is well laid out with sections for each of their main brands (Hornby, Airfix, Scalextric, Corgi) giving the history, how it’s made, etc. There’s some hands on stuff as well for the kids to play with - it was well worth the entry fee (of £2.50 as a concession). What I hadn’t expected to see there was a Banksy artwork! 

Valentine’s Day Mascara

It was painted/installed in Margate in 2023 and is now displayed securely in the visitor centre cafe. After coffee and cake, and dodging road closures, I fulfilled another totally trivial wish, to photograph the Ham Sandwich Sign. 

It could do with a clean!

The sign wouldn’t have been too far off my route anyway but I probably drove an extra 3 miles only to find that the road closure was beyond the sign from where I started. 

Having got back to the hotel I did go for the mooch round the town, mainly to get lunch. I’d noticed an antiques emporium that was open Friday and Saturday so thought I’d have a look round; one of the stalls was selling model railway bits so I investigated, and bought a picture! She had 4 large framed photographs of derelict engines at Woodham Brothers scrapyard in Barry, the source of many of today’s restored engines*, at £5 each. After a good look and consider I picked one as I’ve been planning to change the pictures at home, then had to cart it back to the hotel - I managed with it wedged between my feet and holding on with one hand while driving with the other. 

For my last night I’d booked a table in the hotel restaurant, the Belly Pork was lovely and the selection of Kent and Sussex cheeses were excellent (and just the right quantity). Tomorrow it’s back home but I’ve got one stop planned. 

*Many (but contrary to some claims not all by any means) steam locos were sent to Barry for scrapping. They also had a contract for disposing of freight wagons and brake vans which were far easier and more lucrative to deal with so engines were left to rot. Over time a number of them** were secured for restoration and are running today, including 76017, the Class 4 that hauled us on the Kent & East Sussex a few days ago. Approximately 50% of the preserved BR locos today were saved from Barry. 

**213 were saved but not all restored, some were used as parts donors and others were never completed. 

Kent Trip - Day 6, A Little Railway

Today I ticked off a railway I’ve long wanted to visit, the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch. 

It’s one of those railways that’s difficult to categorise, at 15” gauge it falls on the boundary between miniature and narrow gauge and although it’s very nearly 100 years old it’s always been a tourist line. I’d opt for it being a Miniature Tourist Railway, partly because the locos are all scale replicas rather than built to a gauge. 

From the hotel I ran along the seafront then back through the main street as I had a little bit of shopping to do. The sea front is slightly odd as it’s not really touristy, it’s just a beach and a road with houses and flats. 

The working end of the beach. 

From the town I cut back down to the Royal Military Canal which, along with the adjacent Royal Military Road, formed a major defensive line covering around 28 miles off vulnerable coastline bordering Romney Marsh. It was completed in 1809 and was dug by hand with the spoil being used to build a parapet on the landward side. Today you can boat on parts of it and there’s a long distance path running the full length. 

One of the bridges over the canal. 

By the time I’d reached the Railway I’d just missed a train, which didn’t matter, it gave me time to sort the ticket out and have a coffee. I was assured it was going to be quiet and the scooter wouldn’t be a problem, in the end it was a lot busier than anticipated but we managed!

Sir Winston Churchill

 It’s very much a railway in two parts, The run from Hythe to New Romney (the original railway) and on to Romney Sands is flat fields interspersed with villages and small towns, then you come out onto Dungeness where it’s shingle; the view from there is dominated by the power station (it’s just as bad sailing round the coast there - you can see the blooming thing for hours!) You get the feeling the trains are going much faster than they are, but that might be down to size and the fact you are only a few inches above the track bed (and can leave the sliding doors open). 

My original plan had been to alight at Dungeness but I decided to stay on the train back to New Romney instead. A group of volunteers were giving the station a good clean up, one of them lost track of time when her phone connected to a French service and the clock was an hour out! New Romney is the railway’s main base so I had a look round and some lunch. They do have a model railway display but it’s upstairs and I couldn’t be bothered. 

The train back to Hythe was almost full but with a bit of juggling we managed to get the scooter and me into one of the wheelchair compartments (along with a couple of baby buggies). I decided to scoot back through the town and then made a bit of an error, I assumed there’d be a road down to the beach from the one I was on, there was but a lot further on than I’d thought! Once I was able to cut down a lane and across the canal it was a warm run for the mile or so back to the hotel. If there’d been any shade I’d have grabbed an ice cream from the van parked opposite the hotel but instead I dropped the scooter back to the car and had a pint of cold cider. 

Kent Trip - Day 5, Big Railways

Today I moved base from Gravesend to Hythe via the Kent and East Sussex Railway. 

After breakfast, where the lady serving asked if I’d enjoyed Greenwich, I finished packing and headed southwards to Tenterden, the K&ESR was only part of the reason for the visit as will be explained. For a change there were no traffic problems at all so I arrived at the railway in plenty of time for the first train. The loco for the day was the ubiquitous BR Standard Class 4 Mixed Traffic, the only unusual thing (for anoraks) was that it’s marked 4P and 4F separately on the cab sides, not 4MT (I don’t have a clue what BR practice was). 

76017 - On loan from the Mid Hants Railway for the season.

Kent is a pretty enough county but there’s no real drama to the scenery from the railway, just flattish fields and drainage ditches. The only exceptional sight is Bodiam Castle. 

I’m not sure why but we had a bit of a delay on the return trip while they watered up the engine so we were about 15 minutes late back. I wasn’t at my best so the first thing I did was nip down to the car and fetch the scooter to make looking around easier. There’s a bit to see at the station with a reasonable gift shop, a decent tea room and even a model railway room (although the main exhibit is more a toy railway for kids rather than a a model). The tea room provided lunch (Egg Mayo and Ham Hock sandwiches) then I wandered over the crossing to the Colonel Stephens Railway Museum. 

Stephens holds a unique place in railway history as an engineer, advocate and promoter of light railways of various gauges. He held varies resident or chief engineer positions over the years, including for the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland railways at a time when rising competition and outdated working practices nearly put them out of business - had Stephens not managed to keep them open and promote tourism they may not exist today. 

Typical railway museum display!

He was a big fan of using technology to benefit the railways including trying to develop a compression ignition diesel engined railcar many years before such a thing was actually introduce; the internal combustion engine technology in the very early 1900s simply wasn’t sufficiently advanced so steam continued to prevail. He did eventually manage to procure some petrol engine Ford truck chassis which were converted into railcars, being single ended they would run in pairs back-to-back and were quite successful. 

They’ve even squeezed a loco in. 

I did make one purchase from the gift shop but that’ll be a story for another time and place! The drive from there to Hythe was mainly B Roads so a bit twisty-turny, after a pint of decent cider I checked in and I’m now on the 4th Floor of the Imperial Hotel. It’s a bit better than a Premier Inn, and actually not that much more expensive, they even phoned me earlier to check if I wanted a dinner booking for the restaurant (I declined and had a bar meal). 

My room is at the back, on the 4th floor in the old servants quarters!

Kent Trip - Day 4, More Things Maritime

It was back to Greenwich today for more ships and things at the National Maritime Museum. 

The drive in to Greenwich was much better than yesterday, although still slow at the end, so I arrived at just about the right time. The first order of the day was to visit the Cutty Sark, the famous Tea Clipper, labelled as the fastest ship in its day. The reality is slightly more prosaic, sailing clippers were already being overtaken by steam ships by the time she was built, the official opening of the Suez Canal, five days before she was launched, heralded the final end as it shortened and eased the journey considerably but wasn’t suitable for sailing vessels, 10 years later Cutty Sark became a wool clipper. 

I’m not convinced by the style of building around the ship. 

Getting around the ship by scooter was OK, there are lifts to all levels, aided by the attendant staff, but I did park up and walk a few times. I had an interesting chat with a volunteer guide, an ex merchant seaman, as well. 

Not the view the crew would have seen!

A Cutty Sark is a short Scottish nightdress, named in the poem Tam O’Shanter by Robert Burns where farmer Tam is chased by a witch, Nannie, who is clad only in a Cutty Sark. The ship’s figurehead is of Nannie, the original is long gone but a later one is displayed in the base of the dry dock. Unusually for such artefacts you are invited to touch it, albeit carefully. 

The 1954 figure of Nannie.

After a cup of coffee I got the lift back up to street level and had a mooch around before scooting back up to the Maritime Museum to complete my wander from yesterday. It was a bit of a game of dodge the groups of school children (it’s OK, I didn’t run any of them over); I guess that’s a hazard of visiting midweek in term time. Now I’m sure anyone who reads the newspaper letter columns or comment sections will be well aware that kids today have no manners and are hooligans - I’m not saying the ones I met today were necessarily a representative sample but almost without fail they were polite and made a point of waiting or moving so I could pass by. If their mates didn’t notice me they quickly got a tap or a tug on the arm to alert them, definitely a credit to themselves and their schools and families. Not that it matters but for the record I’d guess they were mainly London schools with a majority of the kids having Asian heritage. 

I had a baguette (Ham and Emmental, plenty of filling) and a coffee in the smaller cafe adjacent to the Oceans Map; while I was eating a group of ladies assembled and started some form of dance that I could quite get the gist of. 

There seemed to be random wafting!

With so many school groups around, at one point a traffic jam developed as two lots passed in opposite directions, the noise was getting a bit wearing so having seen what I wanted to see I left the Museum. I hadn’t particularly intended to visit the Queen’s House but I had plenty of time so did, I had to backtrack through the Museum again as the lift down to the entrance level wasn’t working. 

Queen’s House

The House is primarily used to display artworks both from the permanent collection and on loan. The most famous work is the so-called Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I, an appropriate location as it’s on the site of Greenwich Palace where she was born. Getting around on the scooter was “interesting”, in particular the lift was far from ideal with restricted space to access it (I finally figured that reversing in worked best but the doors kept trying to close), but that’s my only criticism. 

This is my last night in the Premier Inn, it’s been a useful base but not ideal. There’s a public park right by the hotel and it’s been noisy at times, both during the day and later into the evening and the food offering is very restricted - 6 main course offerings, two of which are chicken curries, plus pizza. There used to be a pub adjacent but it clearly closed down a while ago so they’ve converted a room into what they call The Social which to me implies somewhere you’d go for a pleasant chat and a beer but in practice it isn’t that great - there’s a limited range of bottled drinks and a few basic menu items in a small cafe environment. As is often the way there are a number of people in who’re working away from home all week and I feel sorry for them only having such a small choice every night (I know from past experience you rarely feel like going anywhere and often expenses only cover meals in the hotel). 

Tomorrow I shall be off to the seaside in Hythe, via another railway. 

Kent Trip - Day 3, Time and Place

Today I fulfilled a bucket list visit, with a trip to the Roysl Observatory in Greenwich. 

It was raining fairly heavily almost until I left the hotel but had just about dried up, unfortunately the road conditions were atrocious, a broken down truck combined with the general traffic nearly doubled the journey time from Gravesend. I’d booked car parking a while ago but it’s at the  bottom of the hill near the Maritime Museum - thank goodness for the scooter!

Looking up to the Observatory

The first hiccup of the day was that the lift at Flamsteed House, where many of the displays are, is broken, actually in the end that only gets you onto the ground floor and it was so busy the scooter would have been a nuisance. A pleasant young lady pointed me to the buggy park which has a nice convenient iron railing to chain the scooter to (and has a canopy so if it did rain again it wouldn’t have mattered) and I was happy then to wander round. 

Inevitably there were a lot of school and tour groups so at times I had to pick my moment to see things, I wasn’t too bothered about the displays on the families of the Astronomers Royal, what I was really there for was to see information on the Longitude Problem - see below. 

H1 - Harrison’s first attempt at a timepiece to solve the z Longitude Problem.


H4 - The first marine chronometer. 


A marine chronometer from the Portuguese merchant ship the Ferreira, now better known as the Cutty Sark. 

Greenwich is inextricably linked with time, although the global standard is no longer Greenwich Mean Time, and there were several displays about how ti me was transmitted around the country, including by electric telegraph and later by radio waves from near Rugby. 

A Regulator Clock and two electrically driven slaves. 

As things had quietened down a little when I went back outside outside I went and took the obligatory photo on the Meridian line then unchained the scooter and headed through the shop to the exit, only then realising I’d missed part of the overall tour. 

Right foot in the West, left foot in the East. 

It was definitely coffee and cake time though so I headed down to the cafe first then went back in to the observatory area and chained things up again. The main thing I’d missed was the large Meridian Telescope - had I realised the exit from this involved a two storey iron grate spiral staircase I might have been less enthusiastic about seeing it, my irrational fear of heights kicked in but I coped. 

The London skyline from the observatory. 

With the observatory ticked off the list, and with time to spare, I scooted back down the hill to the Maritime Museum to make a start on looking round there (I’ll be back tomorrow). I got round a few of the exhibitions, it’s a little disjointed, and had some lunch before deciding I was tiring and heading back to the hotel - a much quicker drive than in the morning. 

This 1930s speedboat is exquisite. 




This stained glass was in the Baltic Exchange in London, one of the main clearing houses for information and contracts in merchant shipping. 

The Longitude Problem

I’ve simplified this considerably (I’ve got whole books on the subject) and I think I’ve got the details correct!

It was relatively easy for sailors to work out their Latitude (how far North or South they were) but Longitude (East or West) is difficult. Prizes of up to 20,000 pounds (several million today) were offered by the British Government for solutions to the problem, ignoring the more outlandish ideas there were two main solutions. 

Common to both methods was measuring angles in the sky; this needs some form of accurate instrument. Eventually the earlier land based telescopes and quadrants (a quarter of a circle) developed into hand-held octants and then into the sextant (a sixth of a circle). This latter has a small telescope and a system of mirrors that superimpose the images of the two objects you’re measuring. You simply move one of the mirrors in an arc and when the objects are aligned you can read off the angle. I have the Brother‘s relatively cheap sextant at home, I did mean to bring it with me as I need a decent horizon to adjust it and I’ll be by the sea later in the week. 

The first method, typically favoured by astronomers, involved charting the position of the moon relative to the stars; to do this you needed good visibility and knowledge of the heavens to take accurate measurements, some complex mathematics and extensive tables, and you had to do this on a moving ship! There were ways of doing this on land* but not at sea. 

The second method required very accurate time keeping, but was relatively simple. The easiest way to find your position involved a noon sun-shot, measuring the angle between the horizon and the sun at its highest point (the local noon) and noting the exact time (at a known place) that this occurred. With a bit of calculation, and some nautical tables, the angle gives you your latitude and the time gives you your longitude. For example if your local noon is at 13:00 Greenwich time you know you are 1 hour to the West so 360 degrees divided by 24 which is exactly 15 degrees west of the Greenwich Meridian. The biggest problem is knowing the time at your fixed place though - in the early 1700s the most accurate clocks available used pendulums but these need a stable platform, put them on a ship at sea and they’re next to useless. 

It took a Yorkshire carpenter turned clock maker, John Harrison, 4 attempts over many years to finally produce a reliable and practical Marine Chronometer. He was eventually awarded over £23,000 from the prize funds after petitioning King for the final payment. For 300 years, from the late 1700s, a sextant and chronometer were the main tools for navigating at sea, and in the air, when you couldn’t see land until the development of electronic aids including GPS. 

*The Mason Dixon Line in the US was surveyed in the 1760s by Charles Mason, an astronomer from the West Country, and Jeremiah Dixon, a surveyor from County Durham who learnt his trade in his father’s pits, using astronomical techniques. 

Kent Trip - Day 2, A Fort and a Railway

My get up and go got the better of me today - I was out and about far too early! Still, I might as well kill time in pleasant places rather than hotel bedrooms. 

After yesterday’s exertions I was a bit achy when I got up but I say in a good way! That  may sound strange but having slightly sore muscles with no noticeable impact on the sciatica is a positive. 

The first visit was to Fort Amherst, near Chatham Dockyard. It’s free to visit, although you do pay for parking, and there’s a decent cafe as well. I basically had the place to myself as I arrived early so was able to wander at will. The scooter couldn’t get everywhere, some hills were just too steep, but I managed to get around most of it by riding and walking. Unfortunately I couldn’t risk doing the tour of the tunnels at the Fort, it’s too rough for the scooter and at 90 minutes too long a time to walk and stand at the moment. 

The Fort was developed as part of the defences for Chatham and the River Medway from the mid 18th century onwards, right through to WW II, and the displays echo this. . 

You can see the Fort’s origins as a chalk quarry. 


The River Medway


Would you want to attack this…


Past these?

The development from smooth bore cannon to rifled artillery. 


A 1943 Vickers 3.7” Heavy Anti Aircraft Gun, it could throw a 28lb shell to 32,000 feet. 

After I’d had a cup of coffee at the cafe and a final wander I headed for the second target of the day, the Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway, knowing that I’d need to grab some lunch and kill time before the first train at 1pm. The first problem was actually finding the place! I don’t know if it was the sat nav or the quoted post code that was the problem but it took me to somewhere a few hundred yards along the road from where I needed to be. Studying the map on their website and going over to Google Maps got me to the right place where I was able to do a bit of shopping (see below) and feed myself while waiting for the car park to be unlocked. 

Inevitably I meet a lot of fellow railway enthusiasts, today’s bunch included a lad who was definitely well onto the autistic spectrum but who was friendly and kind (to a fault, he tended to over-share). He has his own YouTube channel which he’s very proud of although in truth, having seen what he’d just filmed, he’s not all that good a videographer; that doesn’t matter though, he was enjoying himself. Edited to add, I just had a brief conversation on a Facebook group with another enthusiast who was on the same train. 

I’m on his video so he can be on my photo!

The S&K grew out of the redundant southern half of the Bowaters Rsilway, used to move materials and stock to, and around, the paper mill. The original horse drawn system started in around 1867 with two Kerr Stuart Brazil Class steam locos introduced in 1905, one of which, Premier, was our haulage today. 

I’d particularly wanted to visit this railway as one of my friends was involved in the early days of the preservation and restoration although he probably wouldn’t recognise the Sittingbourne end as it was redeveloped with grant aid a few years ago. It’s not a very long journey and the passenger stock tends to be basic - think wooden benches in wagons rather than Pullman luxury! 😊 The first part of the journey is at high level before passing through mainly scrubland to the factory end. There is still a paper mill on the site, it’s now part of the packaging firm DS Smith and although they are closing several locations this one doesn’t seem to be on the list. 

Highly sophisticated coaling arrangements. 

Fireless locomotives used stored steam from an external source, they were safe to use inside the paper mills. 


It’s not often you see a complete railway bridge in a factory yard! 

Once we got back to the main terminus I didn’t hang about, I was tiring from the unaccustomed walking and it looked like rain, indeed it started chucking it down on the way back to Gravesend. Having had a reasonable breakfast and lunch, and with the hotel menu being very limited, I grabbed a meal deal from Morrisons for tea. 

This trip’s serendipity has continued! When I put the scooter back in the car at Fort Amherst I thought that I should get some Muc-Off (other cleaning agents are available) so that I could give it a clean as it had got a bit muddy. I discovered there’s a Halfords in the retail park adjacent to the S&K car park! I actually went with their own car cleaner simply because it was a more conveniently sized spray bottle. Although it was raining when I got back to the hotel I popped out a bit later, unfolded the scooter and gave it a wipe over - I am going posh tomorrow visiting Greenwich. 

Kent Trip - Day 1, Chatham

Today wasn’t the best start to a holiday I’ve ever had, but all’s well that ends well! This is my first ever holiday to Kent, I’m not sure why I’ve not been before. 

There’s a distinctly maritime theme to this trip as I started with a visit to Chatham Historic Dockyard, I had a decent enough run down until the tyre pressure warning came on. You can’t check what the pressures actually are unless you stop moving, and that wasn’t viable on the QE2 Bridge! As the steering and handling weren’t affected, and I was fairly close to my destination, I pressed on, only to find on arrival that a front tyre was most of the way down. 

As the place was just about to open I decided to forget about it for a while and get the visit done first so I unloaded the scooter* and got checked in. We’d been to the dockyard some years ago but hadn’t seen everything, the one thing I was very keen to visit was the ropery so I booked the first tour time for that and had a general bimble. Inevitably the first things I found were railway related! They do actually operate trains on some days but weren’t doing so today. 

A very unusual Peckett loco (we’re not related)

Snag one at the ropery was that the disabled lift is out of order; even a week ago that would have been a problem but fortunately the sciatica has been much improved over the last few days so I could park up the scooter and walk. The lady giving the demonstration was excellent, she showed us how to make a hawser (a three strand rope) on their small demonstration rig then took us though to the main ropewalks, the building is huge! It needs to be to produce the length of ropes required, bearing in mind a sailing ship could need 300 miles of ropes and the anchor cable could be up to 720’ long. The ropery is still in commercial use and I did wander round the shop but I couldn’t think of any use for a natural fibres rope at the moment so all I’ve got is a short sample in exchange for a donation. 

It was the longest building in Europe when built!

I carried on bimbling, going round the large items area, which is mostly the things the REME and Greenwich Maritime Museums haven’t got space for! 

I liked the juxtaposition of this mock up Polaris nuclear missile and the sign!

Adjacent is a collection of lifeboats courtesy of the RNLI who are not, contrary to some people’s opinion, just taxi drivers for illegal immigrants! Credit goes to whoever laid it because the elevated sections are scooter and wheelchair accessible. 

The only** Harbour Class Lifeboat, built for and stationed at Poolbeg, Dublin. 

The last thing I looked at was the No. 1 Smithery (sic) where there’s currently an exhibition of Lego shipwrecks plus a larger number of paintings and models, again part of the Greenwich collections. I finished off the visit with a pleasant lunch, during which it started raining which was just what I didn’t want! Fortunately it didn’t last long and had just about stopped when I tackled the car. 

Part way through!

The cause of the problem. 

I had to do a double tyre swap as the spare is a space saver which has to go on the back, fortunately it wasn’t too difficult to do. Had my back not been much better I’d have called the AA but felt that might get messy as I’d have had to find someone from the dockyard and let them know, then almost certainly had a long wait. 

I was contemplating what to do to get the tyre replaced (I knew it probably wouldn’t be repairable) so was heading to the hotel at a steady speed when I passed a KwikFit. It’s not somewhere I’d normally use but needs must and all that! About 30 minutes and £280 later I drove out with two new Dunlop*** tyres on the front and one of the lads had packed everything back away in the boot for me. The front tyres were reaching end of life anyway so it hasn’t ready cost me very much and I still enjoyed the day. 

*Following the bad sciatica attack over the last trip to Devon I decided to buy a mobility scooter. It’s had a moderate amount of use at home but was invaluable today. It’s something I’ve been debating for a while anyway as walking, and standing, can be a problem. 

**More were planned for use in confined waters but the Second World War halted production. 

***He quoted Yokohamas but then found they’d already been used so let me have the more expensive Dunlops at the same price. 

Devon 11 - The End

Following the previous post I spent a few days at The Manor Hotel near Okehampton with the TOGs, I didn’t doo much, just one craft activity, Lino Cut printing. It’s a new activity there, and something that interested me as I was thinking it should be possible to 3D print the stamps. You trace an image onto the “lino”, which is softer than the floor type, then carve out the non-printing bits with a curved chisel, unfortunately they didn’t have an image of my signature Badger so I did a fox instead. It was good fun, even though I was the only participant, and I was happy with the results. 

Would I 3D print the stamps? Yes, but only for specific purposes as I think the hand-carved look is part of the result. My plan for next year* is to take my own badger image and have another go. Apart from that one activity I spent most of the time chatting to friends, although I did also provide a quiz for the Saturday evening entertainment which contributed to the fun. I drove home through the Cotswolds as I find motorway driving boring. 

There are a few conclusions from the trip:

I’m not saying the Inn I stopped at for the first part of the trip was a mistake, it was pleasant and friendly and the room was comfortable enough (although it could do with a bit of maintenance) but I should have checked the sample menu more closely. The food was fantastic but the choice was very limited (you can get bored with steak) and it wasn’t cheap; if it had been in a town with alternatives that wouldn’t have mattered but I never feel like driving out on an evening and there was nothing else in walking distance. Breakfast could also have been an issue if I’d needed to get out early, it was supposedly between 9:15 and 10:15, which was late enough, but on one day the lady doing it didn’t even show up until about 9:25 and it was getting on for 10:00 before the food arrived. 

Hiring a bike for a day just about worked, it was certainly easier than having the bike rack on for the whole trip, with the attendant security risks. The only issue was that I have my bikes set up how I like them which you simply can’t do with a rental. I’ll reserve judgement on that for the future but I think if it hadn’t been for having the PA kit in the car for a quiz I’d have been better taking the folding bike. It was interesting to try the later version of my own bike, but as it’s really no different functionally I certainly won’t be upgrading. 

Putting the electric coolbox in the boot didn’t work - it took up a lot of room for very little benefit; a smaller box or bag on the floor in the back will suffice and free up boot space. 

Don’t get a sciatica attack when you go on holiday! 😊 I need to see how things work out in the next couple of weeks before I consider some options for the next trip away; one thing I’m really pleased about is that I bought an automatic car, when you’re left leg isn’t functioning well not having to operate a clutch is a bonus. 

*I say every year I probably won’t go again, I always do. I thought I’d been just about everywhere I’d want to go in the South West but from this year’s explorations I’ve added the Stover Canal and Morwellham Quay. 

Devon 11 - Day5, No Railways

No railways but I go to prison and end up in a police station! 

Rain and sciatica affected the day’s activities a bit but I still achieved the main aims. 

I’m writing this bit sat outside the former dairy at Dartmoor Prison, now the Prison Museum. There’s a lot I already knew about how it was used to house prisoners of war from both the Napoleonic era and from the War of 1812 (which the Americans still believe they won - they didn’t!) The part I didn’t know is that in 1917 it became a work camp for conscientious objectors who’d previously been held in prisons. The difference is that the cell door locks were removed and they were free to associate at all times; the emphasis was on them carrying out essential work rather than on being punished. 

I was aware that the Prison itself is currently closed and had seen some reports questioning why it is still staffed and considered operational.but the guide at the museum gave me the simple answers; the buildings are currently undergoing major refurbishment, scheduled to finish in around three years time, however due to the overcrowding elsewhere they are keeping accommodation for 200 prisoners and sufficient staff available at all times in case of a major incident requiring inmates from elsewhere to be relocated at short notice - for the moment it’s the best prison in the country to work at! 

From the prison I drove into Princetown itself, the machine in the car park wasn’t working but the app was one of the ones I have on the phone (I have a separate folder for these as there are so many, but the Government have said they’re going to force them all to share so you just need one app wherever you park). I did have a bit of a wander but it was raining and I was struggling so after a quick look round the visitor centre I had lunch at The Old Police Station Cafe, my second pasty of the trip, delicious if just slightly too peppery for my taste. 

I was trying to decide what to have for dinner, and was leaning towards having the fish and chips, when the boss chef made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, the Rib Eye for the price of the Rump, well it would have been rude to turn it down! It’s probably a sign of the quality of the meat served that they don’t have steak knives - you simply don’t need them. 

The cook station is the old fireplace - this is not a place for vegetarians! 

The steak was gorgeous, I generally prefer it slightly more cooked but it was incredibly tender and full of flavour. 

Before coming up to the bedroom I did take the time to thank the manager/head chef in case I don’t see him in the morning, he’s really looked after me this week, as have all the staff. 

People are strange! I’ve put a couple of posts this week on an Industrial Locomotives group on FB. One of them was about the granite tramway and was, strictly speaking, against the group’s rules as there’s no locomotive so to make up for it I posted the pictures of the three Quarry Hunslets from yesterday. Guess which post has attracted the most comment and attention? Yep, it’s the first one! I guess it was something different and it is interesting if you own an anorak! 😊

Devon 11 - Day 4, A Small Railway

It was back to an actual working railway today; The Launceston Steam Railway isn’t strictly a heritage line as it’s narrow gauge running on an old standard gauge track bed. It opened in 1983 as a home for some privately owned locos and stock; over the years its expanded from the original 1/2 mile of track and counts in my top few favourite railways. 

The weather was fairly grim first thing, with heavy rain and high winds, but the forecast suggested it would clear and was, for once, correct. A late breakfast (the person doing it today didn’t arrive until nearly 9:30) and a road closure that wasn’t picked up by TomTom, and that had no warnings or diversion signposted, delayed my arrival so I missed the first train; with an hourly service that didn’t matter - it gave me time for a mug of coffee. 

The railway is very scenic if not the smoothest of rides, our haulage for the day was Lilian, slightly to the surprise of the guard given the earlier weather as they tend to use Covertcoat, which has a cab, when it’s wet. 

After the first trip I raided the book shop and bought a railway cartoon book and a hard back on Garratt locomotives, a type which are of particular interest to me; there was 50% off second hand books so they cost me under a fiver - I’m not complaining! 

I had a cheese and onion baguette for lunch before a second trip, at one point we slowed to drop one off the helpers off as apparently they’ve had an issue with sheep on the line so he was going to see if he could find and block up the hole in the fence. I was lucky enough to snag a quick tour of the engine sheds after the trip so managed to photograph the other two steam locos that are regularly used, although they’ve got an issue using Dorothea. 

Lilian and Covertcoat have both had tenders added, principally so they can be fired (stoked) easily; as built, due to the very cramped footplates, the only practical way to fire them is to stop, get off, then stand behind the loco and open a couple of sliding doors at the back for access to the firebox and the coal beside it. In the quarries this wasn’t a problem and indeed it hasn’t been too much of an issue at Launceston until recently. 

They usually use decent quality doubles (smallish coal which I used to use in the boat stove) but the last load delivered was Polish trebles, even smaller lumps which aren’t burning very easily and are generating a lot of smoke so they’re finding it difficult to do the whole 3 1/2 mile run up the line without having to stoke the fire. Kay (one half of the husband and wife team that own the railway) was saying that they’ve had some advice from another heritage railway about how to build the fire which is helping but it’s a learning experience so for the moment Dorothea isn’t getting much running. 

Back at the Inn it was a limited menu with the main offering being Steak on a Stone, otherwise known as cook your own dinner! I’ve done similar things before and I love it as I like my meat hot and cooked through so it’s good to be able to control it myself. 

I forgot to take a picture at the start so was about half way through the steak at this point, and I’d had most of the chips. The last slice of steak was probably around six ounces on its own! Delicious but really it was too much.