Category: Geography & Environment

Designated a National Park in 1952, the North York Moors comprise 355,000 acres of rural land with an Australia-shaped outline in the north-east of England. Middlesbrough lies to the north, Scarborough to the south-east, Thirsk out west and Pickering to the south. Its eastern side skirts around the seaside town and fishing port of Whitby, but otherwise takes in a 26-mile stretch of sandy beaches and fossil-rich cliffs facing the North Sea.

The central plateau rises up from its hilly edges, the cause of some difficulty for transport in past centuries and even today, with road-signs warning of steep climbs and ‘dangerous’ descents. Nevertheless, the area attracts many tourists to its extensive heather moorland, woods and green meadows, with sheep, deer, birds and otters to be spotted near the many lakes, pools and streams. The highest point is Urra Moor at 1,490ft..

The North York Moors Historical Railway Trust has operated a steam railway service from Pickering to Whitby since 1972. Assisted by hundreds of volunteers, it aims to preserve a cherished piece of history by offering weddings, dining, photography and filming opportunities. Television series such as ‘Heartbeat’ and ‘Downton Abbey’, and the ‘Harry Potter’ films have used their stations as authentic backdrops.

(Image: Russel Wills at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Northumbrian Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716-83) entered landscape gardening with an enthusiasm and vision that propelled him to the top of his profession. Although he dismissed the formal designs which sought to mould plants into rigid shapes and patterns, he was not averse to moving tons of soil to fulfil his own idea of perfection. On surveying a new project he would exclaim that it had “capabilities”, hence his nickname, portending a remodelling on a grand scale.

Brown’s career began in 1741 at Stowe House in Buckinghamshire, where he became Head Gardener, then Clerk of Works. Going freelance in 1751, he spent the rest of his life designing the grounds of aristocratic estates all over the country ~ 170 of them all told, of which 18 are now maintained by the National Trust, including Stowe itself.

Characteristically, Brown would install a lake with curving, grassy banks and an ornate bridge. He would plant trees with naturally architectural shapes and group them carefully in small clumps or woods. He would build neo-classical temples and follies, and he devised the ‘ha-ha’ wall, hidden from sight of the house, but keeping livestock in the distant parkland. A long, sweeping driveway would be engineered to give approaching visitors an impressive view.

(Top image [cropped]: Gresham College at Flickr.com / Public domain)

Dr David Bellamy, OBE (1933-2019) grew up in London but moved to Durham in 1960, where he lectured in the University’s Botany Department until 1980. He discovered his vocation on a field trip to Scotland after abandoning his dream of becoming a ballet dancer! The best teachers convey their enthusiasm for the subject and he certainly fell into that category and inspired not just his undergraduates but his large television audience too.

In 1967, the supertanker SS Torrey Canyon was grounded near the Scilly Isles and around 30 million gallons of oil were spilled. Bellamy had recently surveyed the Cornish coast so was interviewed by TV news, thus beginning his TV and radio career. His ebullient personality endeared him to the public and he went on to make documentaries and schools programmes, as well as many other appearances in which he waxed lyrical over the plantlife around us, including medicinal herbs.

He upset the globalists by calling their ‘climate change’ story “poppycock” in 2004, pointing out that the climate has always changed, sometimes drastically, without any assistance from humanity. He travelled the planet and was not averse to campaigning for actual environmental issues. The David Bellamy Conservation Award Scheme encourages well-managed holiday parks with wildlife areas.

(Top image: Ray Bird at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Any UK, Isle of Man or Channel Island address can be found in the Royal Mail database simply by using its postcode and house number/name. Such is the usefulness of postcodes that since 1996 it has not even been necessary to include the county in an address, though many still do. Postcodes were introduced nationwide from 1971 to 1974 and it seems remarkable today that we ever managed without them.

London was the first city to be divided into areas denoted by letters. Sir Roland Hill (1795-1879) devised a system in 1856 which used the points of the compass; hence, EC and WC for the City of London, and N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W and NW for the rest, although NE (now Newcastle) and S (now Sheffield) were removed shortly afterwards. This was a boon to mail sorting offices and in 1917 Albert Illingworth (1865-1942) added numbers too.

Several other cities tried their own postcode schemes and with the advent of mechanised letter sorting in the 1960s it was decided to roll one out to the whole country. The most common format is AB12 3YZ, where AB is one of the 124 postal areas, the numbers narrow it down further and YZ is the precise neighbourhood.

(Image of the Tonbridge postcode area [cropped]: Richardguk at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)

King James I & VI (1566-1625) tried his hand at sericulture on 42 acres in central London in the early 1600s, but he was supplied with the wrong type of mulberry bush for silkworms. This and the unfavourable weather doomed his efforts to produce silk. The land, on which there was a large house acquired by the Duke of Buckingham in 1698, came into the possession of King George III (1738-1820) in 1762. This would become the now world-famous Buckingham Palace under the reign of his son, King George IV (1762-1830).

Queen Victoria (1819-1901) was the first monarch to take up residence there, which she did on acceding to the throne in 1837. The balcony from which royal groups wave to the crowd on special occasions was the idea of her husband, Prince Albert (1819-61).

The Palace, known affectionately as ‘Buck House’, has 775 rooms and is built around a quadrangle. The ballroom is the largest room at 120x59ft. and 44ft. high. The Palace hosts events such as receptions for Heads of State, garden parties and investitures. The public is able to visit the Queen’s Gallery and the Royal Mews, plus the 19 State Rooms at certain times during the year. The Palace’s 92 offices form the headquarters for administration of royal business.

(Image: James Cridland at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

It is not known exactly how many of these spine-backed, small, hibernating mammals there are in the UK, but the estimate is one million. It is also thought that this is a drastic reduction from the hedgehog population of fifty years ago, at around 30 million. The vast majority live in England and they avoid being counted as they are nocturnal and generally sleep in a different hidey-hole every day of their active period from March to November.

British hedgehogs are of the Erinaceus-West European type, which can grow up to 1ft. long, with a little tail, 4-inch legs and approximately 6,000 spines an inch long. These spines are like tough bristles, comprising the same fibrous proteins as are in human nails and hair.

Hedgehogs feed on insects, snails, worms, beetles, caterpillars, slugs, baby birds, rodents and frogs. This tends to make them the gardener’s friend. Preservation societies encourage gardeners to reciprocate by making their plots hedgehog-friendly, with unobtrusive holes at the bottom of boundary fences and piles of logs and leaves in a wilderness corner. This enables hedgehogs to roam from garden to garden, as they like to do, and avoid the dangers of electric gardening tools and bonfires.

(Image: needpix.com / Public domain)

Until the Industrial Revolution, Cardiff was just a small town, having a population of only 1,870 in 1801 for example. Another eyebrow-raiser is that Cardiff is a relative newcomer as a capital city. Several Welsh towns had historic claims, but it is said that Queen Elizabeth II forced the issue of choosing a capital when she planned her first state tour. Cardiff’s official designation was announced in 1955.

Situated beside the wide River Severn estuary, its favourable location drew the Romans to build a timber fort there. This became the site of a Norman castle in the 1100s and a village sprang up around it. Eventually, industrial growth saw the population climb to 164,333 in 1900 and five years later it was awarded city status.

Cardiff’s ranking at that time as the world’s busiest port for the export of coal marks it out as a key player in the foundation of our modern world. Its dockland district of Cardiff Bay was formerly known as Tiger Bay and attracted many foreign workers. Today, Cardiff is the home of the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh national sports arena, the Principality Stadium. Shopping arcades, parks and dockland redevelopment have largely replaced the factories and warehouses.

(Image: pxfuel.com / CC0 Public domain)

The Thames Barrier is the world’s second largest flood defence system. Without it, the sides of the Embankment would have to be so tall they would obliterate Londoners’ view of the Thames itself. More importantly, a huge area of London would be at risk of flooding, including the underground rail network. Fortunately, it is planned for the present Thames Barrier to remain in place against storm surges and any other rise in sea level until 2070, whereupon it will be replaced.

There have been floods from the North Sea in the past, of course, but it was the one in 1953, which claimed 307 lives, that gave the impetus to build the ten-gate steel dam on concrete piers and sills fixed to the chalk riverbed. The Thames Barrier and Flood Protection Act of 1972 eventually gave the go-ahead. The project took eight years and cost £535 million.

It is now operated by the Environmental Agency, who test the gates monthly and at the spring high tide. The Thames Barrier Duty Controller makes the decision as to whether to open or close the gates, acting on information received from various weather monitoring stations, including satellites. Since 1982 that crucial decision has been taken almost two hundred times.

(Image: Mechtraveller at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Long ago, Gibraltar, Spain and Morocco were connected but after the Atlantic Ocean flooded into the Mediterranean, the 9-mile-wide Strait of Gibraltar was formed. Gibraltar, nicknamed ‘Gib’ or ‘The Rock’, is a 2½-mile-long limestone outcrop which came into British sovereignty in 1704. Since 2006 its Constitution has given it self-government with the UK responsible for external matters.

Its strategic position at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea has been invaluable to the UK. Its airport is owned by the Ministry of Defence and the runway has been extended into the sea to cater for civilian aircraft as well. Tourism, financial services, shipping and the military provide the major sources of income for Gibraltar, the world’s fifth most densely-populated nation.

Spain has long since wished to reclaim Gibraltar, but the population of 32,000 identify themselves as ‘British Gibraltarians’ and have twice voted overwhelmingly to remain under the UK’s wing. The 1969-85 Spanish closure of the border only helped to solidify their British allegiance. The official language is English and there is also ‘Llanito’ or ‘Yanito’, a code-switching mixture of English, Andalusian Spanish, Italian, Genoese, Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese and Portuguese.

Notice the main road (Winston Churchill Avenue) crossing the runway at the end of this video:-

(Top image [cropped] showing Gibraltar, top left: Riccardo Rossi at Flickr.com (courtesy of eol.jsc.nasa.gov) / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The English Channel was formed by catastrophic flooding from the direction of the North Sea. This occurred anything from 10,000BC to 3,800BC and was an after-effect of the sinking of the land mass known as Doggerland, which once connected the UK and Ireland to northern Europe and Scandinavia. The breach of the last sliver of land linking England to France was either the result of a megatsunami or the bursting of the banks of a massive lake.

The English Channel (or La Manche, in French) is 350 miles long but only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, the Strait of Dover. It is also quite shallow there, as this was the breach point mentioned above. It is one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Not only do captains have to take account of varying tides, currents and weather conditions such as fog, but they must also make sure they are sticking to the correct lane.

Marine craft of all kinds are travelling east, west, north and south, along with the occasional brave swimmer making the crossing for charity. The English Channel has been the scene of several ‘firsts’ over the years, including the first jet-powered hoverboard crossing in August 2019.

(Top image: Pierre Markuse at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

The Norfolk Broads comprise an area of rivers, dykes, streams and lakes in the easternmost part of England. The city of Norwich lies to the west and the coastal resort of Great Yarmouth to the east. The Broads, or ‘Broadland’, has been a popular holiday destination since the turn of the twentieth century, encouraged by an 1882 guidebook by G. Christopher Davies (1849-1922), in which he extolled the delights of slowly boating along its 200-mile network, admiring the scenery and wildlife.

The waterways were previously used for transportation of goods inland, but this gradually ended with the advent of the railways. Today it is possible to hire all types of motor cruiser, yacht, houseboat and dinghy to explore its freshwater routes and the sight of disused windmills is a reminder of their commercial history.

Broadland itself is evidence of historic land use. Norfolk was densely populated in the twelfth century and its peaty layers were dug out for fuel. This continued for two centuries, re-shaping the land as it did so, but it stopped when floodwaters came in. This factor was discovered in 1952 by ecologist Dr Joyce Lambert (1916-2005).  Furthermore, this video shows how cyclical flooding affected Broadland even before that time:-

(Top image of Thurne Dyke drainage mill on the Broads: John Fielding at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)