St Cadoc’s was built in 1906, and was architect Alfred J. Wood’s second asylum project, following St Luke’s in Middlesbrough. Wood had worked with CH Howell on St Lukes, and St Cadoc’s was therefore his first complete asylum project.

As you might imagine, the place was spotless. From the beautiful mosaiced floor, to the plaque commemorating the first Superintendant’s 24 years at the Hospital, it was pristeen.

Reception was closed, for the weekend I imagine, and as such, we were not questioned on entry. The plaque on the right signified the first superintendant’s service to the hospital over 24 years. I doubt this area would have changed much at all over the hospital’s 102 years of existence. The Corridor below lead directly to the Main Hall.

The hall was not amongst the largest of those I’ve visited, the markings for badminton can give you a good idea of it’s actual size. Again, this part of the hospital was very much how it would have been upon completion. Denbigh, the more northerly neighbour of St Cadocs, unfortunately had a suspended ceiling fitted, hiding the elaborate wooden support structure, yet shaving a few pennies from the heating bill

Upon leaving the hall we chose to go left, for no particular reason. The hallways were familiar, bar the peeling paint and lonely chairs usually found in derelict asylums. Having passed a staff canteen and various administrative rooms, we found some empty wards.

Although the wards we found were pretty empty and uninteresting, there were some interesting similarities and comparisons to be made with derelict asylums we’d visited, of a similar age. It appeared that the NHS uniformed the decoration, fixtures and fittings of it’s mental hospitals throughout the country as they redeveloped them over the years – St Mary’s in Stannington, Fairmile in Cholsey, and Hellingly in East Sussex were asylums that we all felt shared similarities with St Cadocs, across various areas.

We ventured down and out of the ward, having not seen anything hugely interesting. It was more the exploration and not knowing what we’d find that excited us most. No laid out dayrooms, wards with beds in situ, or any sign of past usage.

We found ourselves by the admin block again, having traversed the closed wards on the old male side. The female side housed a few live wards, it seemed that our decision to go right out of the main hall was the correct one in terms of remaining discreet. We had been advised not to take any photographs of patients if we came across them, although I suspect that our presence near the live wards would have got us noticed and ejected. There were several people in the corridors by now, not just the cleaners we passed on the way in, and with three people bearing SLRs and not looking like they should particularly be there, we made an executive decision to depart and look for the mortuary and Chapel.

Cadoc’s exterior was in an attractive redbrick, Edwardian style. Airing courts were spacious and not taken for car parking or additional, (more modern) structures, although I suspect that this may be in part due to the surplus of land In the area. The shelters were still there, unlike many asylums that have since found them derelict. It appeared to us that Mental Health care in Wales was a few years behind England and Scotland, and despite Care in the Community, still had several institutions catering for the needs of the populace. Some might argue that that is the right thing?

The Chapel looked long boarded. Religion had decreased in importance and attendances across the country had suffered. It wouldn’t surprise me if services were held in a room in the main complex, or the chaplain offered his services in the wards. This was indeed the plan when Cane Hill was turned into a ‘mini-institution’ for the last 6 months of it’s life.

We went to the back of the site and found the mortuary, which was sealed bar a small broken window, large enough however to poke the camera through to see what I assume was a chapel of rest, complete with plastic flowers. There would have been a preparation room off to the left.

Although St Cadoc’s stripped wards and dayrooms didn’t offer too much in terms of seeing how things used to be, it did offer an insight into the condition of the buildings today, and how some of the asylums we were more familiar with might have looked in the past.

Cadoc’s was well worth doing, we all felt, and an interesting contrast to the more familiar asylums in the UK, where the peeling paint and the dereliction can be the predominant appeal

I don’t really know about telescopes. How they work isn’t of any great interest to me, but I respect the complexity of them and the knowledge that’s gone into building them. The Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory houses a number of telescopes, operational and decommissioned. An antenna of the 1964 One Mile Telescope just happened to be the one that we could park closest to, so as the July sunset faded orange light across the sky, myself, Marc and Keitei waded across the high wet grass in the adjacent field, and ascended.

The ascent was relatively straightforwards. Some diagonal concrete girders, an exposed ladder, some shallow slanting ladders and then a hatch to the dish itself. I don’t think many people would have a problem climbing this, but the current expectations regarding H&S may cause some to consider that it is not in fact as safe it was. We commented that current expectations would not allow this to be built as it was – the 5 mile telescope constructed in more recent years is accessed by spiral staircases.

I’ve not climbed a structure quite like this before. Although sharing some characteristics of cranes, water towers and gasometers, the variety of different methods required to get to the top made this more fun, perhaps. Up top it was quiet, and the day’s rain had caused the dish to be saturated with water. Sliding down the parabola caused a rip in my jeans to worsen, and I soon began to soak up the dew.

Sat among neatly maintained fields and some country roads west of Cambridge, the Mullard site is refreshingly peaceful. A contrast to London, we felt sufficiently comfortable to climb this while it was still light, despite the signs warning us of guard dogs. On the way up, we passed a derelict petrol station with a sign insisting that CCTV was being monitored 24/7. Yeah right… The insistence of a security presence is just something that our belief system has to reject when the appearance of a site is not congruent with this declaration.

]]> http://www.thewinch.net/?feed=rss2&p=4129 1 http://www.thewinch.net/?p=4075 http://www.thewinch.net/?p=4075#comments Fri, 29 Jun 2012 21:48:57 +0000 Winch http://www.thewinch.net/?p=4075

Sometimes when you’re in a drain, there’s a point that you stop moving because you hear a heavy rumble. It gets louder and louder and then passes, and you carry on the trudge through the pipe towards whatever lies ahead, with the only sounds present being the echoes of far off, and the splish splash as you kick through the foot or so of standing water that is often sat at the bottom. There’s few reminders of the human world when you’re in the spaces made entirely for human effluent and storm water, but there’s never full detachment from the ‘real’ world.

The underground geography present  in London is evidently multi-layered. While there’s not necessarily any planned intersection between sewage, trains and other subterranean spaces, the presence of the others can be detected as you walk through. Recently, Brad pointed out to me that when we explored the Clapham Deep Level Shelter, the rumble of the trains on the adjacent Northern Line was a reminder that we weren’t alone, and that the link between the two had a relation to the wartime design of the tunnel where evacuation between the two could be facilitated.

Less  recently, the suspicions that the coveted 11km Mailrail network could be accessed through part of the River Fleet were eventually put to bed when we got in, and between various parties, walked the whole network. Alas, no link to the sewage pipes was found but after all the effort that went into it, it would have been a bit gutting to discover that we could have entered through on of our old friends. The bricked up sections of different tunnels suggest that once the sewage network was different, but without taking a sledgehammer to it, we’d never know.

The ‘Black Widow’ is a former Russian Foxtrot Б-39 (U 475) Hunter Killer Class Submarine, sat perched in the Medway at Rochester. To get to it you need to apply a bit of creative thinking, but The Winch isn’t exactly the place for the cheatcodes so you’ll have to use the visual clues below.

Pic by Keitei

Once aboard, past the bird shit and  into the body of the sub itself, it becomes apparent that the sub was used as a museum of sorts for some time, although I guess funding wasn’t sufficient was to continue this. If you really want to see a working sub and don’t fancy getting your hands dirty, you can go to HMS Alliance in Portsmouth, but that sub is in itself in poor repair and funding is constantly being sought for general maintenance. Nature is a cruel mistress and exposure to the wind and rain without proper attention cause rust and corrosion, ruining the exterior of the submarine.

Russia has always interested me. The Black Widow, as it appears to have become known, patrolled  the oceans between 1967-1994, and was involved during the Cuban missile crisis. I guess the Cyrillic writing makes the whole operation of the boat more of a mystery, but there’s no shortage of dials and levers to make you wonder how the hell they ever got the thing going without a massive user manual.

Although there were only three of us in here, the size of the passages and rooms made this place incredibly claustrophobic. Having subsequently learned that no fewer than 77 staff would man this machine, I find it hard to imagine what this would be like in full operation. We assumed that the staff would sleep in shifts, as there were far too few beds to accommodate everybody at one time. The mess appeared to have fold down beds, which could serve as a table when need be – with this many people on board space really was at a premium, as these two cramped operational related rooms demostrate.

The Torpedo rooms were excellent, with the tubes clearly visible, propelling the imagination. I imagined a crew of tired and undernourrished Russians loading a torpedo and launching it into the side of an American Cruiser, although from what I know this machine was mostly used for training Lybian, Cuban and Indian crews. We used this space to take photos of ourselves hanging upside down and posing next to the tubes… As you do.

Although the machine felt very linear, appearing to have just one level, the stairs and ladders allow the submarine to have a streamlined profile. At the stern, there was a large room that appeared to be a living space/operations centre/mess hall, and this was the space in the boat that had the most room to move around in. Situated down two lots of stairs, you’re in the very middle of the submarine and under the main space used for control, communication, and operations. I doubt sleep was particularly easy, but what else would there have been to do when you weren’t working?

The hatch in the floor of the photo above was so small that I had to turn diagonally to fit my shoulders down. Inside was an intensely cramped space, immediately next to the ships batteries. If something had gone wrong, some poor seaman would have had to work in this space to rectify it. We saw the entire crew of the Russian Submarine Kursk die in 2000 when something went wrong, and rectifying and issue or failing to would be the difference between life and death.

All in all, I loved the submarine. Its not often you get to enjoy such an impressive piece of machinery, and I doubt there’s many people in the country that have had the pleasure on going aboard a submarine, be it a tour on HMS Alliance, a trip out to the Foxtrot Б-39, or even working or building one of these machines.

Epilogue.

As we were leaving, we climbed across the conning tower in full view of the pub and nearby boaters. A grumpy old man yelled at us from his boat, but the wind distorted his words. After we had paddled back to shore,  climbed up the stone bank and started to deflate the dinghies, the local police turned up with a report that some kids were climbing on the U-boat. After realising we were all in our twenties, we were given a slap on the wrist, spared the usual safety lecture and told not to go back. No need. Mission accomplished.

]]> http://www.thewinch.net/?feed=rss2&p=3982 2 http://www.thewinch.net/?p=1741 http://www.thewinch.net/?p=1741#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 12:00:08 +0000 Winch http://www.thewinch.net/?p=1741

Stories from The Shard came to the forefront of the national and international press at the start of April. Brad and Otter simultaneously posted reports on their blogs and within 48 hours, every major newspaper and broadcaster with any interest in London or the forthcoming Olympics was seeking information and interviews from anybody who explored in London, to run front page stories.

The whole charade bemused me greatly. Shard was first cracked in December 2010 and for it to finally make the press in April 2012, a whole 15 months after it occurred demonstrated two things. Firstly, how easy it was to keep quiet on something and minimising  any great impact, and secondly, how much more interested the media is in security as the Olympic Games in London approach.

Shard itself WAS special. Seemingly endless, its concrete core had climbed and climbed over 2010, work occurring 24 hours a day. The fact it had recently become the tallest building in Europe added to it’s status, as well as the fact that it appeared to be quite well secured. There was a point when I believed that maybe it wouldn’t be infiltrated at all, until Dan and Patch took a trip in November 2010 that saw them reach the 37th Floor, before being thwarted by workers.

The media’s presentation of The Shard was largely sensationalist. “Infamous Daredevil’, ‘Daredevil Pranksters‘ and ‘Urban Thrillseekers‘ were amongst the many terms used, and the majority of the press appeared to believe that it was a sole escapade which demonstrated an unspeakable breach of some top London security. In reality there were at least 15 trips that I know of, as well as undoubtedly many more that I don’t. Access was really quite simple.

Climbing the stairs of The Shard was agonising. We ran the first twenty or so floors, and by this time I was dripping in sweat. My legs ached, the lactic acid was building in them, and I was panting more and more as I climbed yet another flights of stairs.

We’d identified the access ages ago. Oddly, it was one of the easiest sites to get onto. I guess the presence of the workers was the main deterrent but Christmas took care of that for us. Despite this, as I followed Dan over the fence, two security personnel walked around the corner. How they didn’t see me as I hastily climbed back, I’ll never know.

The main reason for picture and reports of The Shard being ‘sat on’ was that at the time we visited, the building itself had 65 metres left to grow and ideally, we’d have been able to get up again upon the building itself topping out. Unfortunately by the time this had occurred, security was a lot hotter and some friends were stopped and searched by police around Christmas 2011, simply for looking through a window onto the site. The access point was removed and without a massive ladder, it wouldn’t perhaps have been feasible at all.

It was  a pretty special feeling to be on top of the largest building in Europe at the time. We’d walked a couple of miles of cut and cover track earlier in the evening, I was knackered and thirsty, but an experience like this is one to be savoured.

Immediately after the first articles were published, those involved came under intense criticism. While it may smack of glory seeking to respond to media requests, the reality is that if a newspaper wishes to publish a story, they will do so. Taking the opportunity to capitalise on this by selling the photos rather than having to retrospectively invoice for stolen images is a sensible one, as well as giving the paper the explorers’ side of the story. The newspapers can be a ruthless bunch, and I’ve never really trusted the press to represent us in the manner which we would wish. Requests made to me were declined or ignored.

Talk of positive and negative outcomes arose. The LCC managed to get two photography exhibitions as a result of this exposure, however associates and friends have come under pressure in the workplace as a result of these activities becoming more widely known, and scrutinised in print. Court cases have been won and adjourned, possibly as a result of the true motives of urban exploring being publicised, rather than the less benign intentions that can be associated with this activity, such as vandalism, theft and grafitti.

Not talking to the press at all has it’s value, as Cave Clan will no doubt testify. Picture editors may think twice about stealing images, but the damage they can cause through misinformed articles can be significant. In December, a court case was heard a day after a hugely critical article was published in The Standard, which could have been avoided if the press hadn’t been spoken to at all. The article was referred to by the judge and the tone of it was certainly echoed in his sentencing statement.

The most important thing to me is to protect the practice itself,  whether that is by ensuring more accurate representation in the press by speaking frankly about it, or by keeping quiet on things like this until the time when they are no longer notable. In reality, the activities of the group are not damaging to anybody, nor is there ever a victim (aside from the incompetencies of a security guard/firm being exposed). We  enjoy this wonderful city that we live in, and seek to enjoy it in every way we can find. I have had so many wonderful experiences partaking in urban exploring and for the prolificacy of it to be jeopardised by kneejerk reactions to the media and the stories that they tell would be hugely frustrating, especially as it’s something that could be avoided if the desire to share wasn’t so great.

Of course, not every moment of a roadtrip is spent shuffling round sewers, hiding from security guards in the Metro and climbing bridges.  There’s the mandatory derping, train play, police intervention, angry foreigner interaction, budget food seeking, ‘prohobo’, sleep deprivation, automobile incidents and general swagger of the Brit abroad. Marc brought his gallic flair to the party, teaching us to speak ‘forrin’ whilst myself and NC Kapita incorrectly assumed that everybody east of Vienna would look and speak like Borat.

Day one and we’d managed to arrive in a suburb of Bratislava that was sufficiently foreign to justify pointing and miming anything we wanted to communicate, before Marc took it upon himself to actually speak to the locals to find out where the fishing shop was, where waders could be purchased. Bratislava looked interesting, but the targets were centred around Budapest and as such, we set the satnav for the infall of Devil’s Ditch.

As is often the case with these more easterly of trips, as soon as you hit the motorways, there’s something interesting on the horizon. Barely 6 miles into Hungary, we spotted a giant derelict concrete thing in the town of Mosonmagyaróvár and pulled over. After skirting around the back avoiding what looked like ancient security cameras, we realised it might simply be easier to walk in the front gate and into the buildings like we were supposed to be there. The buildings were sandy and worn, the unimpressed local we met on the way out told us that the building was a gunpowder factory during World War Two and that if we came back on a Sunday, he would show us around. With bigger fish to fry, we politely declined.

Later on in the evening, having endured the stink of the Devil’s Ditch, we went to the city centre for a play on The Szabadság bridge, a metal green hulk across The Danube. Although its possible to just wander up the sloped suspension cables/chains of the structure, we elected to climb underneath it through the metalwork making up the span, and then up the verticals to the highest internal point. While this didn’t afford us views quite as high as those obtained from walking the span, we enjoyed exploring the structure of the bridge, finding the points one could stop and just watch the roads and river beneath us.

Sleep is always required, unfortunately our only attempts to find somewhere to sleep had discovered for us a steep hill where we hoped a hospital building was – not suitable! We slept in the car and were awoken by some angry police in the morning, asking us if we were Slovaks or Deutsch. Obviously neither, we flashed our passports, showed our documents and ventured on to the nearby Tokol airbase, where a man drove at us very fast in an expensive Merc and shouted ‘Vit?’ at us until we stopped talking and apologised for driving onto his disused Soviet base.

Moving swiftly on, we took a walk down a railway line and into a car factory.  The walk along the tracks was a novelty, passengers waved at us as we went and when we saw the line fork off towards the factory, the obvious decision was to follow it. Guarded like most of the derps in Hungary, we had to wait for the patrolling secca to disappear round the corner before we could enter, stomping over a load of old parts through the only obvious open door.

Despite the noise we made, we amazingly didn’t get seen, so we spent a while wandering around the stripped factory rooms in the sunshine. Hungary was full of places like this, totally fucked and stripped out, but still guarded. I guess there’s somebody that cares about them enough to try but there’s definitely a vibe of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Somewhere on the way back to the city there was a collection of planes sat in a yard, with an active looking building by it. We entered In contrast to the derelictions, the workers here were friendly, waving at us and not even bothering to come over. There was a MIG, several Soviet helicopters and a biplane – sadly some of these had been vandalised but it was nice to see somebody taking care of them to some degree.

In Budapest itself, we arrived at McDonalds and leeched off the free wifi for a few hours, before aborting our first crack at the Metro expansion. After spending a good hour or so in and around the site we left it, and went to sleep in a ditch  by the services.

While the ditch was comfortable it was certainly cold. October was mild but when it’s 4am and you’re in a sleeping bag in the outdoors, there’s a certain part of you that wonders what the hell you’re doing with your time off work. I’ve never regretted a trip like this; the free accommodation facilitates the journey and looking back, it’s always memorable. The following morning was spent in a place that we believed was a bunker – it was actually an old train workshop. The derelictions we did get into in Hungary were pretty boring to be honest.

Following this little excursion, we went in a trainyard, went for a touristy walk along The Danube, walked through the tram tunnels, went into the outfall of the Devil’s Ditch, climbed the Chain Bridge, went into the Metro expansion and then slept in an old goods train. Then it was Vienna…

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The usual assumption about the Antwerp Pre-metro within the exploring community is that the ‘pre’ represents the fact it hasn’t opened yet. Not correct. The Pre-metro is actually a properly dug and operating metro system, which is just not running metro stock yet. During the IDM weekend, we followed Patch, Site and Jess down into the live network for a look around.

During the good old days of the 80s, when Belgium had money coming out of it’s ears, funds were poured into both the Wallonia and Flanders regions. The ‘Waffle Iron’ policy of equal funding meant that if one region had a project on it’s way, the other region would recieve funding for a project of it’s own. With the money granted, Antwerp decided to put it’s tram system underground, with a view to running a metro system at some point in the future.

The network in Antwerp which is referred to as the pre-metro incorporates the opened sections too, containing loops, layups and stations. All opened! I never realised quite how expansive it was, and despite the unopened sections offering a certain degree of wonder, there’s nothing like a play underground in a real, living and breathing network. The trams that run on these tracks are powered from overhead wires, and take up no more than a third of the platform space. Part of me wonders whether this will ever be a metro ‘proper’, and if it is, will it be because they need it in itself, or just as an ego boost for the city?

The space in these tunnels was much greater than those areas of London and Paris that I’ve explored in – the time between the trams was sufficient to allow for movement that I wouldn’t quite term as casual, but it certainly allowed more flexibility in the approach that one could take in the French or English capitals. There were no alcoves in the areas that we saw, but there were plenty of spaces with no track, where we could sit comfortably without fear of being spotted.

This was all aided by the fact the network is sufficiently unguarded to allow for barrierless entry to the network – we also saw very few cameras and again, few staff. Nobody seemed to be buying or using tickets and we all questionned the profitability of the system. Maybe conductors roam around sometimes, but we didn’t see them.

We barely tickled the surface of the live network – My pictures will hopefully show the variety of spaces that we encountered but I wouldn’t assume that it would be anywhere near comprehensive. There are no ‘ghost stations’ here, and while these tend to be the targets that one centres each metro outing on where they’re available, the lack of these in Antwerp led us to look at other areas in the system that perhaps represent more of what the network is about.

There are  just 11 stations on the premetro network, mostly running in the centre of the city. Various teams of men were working on parts of the tram network, where unused metro sized tunnels lay underneath, but this system was evidently built on ambition and grand aspirations, rather than the reality of what was truly needed in this wonderful city.

]]> http://www.thewinch.net/?feed=rss2&p=3857 5 http://www.thewinch.net/?p=3727 http://www.thewinch.net/?p=3727#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:22:39 +0000 Winch http://www.thewinch.net/?p=3727

The loops created by the river and road network winding through the industrial areas in East London separate small swatches of land almost equally shared by run down warehouses and disused land, light industrial space and new construction, eagarly cracking on for the forthcoming Olympics. Sat on a patch between some new-build apartments and the A11 is the St Andrews development.

Situated close enough to both Canary Wharf and the Olympic site, this area of East London is awash with new developments eagerly pushing on to complete by July. When the games start,  900,000 visitors will ‘invade’ London, hopefully allowing the city to go some way towards recouperating some of the cool 12bn that has apparently been spent on this sporting event.

The nearby 150 Stratford High St is well secured in a well lit area, guarded by dogs and men. We scouted out the site one evening and just as we were prepared to have a go at it, a guard walked around the corner. Plan B was this satisfying crane, sat far higher than any of the buildings currently on site, and higher than anything close by.

The exposure felt on this crane was unreal – Once you’re 3 stories up, there’s nothing protecting you from the vision of any casual observer, and any police car driving by sets in an uneasiness that is only lifted once they shoot down the road and past the site.

Although most cranes are very similar, this one appeared to be of an older construction,different in design to many that I’ve been up before. it felt flimsy, if anything, but as ever, it’s worth reminding yourself that they’re built to lift far heavier objects than human bodies.

Thanks to Keitei for the tip off.

]]> http://www.thewinch.net/?feed=rss2&p=3727 1 http://www.thewinch.net/?p=3693 http://www.thewinch.net/?p=3693#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:47:11 +0000 Winch http://www.thewinch.net/?p=3693

2012, the year of something else? I’d decided I wanted to do some different stuff in different places, and the Newport Transporter Bridge fitted the bill. Brad, Marc, Neb and Urban Fox joined me on the trip down the M4 for this adventure, at a place from which surprisingly few photos have appeared on the internet. Lets rectify that.

Positioned close the to Newport Docks on the River Usk, the bridge was constructed in 1906 to allow greater access to the east side of the river. With a gondola that has capacity for 6 cars, the bridge has never earned enough money to cover the costs of its construction, but being a beautiful blue climbing frame that’s been maintained and repaired over the years, it’s earned it’s Grade I listing and is noted as being the most obvious identifier of the town of Newport.

The top of the bridge is accessed by a series of staircases and ladders and at the very top, you’re 74 metres above the water. The tightly pulled cables stretch from a box in amongst the pubs and houses, up over the top of the tower and then back down to the main deck, before repeating over the other tower. Essentially, the bridge is a giant frame held rigid with the same physics of a suspension bridge.

Brad’s camera was dropped on a previous adventure and is in for repair, so our favourite PhD student took it upon himself to interact as physically with the bridge as he could. First he sat on the cables, then laid down, before securing himself by twisting his feet underneath the cables and lowering himself upside down. Following the cables to the deck was the final accomplishment of this bizarre, daring and ultimately terrifying15 minutes of adrenaline seeking, which was followed by Neb performing the same.

As much as I enjoy heights, acts such as this tend to make me question my own abilities to maintain concentration without those thoughts of panic setting in. As such, I tend to avoid interactions like this, my preferred form of edgework consisting of roughing it round the continent chasing Soviet derps guarded by angry foreigners.

The area around the bridge was quiet, however on the east side, there was a distinct noise of dogs barking as we loitered. I’d never climbed a bridge in the UK before, having only tackled those in Budapest before, and the suggestions of what might occur if we were caught may have caused the dogs to smell fear of some sort. Contrary to popular belief in our sanitised world, it’s actually ok to be scared, it shows you’re testing your boundaries and challenging the beliefs that have set in during life.

Urban Fox is a self confessed bridge whore. but I must admit I was stunned when she returned from New York and posted this. With two bridges in her backyard, the concept of a transporter bridge wasn’t exactly alien to her either. We discussed whether Newport was as tall as the Middlesbrough Transporter, and having decided that it was a little shorter, I was surprised to learn that this is actually the tallest in the UK and the longest remaining in the world.

After a slow start to the year, filling a car and heading west in search of something ‘epic’ made a refreshing change to returning to the security conscious London that we’re all so familiar with. Testing boundaries and experiencing something new to all of us in the UK was an invigorating tonic following weeks of apathy in a London where everything appears to now have been done.