One should always start the New Year with a walk. Well, allowing for the weather, and other plans, or hangover. Or perhaps especially with a hangover, although, luckily, I didn't.
Sound mirrors - tried in the 1920s and 1930s, to detect incoming aircraft (they did work), but were superseded by radar!
These are the ones on Denge Marsh, near Dungeness. Denge Marsh. There's a complicated history about how Denge Marsh came about - silting up, Great Storms, land reclamation, Black Death, sheep, army ranges, Nuclear Power station. And quarries. Quarries become lakes, and Greatstone Lakes is now protected for birds - no swimming, no boats, & pedestrian access to the Sound Mirrors only on special open days.
Denge is part of the Dungeness National Nature Reserve, and Dungeness is a desert.
The sun was in the wrong place for me to photograph the famous Dungeness Nuclear Power Station - and I have no shortage of photos of it, anyway. So I shifted my interest to my preferred source of electricity, wind (and other renewables)
And thus, to the Lakes...Greatstone - more lakes than the Lake District, just as many as South Norwood.
Jimmy was recovering from pneumonia; he had been largely bedbound and was quite shocked at how much muscle wastage he had suffered. We knew we would have to walk just the same length so we turned round to walk back to the car.
We passed a mast which I presume is used for broadcasting signals for the Emergency Services etc, and we passed what seemed to be an entirely pointless subway in a field.
However, I later read that this actually served a purpose. The lakes were created by four years of gravel extraction; the gravel was carried to the road on a conveyor belt that had to pass under the Southern Railway line - which is no longer there, indeed it's now the footpath on which we walked.
We were parked in an FHDC P&D carpark on the seafront, just where Greatstone meets Lydd-on-Sea. So I took some beach/sea photos
I failed to visit the Lade Fort, a late 18th Century Coastal Battery. But hey, it's only 15 minutes or so from home, so I'm sure I'll go back.
But I did photograph some 'found art' in someone's seafront front garden.
Thanks to Fifth Continent for suggesting the walk, and for information
