Winchelsea offers battle scars, Christmas window displays, subterranean tours and a mysterious rough-and-tumble street game. Odo took its seasonal break in East Sussex to find out more.Read More →
Located on the Denge marshes on the Dungeness Peninsular in Kent, lie three vast concrete structures, rising out of the flat landscape. The Sound Mirrors of Denge.Read More →
Well that was me, Royal Iris, on the river Mercy beat n’ with the band, that was me Paul McCartney, That Was Me, 2007 Few people who pass by what’s left of the MV Royal Iris in Woolwich realise the important role the boat played in the cultural history of Britain and the world. The ship has been moored by the Thames Flood Barrier since 2002, seemingly left to rot. But for most of the preceding fifty years she was at the centre of cultural life in Liverpool and played an important role in the development of the Merseybeat scene and the emergence of the Beatles.Read More →
Housed in a beautiful Grade-2 listed house in historic Greenwich, the Fan Museum provides a fascinating history of the fan.Read More →
The history of Three Mills Island is the history of London. It ground the flour and distilled the gin to feed Londoners for hundreds of years. ODO has visited to learn more.Read More →
ODO has been to visit two locations used in the Harry Potter films for the famous street of Diagon Alley. Or perhaps not. Both Leadenhall Market and Goodwin’s Court feature heavily in the plethora of Harry Potter walking tours around London. Yet only Leadenhall Market is actually in the film. Goodwin Court is included in the walks on an unsubstantiated theory that it was the original ‘inspiration’ behind Diagon Alley. What is Diagon Alley? For the few people who are still unaware of the Potter phenomenon, the central theme is that, unknown to most of us, there is a secret ‘otherworld’ where wizards use magic toRead More →
The Bata shoe factory looms incongruously out of the windswept marshlands of Essex.
Around the factory are hundreds of flat-roofed modernist houses. This is East Tilbury, once home to the Bata shoe works and company town.Read More →
Few people have left their mark on a town as profoundly as Little has on the East Sussex seaside-resort of Hastings. Appointed the town’s Borough and Water Engineer in 1926, he helped shape Hastings for 34 years. It was Little’s expertise and enthusiasm for reinforced concrete that earned him the nickname “The Concrete King” and it was with this material that he left his mark on Hastings, much of which can still be seen today. Read More →
Billed as “London’s first dedicated modern and contemporary art walk” the Line links a series of al fresco art pieces through a route running from the O2 in north Greenwich to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London. It takes its name from the Greenwich Meridian which it crosses and crisscrosses on its meandering path. Read More →
Grain is at the end of the long Hoo Peninsula in north Kent and there is only one road in and out. It’s the last stop on the B2001; an eerie route lined with power stations and refineries. At night, these buildings are lit up, creating a strange vista, akin to something out of Blade Runner.Read More →