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 →
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 →
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 →
The Cass Sculpture Foundation is a little-known 26 acre, open-air sculpture park, tucked away behind Goodwood Racecourse.
Among gentle woodland you can marvel at a towering bust of Chairman Mao, see the spoils of an archaeological dig from the future, and picnic under a T-Rex.
The foundation is the creation of scientist and businessman William Cass and his wife Jeannette Cass, who live in the grounds. Read More →
In the mid-19th century, London had an unpleasant problem. An event known as “The Great Stink” brought a ghastly odor to all and even death to the most unfortunate.
The heart that pumped this engineering marvel became known as “the Cathedral of Sewage,” the Crossness Pumping Station.
But necessity is the mother of invention. From this foul situation, one of London’s greatest Victorian heroes came up with an engineering solution that saved lives and still serves us today – the magnificent feat of infrastructure that is the London sewerage system.
Just off the A30 is a spectacular series of ancient pillars, a snapshot of the Roman conquest of north Africa – the ruins of Leptis Magna, now known as the Temple of Augustus.
Odd Days Out has been to investigate how these ancient ruins found themselves intersected by an A road in otherwise leafy Surrey.Read 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 →
Nestled in the midst of Oxleas Wood (one of London’s only ancient woodlands) is a strange sight. A seemingly ancient building, complete with turrets, ramparts, arrow slits and as of 2019, a coffee shop serving cake and ice cream.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 →