Friday, 10 November 2017

RAF Bempton. Wars & Witchcraft.











The clifftops at Bempton contain a large RSPB sanctuary.
They are home to the largest community of seabirds in Europe, with something like 500,000 birds of varying types nesting, squawking and flying about the cliffs at any one time and at all hours from March to October.

We went in November and saw 3 pigeons, a couple of Herring Gulls and a crow.

Fenced off from the sanctuary, but visible from it, are the remains of RAF Bempton which was part of the Chain Home Low radar system which was used during World War Two to detect incoming flying things of a different nature.

Once we'd shot down all the Huns, however, it was then used during the Cold War to keep our eye on what the Trotskies were up to.
During this time it housed an improved, high speed centrimetric radar system ('winkle') which could detect smaller objects at greater distances. The remains of this system can be seen with the posts lined up in a 'V' formation towards the front (seaward) part of the site.

RAF Bempton was decommissioned in the 1970's and, it is claimed, became inhabited by an occult sex group who added strange graffiti to the walls and partook in even stranger goings on within the many underground chambers of the operations centre.

They were eventually and forcibly evicted by The Military Police and the site was cordoned off from the public. It is now harder to access, being entirely situated on private farmland.

This didn't stop the inquisitive, though, and the occult reputation continues after a lad from Hull disappeared visiting the site in 2010.
Supposedly, he visited the site to look at the graffiti in the bunker. His car and possessions were found nearby but there has been no sign of him since, despite extensive searching of the premises and surrounding land/cliffs/sea.

There are reports of other missing persons in the area and nearby Flamborough village has a local reputation for witchcraft and the occult which survives to this day.

Thursday, 9 November 2017

Stoned









Whitby Abbey from over the wall of the neighbouring Youth Hostel garden.
The Abbey is closed during the week now we are into November, so this is probably the best peep at it anyone is going to get until next year.

The dividing stone wall appears to contain some interestingly shaped stones. These have probably been 'borrowed' from the Abbey at some point in the past following its dissolution and fall into ruin.

It was common practice to recycle materials from an Abbey, especially if you were a landowner who was in the favour of King Henry VIII.

Sir Hugh Cholmley of Whitby obviously was as he also built a large house to go with his wall, which he rather modestly called 'Cholmley House'.

There is also a nice dragon sculpture in the garden too, which is a representation of the original carving on one of the wooden beams inside the house.