St Mary's Chapel, Lead, Yorkshire - November 2015

On my ongoing search for wonderful village churches we stumble into Yorkshire for a most excellent bit of roadside spotting, well I say roadside - this one is in the middle of a field.

St Mary's Chapel is Grade II listed and dates back to the 14th century, thought to be a chapel for a long gone medieval manor house, the chapel that remains is only 18 feet in length.

Restored between 1931 and 1934, the chapel is now maintained by the Churches Conservation Trust.














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RAF Church Fenton - September 2015

A pleasant trip to Yorkshire for Team Armadillo, being myself, Tbolt and Urban Caveman.

Military stuff is always a bit hit and miss and a recent trip to RAF Driffield reflected this with simply building after building of empty, repetitive dormitories that had been smashed to bits by the local vandals.

RAF Church Fenton sits on the side on a functioning private airport and so for most parts it has been left to slowly decay at its own pace without any unwanted help.





Sadly very few knick-knacks remain, most of the buildings are standard UK military design with the usual UK forces stairwells and banister rails (you get to know the ones after a while).



But hey whats not to love













It would seem defending the country is very thirsty work....












I'm going to give this place 6/10 - a good solid derpington with just that little something missing, sadly it was not the elusive "epic" we are currently searching for.

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RAF Driffield - July 2015

In the final days of Team Weasel we decided to cast our net deeper into Yorkshire, so myself Judderman and the intrepid explorer ZerO81 set off into the mythical areas of North Yorkshire never ventured  - passing hamlets with wonderful names such as Bugthorpe and Wetwang.

RAF Driffield opened in 1918, originally called RAF Eastburn, the RAF based closed in 1977 and was then turned over to the British Army for driver training and renamed Alamein Barracks. In 1992 the RAF again took over the site until closing as a base in 1996. Some areas of the site do however remain active to this day.



Time for a mooch, in major derp. It should be noted that if the local vandals put as much effort into graffiti as they have in smashing up the place they might have produced some decent art - but they sadly haven't.

 

 

















 

So if you like smashed up bogs, shit graff, corridors this is the potter for you and its worth the mooch for the other bits on site.

 

All in all not a bad potter, so I'm going to give it a 6/10 and leave you with this little gem as found in the gym of this derelict airbase




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Selby Coalfield - April 2014

The fall of the the UK coal industry is well documented and perhaps now a little shortsighted in light of Mr Putin and his tightening his grip on the energy supply across Europe.

- With Russia having the caused the little issues of Chernobyl, Balakovo and Chlelyabinsk we obviously have nothing to worry about the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom building a cluster of nuclear power stations across the UK, ignoring any possible issues with the events currently bubbling over from the slowly creeping invasion of the Ukraine.

Anyway that aside and the impending power shortages, we, the UK used to have a massive coal industry, with the Selby setup producing over 121 million tonnes in its relatively short lifespan.

The Selby Superpit was made up of Wistow Mine, Stillingfleet Mine, Riccall Mine, North Selby Mine, Whitemoor Mine with all the coal being brought to the surface at Gascoigne Mill.

Finally closing in 2004, 2014 and we, Judderman and myself visited the two of the sites this sunny Easter Weekend,  being of modern construction, a little bland and well the pictures say it all, enjoy.

First off Wistow Mine, which sadly has very few redeeming features being of breeze block construction and pretty is featureless.
 







Back to the cars and on to North Selby Mine, more of the same, with many of the buildings again having been demolished.

Thankfully North Selby does have a few interesting little bits left, but again not the most exciting of places.

 









 


Big thanks to Judderman for his planning resulting in a very enjoyable day of pottering around the Yorkshire countryside, a beautiful part of the country with lots of hidden surprises.....

Scarborough from the air

Scarborough is ace, its cool, it was Britain's first seaside resort, it has a Tardis, my favorite film Little Voice was filmed there, Jimmy Saville is buried in Scarborough, Ben Kingsley was born in Scarborough.

Scenically it has everything, Scarborough Castle, cliffs, harbour, if you have never visited North Yorkshire you have never lived or had proper fish and chips !!

So on our trip round the UK in the Round Britain Rally I was looking forward to seeing the North Yorkshire coast in all its glory - but the weather was shocking....

 

 













No time for second chance shots, onwards we flew.


All photographs Copyright Sleepyg/Fragglehunter Photography 2012 - ask don't steal !

Pilot Jon Hilton