We arrived at the base around lunchtime, I’m not sure its the first time I’ve ever been on a military base, but certainly I’ve not been required to sign in to a museum for a very long time. It seemed a little strange that, given the security measures they gave us passes that described themselves as AAA, but I suspect they were keeping an eye on the time you entered and left the museum to make sure they didn’t lose too many people in the rabbit warren of paths around the base. I wondered on the way out whether the guys with rifles had right of way. Cutting them up might not have been the wisest thing to do, still, don’t get much of a chance to use the runflat tyres.
The museum itself shows the development of the Royal Signals from their earliest days running shutter telegraphs to modern communications systems. They concentrate on the infrastructure over which communication is achieved, rather than the technology required for the communication, so this is a slightly different view to the one I’m used to. The building is on two floors, following through a timeline from the beginings through to roughly the end of WWII on the ground floor, then modern comms upstairs, with a good section of fresh hands-on exhibits which haven’t yet been spoiled by schoolchildren.
Friday we took the tour of the main house, which was lead by a chap whose been looking after the property and doing tours for a while. We started out in the dining room downstairs where he tried to scare us with stories of ghosts. The house dates from Tudor times, with many extensions and alterations over the years – it was at one time a courtyard house with two further wings, but these fell into disrepair and were demolished. While our guide was explaining the removal of staining from the panelling in the anteroom the Captain burst in, just popping by to say Hello. Hes the classic eccentric English gent, exactly the kind of person you’d expect to own a pile like this. Dreadfully well spoken and slightly disconnected from the reality the rest of us exist within.
Other highlights of the tour included the staircase famous for the horse and carriages ascending it, the main dining room with its diminutive table acting as a placeholder for a more extensive one, the corridor leading to the servents quarters (within which technology is now confined, even electric lighting is something of a modernism for this place now) and the tunnel beneath, “Herbert, get rid of that would you? Theres a good chap”, locked vodka, the butlers office, ciderhouse and chapel.
In the afternoon we took in the sights from Maiden Castle, there was a disappointing lack of maidens which I had been lead to believe were to be found there and it soon became clear why all the sheep were to be found leeward. It can truly be a desolate place when the clouds are threatening snow.
Saturday, after being joined by marvelousmrchip, we visited Monkeyworld. All the monkeys they have are rescued from various horrendous fates, to be locked into exposed cages in the Dorset countryside. Theres something oddly human about them, the way they interact, play, move. But also something distant, like they don’t consider us to be worth interacting with. The smaller animals, even the animatronic ones, tend to be happier to deal with humans. I wonder if I can tell the difference between a smile and a baring of teeth? Do monkeys smile?
Our objective was to find Charlie, an ex drug addict chimp from Barcelona (maybe I’m confusing him with another Charlie I know?) now resident in the temple.
After monkeyburger and chips (depressingly like a cheeseburger if you ask me) we departed to the tank museum, where we were disappointed when we asked whether it was worth going in…she said “No, but I can give you a complimentary ticket to come back later”. Instead we went in search of the Cerne Abbas giant, but again the weather defeated us after only a brief photo opportunity “I promise not to make anything stick out of anyones head”.
Back to the Tank Museum on sunday, where we were a little surprised that our complimentary ticket allowed us free entry…admittedly there were only two of the normal five halls open and it was actually getting quite late in the day, but still that wasn’t quite the result we were expecting having thought we’d misunderstood the workings of the ticket we’d been given.
To get to the museum itself we had to traverse a nomansland of building works between halls, following the small and somewhat faded signs.
Tanks. Thousands of them.
Shapes, sizes, colours, ages, craziness. I’m more interested in propulsion than shooting, so ended up wandering around finding the fascinating 24cylinder rotary engines while the others were concerning themselves with the more warmongering end of the machines. Still, must say I’ve got some respect for the drivers of the French one man flame thrower, which you had to be careful not to drive too fast lest the flames come back in your face. There were a few other mostrocities too, like the concrete pill-box conversion of prewar lorries. If you like tanks, just go there, I’m not the one to tell you about it, and to be honest I would have been happy with just the one halls-worth of them. Good to see, but thats done now, not excited enough to want to go back when the rest of the building work has been done.
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