Cluttered Chapel

 

While we were mooching about in Wales, we spotted this chapel completely accidentally, and naturally we couldn't ignore it. Look at this thing! It's gorgeous but unloved and a total wreck, just like me.

 

The words at the top of the chapel read "Maes Y Neuadd" which translates to "the hall in the field." The words underneath it translate to "independent place of worship," meaning that this place was non-denominational. I'm still not entirely sure what that means. Denominations are like the fracturing of one religion into literally thousands of variations, all believing that their way is the real way to practice the "one true religion," so surely by rejecting all denominations to be independent of them creates a denomination in itself? To me it makes no sense, but hey-ho.

I wasn't expecting there to be quite an extensive story behind this one, but it turns out that "Maes Y Neuadd" was actually the name of a farm where a young Welsh woman, Sidney, lived with her dad. One day, while on a visit to Caernarfon, she heard a preacher do a church service and she was so captivated by it that she came home and basically asked her dad if she could set up a chapel in their home. 

 

 He agreed, which baffles me a little bit. I'm all for parents encouraging their children's ambitions, but there are limits, and usually that limit is somewhere before grabbing a bunch of people and doing religious ceremonies in their house. Nevertheless Sidney started doing just that, with seven members of the locality being founding members of her new church. Up until then they had been walking to another chapel in a 25-mile round trip every Sunday, so this little farm shindig must have been really convenient. Among them was Owen Jones who Sidney would go on to marry. The couple would inherit the farm and continue using it as a chapel for the next eighteen years. But they realised the impracticality of having their growing flock coming over to the house every Sunday. What they needed was a real chapel, and so they set out to get one.

 

Well they didn't get this one straight away. There's another former chapel just down the road, and if I had known it would be a factor in the story I would have photographed that too. I guess I'll have to nick a shot from Streetview.

 

(Photo taken from streetview)

 

The sign on the side says it was established in 1863, but other sources say a chapel was on this spot as early as 1812. The conflicting dates annoy me a bit, but perhaps it was modified or even rebuilt entirely at some point.

 

It was built on land obtained by a rich woman who I only know as Mrs Edwards. Her husband was down in Portsmouth where he became seriously unwell. Being a Welsh speaker, everyone down there just thought he was weird. The only person who attempted to comfort him as his illness progressed was an independent minister who would visit him and read to him until the end of his life. Mrs Edwards was so moved by this kindness that she was quickly won over to non-denominational church practices and happily went about sinking some money into some land for Sidney Jones chapel. 

She purchased some land. The former owner didn't really want a chapel being built there, but she told him that it was to build a home for a master and their servant. The landowner thought this proposition was referring to Mrs Edwards herself and her servant, so he sold the land to her. He was a bit miffed when she did have a chapel built on it, but she pointed out that she hadn't technically lied. This was Gods house, and she was the servant. 

Sneaky!

And so the first chapel opened. It had its own name, but the congregation continued calling it Maes Y Neuadd anyway, after the farm house where they'd been meeting for years prior. But with a nearby quarry causing the village population to swell, by the late 1800s the chapel was not fit for purpose, and so in 1874 a second chapel was built, this time on the site of the one I'm exploring today.

I'll include a photo of it below.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

Initially they sought to extend the chapel that already existed. However they found that they were met with resistance from the landowner, who was no longer the lovely but deceased Mrs Edwards. However the farm across the road was owned by the sister-in-law of one of the church members, so using that connection they were able to build this chapel almost directly across the road from the original one.

With the population ever growing due to the quarry, and with most of the workers coming over from England, the original chapel was set aside for them, while this one was used by the locals. Old Ordnance Survey maps reflect this by referring to one as the English chapel and the other as the Welsh.

But ultimately the chapel was too small, and in 1906 it was demolished, only to be replaced by the one that stands here today, extending the capacity from about 500 to 950. As far as legacies go, it's quite spectacular that this all started with a farm girl who wanted to run a chapel from her house. My primary source of information, a publication from 1874, marvels about the new chapel being opened "last week" and claims that Sidney Jones is a household name and a hero to the locality. That makes it kinda sad to see it derelict today.

 

 

The doors were wide open, but as you can see, the place is falling to pieces.

 

 The doors are pretty nice.

 

 

Much to our surprise, and somewhat disappointment, the chapel was full of clutter. It looks like someone has been using it for storage purposes. Nevertheless, it's still possible to appreciate the architecture.

 

 

There are loads of old photos of this place online, albeit they are photos of photos. Someone somewhere has a physical album but no scanner, so just took photos of them. It means the quality is a little naff, and the images aren't straight, but neither was Jesus so it's okay. The photos really help bring some character to the place. It's one thing to see a derelict building, but it's another thing to see that derelict building still in use decades earlier.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

Here's an old nativity play from 1956. Some of these children are still alive today, albeit considerably more arthritic and wrinkled. 

 

 

There's a tiny dead bird in one of the windows. Perhaps it tried to fly through it and whacked its head.

 

 

Here we are facing the pews from the pulpit. This is the view that the preacher would have had back in the day, albeit with less mess.

And thanks to vintage photos, we can see how it looked when it was full of pensioners.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

This photo is from the 1960s pensioners dinner, and I would be very surprised if any of these people are still alive. But they are all remembered by people who are still alive today. Everyone here was someones parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt, or neighbour.

 

Let's check out the support columns.

 

 

These are what really drew my attention. I don't think they're actually made of marble, but they still look pretty cool. 

 

 

I've found a few shots from 1957 of people sat in the pews in front of this window  What puzzles me is that the occasion is said to be the chapels centenary, which makes no sense and conflicts with the dates that I've found. Granted, my source in this case is a little less reliable. Here in he latter half of the 20th Century I'm relying on old peoples childhood memories. They're great, but they aren't as accurate as a written document from the era.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

It's always interesting to breath life into a derelict place by showing it still in use by actual people, but I can go one step further and actually put names to some of these faces, and even nicknames, keeping in mind that my sources come from people who were children when this photo was taken. On the bottom right corner is Gwyn Jones the minister, and second from the left on the bottom row is apparently a "Mr Parry" who the local kids were scared of. 

Second from the right on the third row is a chap called Huw, who was nicknamed "Mochyn Bach," which is pretty funny given that it translates to "Little Pig." But then on the back row is a chap whose unflattering nickname was "Handbag," because he used to carry a bag when he collected peoples rent. 

Also present is a chap nicknamed "Tommy Bach Mawr," an odd nickname considering "Bach" means Small and "Mawr" means big. Apparently as a child his nickname was "Little Tommy," but then he had a horrific growth spurt, and his nickname just evolved. He was known for his eccentric ties and his bizarre sense of humour. One time during a haircut he suddenly started screaming that he was being murdered. 

 

I actually love that. It's one thing to look at black and white photos of long dead people, but to hear the nicknames that children gave them, and to hear anecdotes about their quirks, it adds a whole new dimension. It's a good dose of humanity that brings these people to life. 

Also present is a "William Owen," the last to person to leave Nant Gwrtheyrn, a quarry village that dispersed in the 1960s when the quarry closed. He lost his daughter in a motorbike accident and his wife is said to have hit the bottle after that. William Owen allegedly once caught a fox in a sack and decided to bring it to show everyone. The fox got free and bit him on the hand, so he grabbed it by the back legs and swung its head against a wall until it died. 

 

Hmm. I'm no expert on foxes, but it seems to me that if you don't want to be bitten by one, it's probably best not to catch them in sacks. 

Keep in mind my sources are alive today but were children then. He did that in front of children! 

Speaking of which...

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

Here we have the children of the congregation. Apparently the reason why some of them look terrified is because in order to get them to sit still, they were told that a missionary named Tamate lived in the attic and was watching them to make sure that they didn't sin. 

 

And that's amazing. Forget about Hell and the threat of eternal damnation. Every church needs a weird attic man. 

But what really blew my mind is that Tamate was a real man! His real name was James Chalmers, and he was born in Scotland in 1841. He became a missionary, and was sent to the South Pacific island of Rarotonga in 1867 where they nicknamed him Tamate. He was initially disappointed to find that the island already had Christianity and didn't really need converting, but he soon got busy breaking up drunk brawls and "redirecting the natives energy to wiser practices." He produced a magazine and became super popular before dying in 1901. 

 

How the Hell did a Scottish missionary in the South Pacific go on to become some boogeyman figure in rural Wales a hundred years later? That's probably the most bonkers legacy ever. I love it.

 

 

Here's a closer look at the stained glass window behind all of those vintage group shots.

 

 

The clutter in the chapel didn't really interest me that much, but I did like this collection of Welsh bibles. 

 

 

There's a couple of memorial signs here. One is for Mr and Mrs Jones who let their home be used as the chapel in 1971. I wonder what the reason could have been. Perhaps the chapel needed some work. 

 

The other memorial states that the chapels main ceiling lamp was donated in 1935 by Mrs Roberts to honour her deceased husband who was the deacon for 35 years. That's quite touching. It's like even though he's gone, something of his is still here.

 

 

Next to the pulpit is the old hymn board. I don't think I've ever seen one of these in a derelict chapel before.  

I've also found an old photo of the minister, Gwyn Jones, standing at the pulpit.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

And there, open in front of him, is a great big bible. And it's still here!

 

 

This book is seriously huge.

 

 

I'm not religious, but I think the bibles alright if people don't take it literally. It's a collection of some fun metaphorical stories, sometimes about love, sometimes about genocide. The bible isn't the problem so much as the weird people who think Dinosaurs didn't exist, and use bits of this book to justify behaving like a total wazzock. This particular bible is illustrated, which is kinda cool.

 

 

And it's entirely in Welsh. 

 

 

So in 1941, the Germans were dropping bombs on the English cities, and many children were evacuated to remote parts of the countryside. This village is pretty damn remote, and so it became the temporary home for a horde of Liverpool children, and their teachers.

The evacuees were apparently taught in the vestry of this chapel, separated from the Welsh students. Although given their total immersion in rural Wales, most of them did learn Welsh by the time they were allowed to go home.

And that's pretty cool!

 

The vestry is the room at the back of the chapel. Let's go check it out!

Oh. It sure is clean! It suddenly hit me that even though the chapel itself was derelict and disused, services were still being held in this part of the building. It's not as abandoned as the exterior appearance had me believe. 

Whoopsie!

 

So I guess this really counts as a fun mooch more so than urbex. Presumably someone is gathering funds to restore the damaged chapel and bring it back to working order, and they're just taking temporary measures here in the back room for the time being. I guess we should call it a day. It is pretty cool that this all started from a young farm girl wanting to run a church from her home.

My next post will be on my local blog. I'm going to start tying up some loose ends in my local area by focusing on all the little things nearby that I've previously given a miss in favour of the awesome places here on the travel blog. Having said that, the blog after next is a pub on the travel blog. But it's pretty awesome.

If you like my blogs and want regular updates... well Zuckerberg is pinching my social media reach more and more every day, but in theory you should be able to see my updates if you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Twitter. I'm also active on Vero and Reddit. Vero has a smaller userbase but algorithmically it's everything Instagram should be. And Reddit's Reddit. 

Thanks for reading!

Cute little bunker

 

Aren't ROC bunkers great? Sure, they're samey, repetitive, tiny and probably not worth traveling out specifically for, but I have a soft spot for these little nuggets of Cold War history, and I'll often swing by one if I happen to be in the area. 

 

I've covered about thirty of these things now, so long term readers will know what they are, but for those who haven't seen one before, this is one of 1,563 identical underground facilities installed across the UK in the 1960s. The idea was to have the Royal Observer Corps (ROC) stationed down here for the purpose of monitoring nuclear activity and communicating it across a network of other ROC posts, so that the UK could react accordingly to the apocalypse that everyone thought was pretty darn imminent. 

Alas, it wasn't, and I was born anyway. Thanks for nothing, Soviet Union. 

 

Naturally with the threat of nuclear weapons, the monitoring posts were designed to be used as bunkers to be lived in for a short period if the worst was to happen. Here's a little diagram to show how they looked.

 

(Image not mine, obviously)

 

So as you can see, they are tiny. Think of your most annoying work colleague and imagine being stuck with them here for a period of time. I can honestly say, I know what I'm eating when the rations run out!

In light of recent events regarding Vladdy P, many people in the urbex groups comment "We might need these soon" literally every time someone posts a ROC bunker, and it's absolutely delusional. Seriously, half of these things were decommissioned in 1968 and the rest followed in 1991. Since then they've rotted away in fields with absolutely no maintenance while the human race has progressed technologically. A ROC bunker won't save you from a nuclear attack today. I've read conflicting accounts of their practicality even in 1963. Nevertheless, it might make for a fun camping trip and historically they do reflect the attitude of the era, that a proactive approach to the Cold War was needed, even if the powers-that-be weren't entirely sure what to do, and obviously whatever holes are in the ROC posts effectiveness aren't meant to disparage the ROC themselves, who were largely composed of civilian volunteers bravely doing their bit for the safety of their country.

 

 

Here's the shaft leading down into the ground. This particular ROC post closed in 1968, so we really weren't expecting much. Typically the longer these things have been abandoned, the worse condition they are in, what with having several additional generations of annoying kids to vandalise them. Don't listen to boomers on Facebook when they say kids back then had manners and respect. Kids are little shits no matter the era.

Additionally, many ROC bunkers have been welded shut or outright demolished by land owners.

Personally I think destroying them is short-sighted, and thankfully others seemingly agree because there are a few examples of ROC posts being restored to how they used to be, or converted into wine cellars and man caves too, and I wholeheartedly approve.

 

 

At the bottom of the ladder is a grated floor for catching rain water, and a hand pump for pumping the water out.

 

From here a doorway leads into the bunker itself. Check it out!

 

 

For a 1968 closure, this place is in pretty damn good condition. It has three beds, which is mildly terrifying in that adding an additional long pig person to these cramped living conditions during an apocalypse would absolutely increase the level of irritation. Humans are annoying. I know we're social creatures, but we also didn't evolve to be crammed in a tiny underground concrete box together for an undetermined period of time either

 

So the wall on the left would have had loads of communication equipment and various gadgets and doohickeys for monitoring nuclear activity, and just because it wasn't cramped enough down here, there would have been a couple of seats too. All of the expensive stuff would have been cleared out when the post was closed, but apparently in 1968 nobody wanted to dismantle a set of beds and lug them up a ladder in the ground, so here they are.

 

The old light switch. 

 

 

And this thing here is the toilet. And if you think living down here with an irritating work colleague sounds challenging, imagine having to lug a bucket of your combined excrement up a ladder. 

 

It's still better than the toilets in some pubs and clubs. 

 

 

This box is pretty interesting. It's a genuine piece of ROC storage equipment left over from the 1960s, and it allegedly once contained batteries. 

 

 

The lid is over by the toilet. 

 

 

And these big chunky bastards, I think, are the batteries. How cool is this? They've been down here since 1968. 

 

 

And then, more morbidly, we have this poor little creature. At some point in the bunkers years since abandonment, a rabbit has tumbled down the hatch, or perhaps even the air vent. And since rabbits can't climb ladders or dig through concrete, it's died down here.

 

 

The air vent is above the bed, wide open.

 

So that's all I've got. ROC bunkers are tiny and scattered all over the UK, so if you do happen to live on this tiny grumpy island, you probably live within 10km of one. They're not always unlocked, and they are very rarely in good condition, but they are there for anyone wanting to have a mooch, and despite their identical design, they're all a little bit different. Like I said, they aren't worth traveling out specifically for, but it can make a good little add-on to an adventure if you happen to be in the area. 

If you do venture down into a ROC bunker then it's probably worth mentioning that the access shaft is almost always full of spiders. I've also seen a few where the ladder is coming out of the wall, so it's probably also worth telling someone where you're going, because if for some reason you end up stuck, you won't be able to call for help when you're down there. There's no signal underground. 

Nor is there any light. Bring a torch. 

So, my next blog will be a chapel, and then after that I'll be going back to my original "local" blog to annoy my locality with tales of my derring-do. In the meantime, I am on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Vero, Reddit and sometimes Twitter, so if you like the blog and want to see updates, those are the places to go and hope that the algorithm is on your side. 

Thanks for reading!

Dragonstone

 

I was initially puzzled about what to call this big imposing concrete structure. Some urbexers refer to it as the Aztecs Temple, while others say it looks like a super villain Headquarters, or perhaps even a moonbase if the scene was rid of all its vegetation. I was going to settle on "Big Quarry Thing," because that's exactly what it is, but I have since learned that this thing has become a film set for "House of the Dragon," the show that seeks to redeem the lackluster dropping-of-the-ball that occurred in the latter seasons of Game of Thrones. In particular, rumour has it that this place will be Dragonstone, the seat of House Targaryen, or at least be used for some external Dragonstone scenes. It definitely looks too industrial to pass as anything medieval so I very much doubt it will be used for any establishing shots. Having said that, they are adding bits of fake walls to it, there's a lot that can be done in post-production and with creative camera angles, and it would be pretty cool to see a dragon perched on top of it.

I took an image from the Game of Thrones wiki to show you what Dragonstone looks like. 

(Image not mine, obviously)

 

And yeah, I can see it. If you are going to transform any structure in Wales into Dragonstone then this is a good a pick as any. 

 

But what's the story of this place before a bunch of inbred dragon tamers moved in? 

Well it started in 1850 when a chap called Samuel Holland, who had a habit of opening quarries and then selling them as soon as they became profitable, decided to open a granite quarry here. The nearby village also developed after the quarry opened, and the whole caboodle was named after Trevor Jones, the first foreman. Typically the name "Trevor" now gets Welshified to Trefor, despite him being a Leicestershire man. 

The quarry developed gradually. It applied for a jetty in 1855 but was denied. The application was then reviewed in 1867, leading to one finally being built in 1870, meaning that now they could transport their goods via boat.

Up until then, transportation was mainly done via horse, but as of 1873, they introduced steam locomotives with a tramway incline. This can be seen in many a vintage photo, but I went with the one that also shows the big concrete extravaganza in the distance on the hillside.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

The big concrete thing doesn't actually appear in that many old images, and that's because it was only built in 1923.  It also has a very different shape in this older image, indicative of modifications over the years.

 

 

This was known to locals as "Y Gwaeth Mawr," which means "The Big Works," and it's basically the crushing block. At the bottom we have the main loading point, where wagons would go underneath these huge hoppers, and have all the crushed rock dropped into them. 

 

Above that, what we see now is just the bare bones of whats left, but in its heyday there would have been machinery and walkways, and an actual roof.

 

I was actually pretty lucky to find some old shots from 1979 by a chap called Hugh Emlyn Cullen, and back then there was a lot more to it, albeit derelict even then.

 

(Photo credit: Hugh Emlyn Cullen, obviously)

We happened to make the trek up to the crusher block on a reasonably good day, so we got to enjoy this awesome view of the sea.

 

 

There's a few smaller structures here which I've got conflicting information on. One source says that this is where the granite sets were trimmed. Another says that these were powder store rooms, so I can't be certain.

 

 

So this was the loading bay. The wagons would come through here, directly underneath these huge hoppers. 

 

 

 I'll include another 1979 shot from this angle just for comparison. 

 

(Photo credit Hugh Emlyn Curry, obviously)

 

It is possible to walk up a pathway to get to the top of the structure, but I have a reputation for idiocy to uphold, so like any self-respecting imbecile I decided to ignore the path entirely and climb the building instead. Perhaps I'll succeed, or perhaps my tales of derring-do are derring-done. Looking forward to finding out!

 

 Here I'm looking up the structure from the bottom of the giant hoppers.

 

 

And predictably here I am looking down into them.

 

 

My images don't really capture just how huge these big stone buckets are, but those holes down there in the corner are crawlable. A human can fit through them. Back in the day these would have been full of crushed rock, so presumably those holes would have been plugged.

 

 

Apparently this was actually the worlds largest granite quarry at one point. By 1931 it had produced 1,157,000 tons of the stuff, and it's often credited with being used to pave Liverpool. But I think personally that it's a little outlandish to suppose that the largest granite quarry in the world only paved one UK city. No doubt London and Manchester got their fair share too. 

 

 

High above my head is a set of stairs that can't be walked to, but not being one to let a simple thing like gravity stop me, I'm going to figure out how to get to them anyway.  If you look closely, the remains of a door frame are at the bottom of the steps. 

 

 

 

Not far from the structure is a pile of rocks, and if you look closely, you can see a set of steps here too, remnants from when the structure was a lot bigger.

 

But this is the area that caught my eye. I assume that these were chutes feeding the crushed rock into the hoppers, or at least were part of them.

 

 They're my way of climbing up to the next level.

 

 

And here we are, now on top of that stairway to nowhere. And at the top of these steps I found a doorway into the structure.

 

 

It's not much, but it's pretty cool. The tunnel doesn't go very far. It just leads back out of the structure again.

 

 

But it does offer a bit of a view. 

 

 

Another callback to when all this was "indoors," here we have floor tiles! 

 

 

And looking down this way, you can see the slope at the top of the hoppers that I scrambled up to get here. Lee, my friend and fellow urbexer, is also down there. Unlike me, as you can probably tell by the way he's chilling while I'm doing all this, he has a fully functioning survival instinct.

 

 

There's another interior bit here, but it's just a ladder to nowhere. 

 

 

So presumably this little crevice once housed some kind of machine, or perhaps it was even bigger, but additions to the structure have made it a bit more cramped. I don't know.

 

But from here, it's possible to take a set of stairs the rest of the way to the top...

 

 

...Or at least it would be, if half the stairs hadn't fallen away! This did ruin my plans somewhat, but it would be fine. All I had to do now was walk along the ledge, past the stairs. There wasn't much room to walk on this ledge, what with these stairs in the way, so I would just have to hope that these rotten semi-fallen steps would hold my weight as I clung to them as I squeezed past.

 

 

Looking at Hugh Emlyns images from 1979, the top half of the staircase is visible on the ground below, so it must have fallen rather early on into the buildings abandonment.

 

(Photo credit: Hugh Emlyn Cullen)

 

 There's some other steps over there, cut into the ground. 

 

And here we are at the top! Check out the view!

 

The highest point of the structure was where all the rock was fed into the crushers, where it would then make its downhill journey into the hoppers below.

 

Looking over the side, we can see the remains of the wooden stairs.

And here we can see the wooden platform that they once connected to. I'm not about to stand on that any time soon.

 

All around here we can see various bits of quarry paraphernalia. I'm not sure what any of it is exactly. If I knew anything about quarrying granite, I wouldn't be working in healthcare for barely minimum wage.

 

 

So in the latter half of the 20th century, the quarry faced a bit of a decline. In 1951 the railway was removed, and replaced with road transport. The main incline closed in 1959, with the quarry itself finally closing in 1965. The crusher machinery was all removed, leaving just the concrete and wooden structure rotting away under a corrugated iron shell over the course of several decades. Naturally the concrete has outlived the other bits.

But the quarry is still in use, although this structure is still totally abandoned. In 1985 the quarry was brought back into private ownership by a chap coincidentally named Trevor Davies, a descendant of one of the original quarry workers, and some work does still happen here, albeit in smaller chunks as and when granite is needed. 

 

Primarily this has been to make curling stones. That is, the weird sport where one spins a smooth chunk of rock across an ice rink while people steer it by brushing the ice ahead of it. I don't really understand how it all works, but it definitely seems to require a certain level of skill. If you tuned in to the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002, then you would have seen curling stones that came from this quarry. In all likelihood they've featured in other Winter Olympic games too, given that there are only two places in the entire world where curling stones are quarried, but that's the one that was explicitly stated in my research.

 

 

And also in recent decades granite from this quarry has been used to build monuments. In 2007 granite from here was taken to Corwen to become a memorial to Owain Glyndwr, the last Prince of Wales to actually be born and bred in Wales. Another rock from here marks the site where Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was killed in 1282, after a lifetime of trying and failing to drive the English out of Wales.

And also, all the way out in the Falklands, a rock from here is a memorial to the former warship, the HMS Glamorgan. 

 

Down below we have a view of the old trimming sheds, or powder store rooms. Whatever they actually were.

 

But despite the quarry still being used occasionally, this building is now little more than one ginormous hillside ornament. It should come as no surprise that it's being used as a film set, because it's just crying out for something cool to be done with it, but I was a little surprised that it would be something medieval themed. When word spread that House of the Dragon was having some scenes shot here, fans began speculating where in Westeros this could possibly be, based on descriptions from the books. Harrenhall seemed to be a common guess, but it was a twitter user who confirmed it as Dragonstone when they posted this image, showing the symbol of House Targaryen.

(Photo credit: https://twitter.com/RedanianIntel )

 

And I'm pretty excited! I was tempted to wait, and do this blog after House of the Dragon came out, so that I could post comparison shots, but who knows how long that will take? I have a backlog of some ninety or so blog posts waiting for me. I'll just edit the shots in later. 

 

And if I don't see a dragon perched on top of this glorious concrete extravaganza, I'll be pissed! 

Check out the view though!

 

That's all I've got for this place. By all means, give it a mooch. If anything it makes for a nice walk. People who want to see it don't have to do anything too extravagant to get to it, and if anyone does want to do something extravagant then they can climb it. The view is amazing. It's very quiet up here, but perhaps that might change once House of the Dragon puts it on the map a bit.

My next couple of blogs will be a bunker and then a chapel. If you like the blog and want to receive regular updates, then unfortunately I can't help you because social media is now an algorithmic hellscape that only serves those who help make it money, and since I have no intention of making money for Zuckerberg, over half my followers don't see what I post at all. However if you want to try anyway then by all means, follow my Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and if you want to try your luck with Musk, follow my Twitter too. I'm also on Vero and Reddit.

Thanks for reading!