Tag: Cheshire

Jodrell Bank: travel content for the Boundless magazine centenary issue

Boundless is the magazine for nearly a quarter of a million members of Boundless, the travel, motoring and leisure club for the public sector.

The latest issue celebrated the centenary of the organisation and I contributed some travel features, exploring sites of major events over the decades — now turned tourist attractions.

One of them was Jodrell Bank [pictured above]. Read more …

When the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik One satellite in 1957, it lit the blue touchpaper for the international space race.

This paved the way for America’s Apollo space programme and fuelled cold-war tensions between Russia and the West.

But the new world order also made an unlikely hero of a science-loving boffin at a rural Cheshire outpost.

Sir Bernard Lovell founded Jodrell Bank after WWII to pioneer work on radar.

By 1950, his team had detected the nebula in Andromeda and, as the space race intensified, Jodrell’s landmark Lovell Telescope was charged with tracking Russian cosmonauts.

Today that Grade I-listed telescope sits at the heart of the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, the observatory and science park set amid Cheshire farmland.

Jodrell Bank has come a long way since its post-war origins, earning a place on the UNESCO World Heritage list and hosting the annual Bluedot music festival, but it remains true to Sir Bernard’s space-race vision.

Read more at Boundless, March/April 2023.

Vote for Chester: Britain’s 15 best high streets for Christmas shopping

Feeling festive? My nomination for Chester made it into Britain’s 15 best high streets for Christmas shopping via Telegrpah Travel.

Read my guide to the city for your next Christmas-shopping weekend break.

Here’s a taster of the text:

Chester was voted the most beautiful city in the world earlier this year in a survey based on Google Street View. Walking the half-timbered main streets is a promenade through 2,000 years of history from the Romans to the modern day. The Xmas market opened November 18 on central Town Hall Square, while nearby examples of Tudor buildings, Georgian townhouses and Victorian flourishes complete a history-spanning backdrop to mooching, gift hunting and hot-chocolate supping.

Find more about Chester (and the other 14 places) here — currently no paywall at this link.

And scroll to the end to vote for Chester (second out of 15 to York when I last checked).

Dark Chester: a walk through the shadows of our dark-tourism history

We took a walk on the dark side a few days ago.

It was the inaugural outing for my new Dark Chester tour [pictured above], a walking tour through the shadows of Chester’s 2000-year-old history.

Think Horrible Histories meets Inside Number Nine with a dash of the Uncanny podcast.

In other words, an evening storytelling stroll with tales of plague, persecution and poltergeists.

For some more background, read this blog I penned for the British Guild of Tourist Guides:

Chester: take a walk on the dark side.

This first tour was an exclusive event for the Chester Heritage Festival, which runs until July 27 with lots of free activities, as well as paid-for tours.

As well as leading the tour, I also worked with the Heritage Festival team to livestream stories from two of the tour stops.

You can watch the livestream from Chester’s Roman Amphitheatre here.

The livestream from The Bear & Billet is here.

Plus I had some great initial feedback, including this comment:

 

The plan now is to take Dark Chester weekly.

So join me. Let’s take a walk on the dark side.

How to step behind the scenes at Jodrell Bank science centre, Cheshire

Sir Bernard Lovell became the father of modern cosmology long before Professor Brian Cox started pondering the wonders of the universe.

I went to walk in Lovell’s footsteps recently at the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre [pictured above], the observatory and science park in rural Cheshire.

Last weekend saw the opening of the new site’s new First Light Pavilion, the dome-shaped building mirroring the shape and scale of the all-seeing-eye telescope.

It hosts the permanent exhibition, The Story of Jodrell Bank, a social-history journey in six chapters from the lo-fi origins of the site to the present day.

Featuring archive material and personal memorabilia from the Lovell family, it celebrates the way Jodrell Bank crosses over from science to heritage.

The new exhibition complements the activities in the other pavilions, which focus more on the science behind stars, explaining concepts such as pulsars, quasars, and the Big Bang amongst others.

“We have a perception that science is only found in laboratories and often highly regulated, but Sir Bernard Lovell always celebrated the beauty of science.”

“He understood that science is an integral part of our heritage and culture,” says Professor Teresa Anderson, Director of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Engagement at The University of Manchester.

More www.jodrellbank.net

Read the full story in i Travel, How to step into outer space in rural Cheshire