Way-on-High

Hay on Wye is best known for its annual literary festival, but it's an interesting town for a mooch at any time.

Holy High Points

One of the ways the CofE has raised cash in recent years is to permit public access to its church towers. While this shows a commendable spirit of enterprise, and is an invitation I find impossible to resist, one can't help wondering about the wisdom of the enterprise. Steps are often dusty and broken, handrails non-existent and the only illumination is a head torch - if you remember to pick one up. Walberswick even had a vertical ladder to access the tower. It's a bit like a 1950s health and safety regime, and all the better for it, but the risk assessment must have been written on the back of an envelope, or the church commissioners have friends in, erm, high places.

View from the top of St. Nicholas Church tower, Blakeney, Norfolk.

St Andrew's Church tower, Walberswick, Suffolk

View from Walberswick church tower

It was in these ruins that George Orwell - not a man one would normally associate with the supernatural - claimed to have seen a ghost.

WW2 relics

Stiffkey anti-aircraft gunnery camp, North Norfolk. Military relics aplenty. The place is currently a campsite, farm and boat repairer.