Havengore

Havengore was launched in 1956 as a survey vessel for the Port of London Authority. It has also performed ceremonial duties most notably carrying Winston Churchill's coffin on the Thames as part of the state funeral in 1965. I caught it moored in Ramsgate Harbour this week.

Boyne Castle

Boyne Castle is a bit off the beaten track. It can be found on the Scottish coast between Portsoy and Banff but it is not a recognised tourist attraction, has no parking, facilities or even signs acknowledging its existence. I spotted it on a map and some online pictures suggested it was worth a look.

The castle is off a narrow country lane without any room to park and a good walk from anywhere. If you get lucky there is room for a car at the entrance to the overgrown field that you need to walk through to get to the castle. We got lucky!

The castle was built around 1575 and is sometimes referred to as a palace. It was abandoned in 1723 and has gradually fallen in to decay since. It doesn't really appear to be maintained in anyway so will presumably collapse completely at some point.

It is necessary to exercise extreme caution in the castle as it is very overgrown, strewn with debris and has no barriers at window openings but it is never the less an interesting place to visit so long as you take care.

Bletchley Park

Cribbing from Wikipedia: 

Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following 1883 for the financier and politician Herbert Leon in the Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque styles, on the site of older buildings of the same name. During World War II, the estate housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers – most importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The GC&CS team of codebreakers included Alan Turing, Harry Golombek, Gordon Welchman, Hugh Alexander, Bill Tutte and Stuart Milner-Barry.

We had talked a few times about visiting Bletchley as it is within our sphere of interest and finally got around to it on the way home from an air show weekend. The place is indeed very interesting giving the history of code breaking activities, initially within the mansion but then into numerous huts built in the grounds. The people that worked here were sworn to secrecy and many died without ever speaking of their wartime activities, not even to their families. First hand stories and displays, in many original huts, now recount what went on at Bletchley and how it helped the Allied war effort and, ultimately, led to the first real computer. Certainly worth a visit.

Westwood car show

This is a small event at a local shopping centre that I also went to last year. There weren't so many cars in attendance but the on off threat of rain showers probably didn't help. Any way, here are a few of those attending. threre were more but I have snapped some of the others in the past.