Author Archives: Martin

Cycling down the Portway alongside the Avon. An untypical view of Brunel’s suspension bridge, and a decaying derelict wharf near the site of the Hotwells Clifton Rocks railway.

On the “Jurassic Coast” of the Dorset and East Devon World Heritage Coastline.

The famous Clifton Suspension bridge was opened 150 years ago, on December 8th. An equally-impressive (in a different way) bridge has carried the M5 motorway from Birmingham to Exeter for forty years, and also passes over the River Avon, further downstream, … Continue reading →

Cycling from Brean to Highbridge, partly along the beach (that’s Sally’s tyre tracks in the sand).

We spent the day in Ledbury and Hereford. Mainly to see the famous Mappa Mundi in Hereford Cathedral, where we also visited the Chained Library.

More cycling, this time along the northern side of the Severn estuary, or is it the Bristol Channel? We cycled as far as the Transporter Bridge at Newport (built 1902), which gave me the opportunity to take yet more pictures of … Continue reading →

Remember steam trains? They were dirty, slow and huge contributors to the greenhouse effect. But they were spectacular and much-loved, and, to be fair, no-one had heard of the greenhouse effect in the ‘fifties and ‘sixties. Some of the railway lines … Continue reading →