Local view of our village....

[tac]

Taken from a nearby hillside, or rather, some rising ground. Cambridgeshire is not renowned for its mountains, or even hills. The QNH for our local airbase was a mere 269 feet, and you could see it for sixty miles or more on the approach from the East.

Anyhow, I just thought that you'd like to see that much of England is still a 'green and pleasant land', courtesy of a local, Heidi Morgan.

Read More

 

[SonicBlue03]

Thanks for sharing. Outside of touring around in '86, the only bit of England I see has been restricted to Terminal 5 @ Heathrow.

 

[Hop Sing]

Taken from a nearby hillside, or rather, some rising ground. Cambridgeshire is not renowned for its mountains, or even hills. The QNH for our local airbase was a mere 269 feet, and you could see it for sixty miles or more on the approach from the East.

Anyhow, I just thought that you'd like to see that much of England is still a 'green and pleasant land', courtesy of a local, Heidi Morgan.

View attachment 1121383

I have noticed through various travel/car programs that significant swaths of GB are still unsullied by development. Is this because there are laws protecting land from development, or just not all that many people, or is land too valuable to buy, etc.? At any rate it is lovely to see.

 

[clanhanson]

Beautiful country. I was blown away by Scotland when I took a tour a decade ago as well. My bar is high due to my current location but I'd gladly live there!

 

[tac]

I have noticed through various travel/car programs that significant swaths of GB are still unsullied by development. Is this because there are laws protecting land from development, or just not all that many people, or is land too valuable to buy, etc.? At any rate it is lovely to see.

There are around 66,000,000 people on this teeny island.

Cambridgeshire is mostly agricultural,and this view is of a hay meadow. There are MANY local and regional laws governing the usage of land all over the UK.

Regardless of what you see and hear, much of the UK, particularly Wales and Scotland, really ARE pretty much empty, and are given over to the post-1926 Forestry Act tree growing, or, in North Wales, to sheep. However, somebody or some organisation DOES own it. Surprisingly, HUGE tracts of land are owned by the railways - here they are fenced off - and by the Church of England, too. And people. A former colleague of mine back in my Army days had just under 48,000 acres of bleak upland moors in Scotland that fetched him around a million a year from shooters and the like. The National Trust also owns vast areas of land - for the nation, though. and the Queen us still a pretty big land owner, as is her son, Charles, who is, apart from being Prince of Wales, is also Duke of Cornwall and, in theory, therefore 'owns' the Duchy of Cornwall. In feudal times the local lords would have had to swear fealty to him, and so on, down to the basic landowner, who only actually held land by the grace of the local lord.

Serfs did not count.

However, the feudal system really died the death, so to speak, after the Black Death had removed most of the earls and lords and their entourages, as well as all those who worked for them, of course, at the end of the 1300's.

It's not like that now, y'know.

 

[Hop Sing]

Thank you so much for the information!

 

[P7M13]

I deeply appreciate it when I come into towns or villages where the church is still the highest roof.
@tac, is that spire you see the church which you assisted in the roof repairs some years back?

 

[tac]

I deeply appreciate it when I come into towns or villages where the church is still the highest roof.
@tac, is that spire you see the church which you assisted in the roof repairs some years back?

Sorta. I got a few hundred pounds of the old lead to use for casting bullets in return for doing some tidying up. That's all there was to it. The itinerant roof re-modellers had been and taken the rest of it in a nighttime operation that made the SAS look like a bunch of amateurs. The vicarage is less than fifty yards away and nobody heard a thing.

One of the locals made this drone movie a few years back - no doubt there is more now. The church is called St Peter and Pauls, BTW -

 

[RicInOR]

Cambridgeshire looks like a beautiful place.

Cambridgeshire at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

Alconbury Weston, UK at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

 

[tac]

Cambridgeshire looks like a beautiful place.

Cambridgeshire at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

Alconbury Weston, UK at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

Ah, yes, the older bits flood. The long street you see is the Hamerton Road, and the little water-course is the Alconbury Brook, called The Emma by the Anglo-Saxons who came after the Romans buggered off back to mainland Europe around 410 AD. When we moved here in 1987, we looked around for the high spots and settled on a location that was called 'The High Field'. Carrying out a bit of basic survey work, we found that our home is actually 18 feet higher than it has ever flooded, and feel pretty safe.

 

[albin25]

But, but, but, but, .... there ain't no Golden Corral, no Costco??

 

[tac]

But, but, but, but, .... there ain't no Golden Corral, no Costco??

Yes, there IS a Costco, but it's in Milton Keynes, about 45 miles away. With gas costing over $10 a gallon, having to drive 90+ miles to save money is not really an option...

 

[Ruger Rich]

Thank you. Sure seems peaceful and relaxing.