Bradworthy and
Wheeler`s Cross
|
 Marie`s view. This photo doesn`t
show the scale very well, it must have
been a very grand and imposing view. The colours were better too,
the gorse was especially vibrant, the grass a shimmering green. I am
having problems with my monitor so if these photographs look too dark
as well, can someone email me!
|
 Another photo of the view. There was often a white van parked by one of the turbines (the one that wasn`t working, a different one each day I was there). The van wasn`t local, so came from some distance. |
 This is a cropped version of the photo above right. You can just see cows to the left of the turbine. I have a higher resolution photo of this but no time at the moment to put it on the website. |
 Marie and Paris at Wheeler`s Cross
|
 Tuesday afternoon I went to
Wheeler`s Cross, the proposed site for four more turbines. It is about
three and a half miles away as the crow flies, further by road, and to
the east of Bradworthy. We were going to visit a lady who had moved
from Forrest Moor to Wheeler`s Cross in order to escape the turbines,
only to find more and larger ones were planned near her new home.
Unfortunately, her husband was ill, so that was canceled, but we met
some other local residents.
|
 Ivan and Diane Buxton came over
again too, to see the site here.With Ivan is Mike Letchford, whose
house is very close to Wheeler`s Cross. He told us that he has problems
with the strobe effect from the Forrest Moor turbines, despite being so
far away. he also said that he and his wife were calving a cow close to
the Forest Moor turbines one night, and the noise from the turbines was
so loud that they couldn`t hear one another speak.
|
 I am on the left, wearing joggers over my shorts as it was cold standing around. Next is Sarah Payne, the Marie and Paris, Ivan and Mike. |
 Peter Bucknall, another local,
drove by, and came back to talk to us. He wasn`t keen on having more
turbines in the area, either.
|
 The lady on the right is called Angela, and on the left, with another dog, is Joyce Mitford |
 Sarah Payne took this photo of me
at the Wheeler`s Cross Sign, before I walked back to Marie`s.
|
 Wheeler`s Cross |
 This field is the proposed
turbine site. From it you can see Baradworthy church on the skyline,
and the Forrest Moor turbines. The turbines here would be much bigger
than the Forrest Moor ones. The land is boggy, and putting in vast
concrete foundations for the turbines could very well affect the
watercourses and cause difficulties in the neighbouring hamlet of
Sutcombe.
|
 I started walking back. You can just the turbines in this photo - but they looked far more prominent in real life. |
 This was another delightful walk,
along tiny lanes and tracks. Unfortunately the batteries of my camera
were going flat, so Icould not take many photos.
|
 Another cross road sign, this one almost disappearing in the grassy bank. Again, I met no one during my walk. I remembered reading a book by W.H. Hudson who walked in Wiltshire and the South West about a hundred years ago. He described how, when he was out walking one day, a boy in a distant field ran to meet him, simply for the pleasure of saying hello to someone. Nowadays there are only workers on tractors, and boys like that are usually indoors playing computer games. |
 The one person I did see, from a distance, was this man, with a herd of cows going into a farm |
 This was a little bridge, on the track near Instaple Cross. My batteries were almost gone. Back on the road to Marie`s I stopped at the cottage belonging to a man called Murray, who runs Astronomy Holidays. He and his wife welcomed me in in and gave me tea and chocolate biscuits. They also talked (on video) about the turbines. When they bought their property they had no idea there would be any turbines nearby - they did not show up in the searches, and the vendors didn`t mention them. Shortly after they had moved in, the turbines were erected. As you can imagine, they weren`t very happy about this! They run self-catering holidays with a specialty - Astro Adventures |
 They picked Bradworthy because it
is in one of the areas with the darkest night skies in Britain (there
is a map of this on their website, and it is interesting to compare
this with the area of
search).
As of now, the turbines are not lit at night, but if that were to change this would affect their business. The showed me their telescopes - very impressive. I once did am O.U. astronomy course, and wished I could have spent longer there. They very kindly lent me a battery charger (I had brought some renewable batteries but not realised they need charging before use) and walked some of the way back with me. The wind had changed during the day, and the turbine noise was much more noticeable. I went out later in the evening and took this photograph. I tried to record the sound on the video recorder but don`t know yet if it was successful. |
| Photos below are of the
Bradworthy area before the turbines |
|
 Badworthy before the turbines were built, in November 2004 |
 At Tamar Lakes, November 2004: the turbines can be seen from here now. |