KATE MARTIN: Hello and welcome to the National trust Podcast,

I’m Kate Martin, lead ranger in the North West.

Today we’re heading to a covert National Trust nature reserves

in the south east, to explore a strange and treeless landscape,

rich with rare animals and ancient monuments.

Known locally as the island of secrets, we’re going to find out

what surprises lurk hidden away on this East Anglian shingle

spit.

It's an absolutely glorious day here today in Orford. The sun’s

shining. There's a gentle, warm breeze and ripples over the

water and the little boats are just bobbing round in front of

me. And I'm waiting to meet Glen, who is actually a fellow

Ranger.

And he's going to take me on the ferry that’s going to cross this

small stretch of water to Orford ness nature reserve.

So I'm just looking out for Glen now, and in fact here he

comes...

Ahoy there Glen!

GLEN PEARCE: Hiya Kate!

KATE MARTIN: I've always wanted to visit Orford Ness so I'm so

excited about this today.

GLEN PEARCE: It's a very special location so come aboard. This is

the Octavia... Fantastic!

KATE MARTIN: Well named! Right, I shall come and join you.

GLEN PEARCE: So welcome to nearly Orford Ness!

Orford Ness itself is just the other side of the river. A short

two to three minute crossing across. If you just keep all

arms and legs inside the boat.

In the unlikely event we need it, lifejackets are at the front

and emergency exits are here over the sides. So sit back,

enjoy and we’ll get you across to the other side!

KATE MARTIN: Oh, lovely!

There's a sort sign in front of me, which is quite foreboding

really. It says Government property, private landing.

Authorized Persons Only, which umm- I don't know if I'm

authorized or not, but I'm here now, so let's get going.

GLEN PEARCE: So kate, I'll leave you to explore.

Here's a map. So if you'd like to follow the trail along, the

red trail, it goes right past the ranger's office. We'll have

the kettle on there for you. And all I'll say is, do mind your

step.

KATE MARTIN: Okay, that sounds really ominous, but I shall.

So I've been officially abandoned in the wilds of

Suffolk. But it's actually quite a strange feeling here because

you know, I turn around and there's a sign saying Orford

Ness, National Nature Reserve. But actually the landscape I've

got into is quite industrial looking.

It’s an eerie, eerie place this, it really is. But I can already

tell this is going to be an amazing place for wildlife.

ANDREW CAPELL: Orford Ness is such a special place for various

amounts of wildlife.

I'm Andrew Capell and i’m the Area Ranger for Orford Ness.

There are several habitats, we’ve got the grass grazing

areas, the marshlands, vegetated shingle, the derelict buildings

that are home to quite a few birds, beetles as well nest in

the decayed wood and around these structures.

We've got various sorts of animals ranging from red data

book species. We've got our rare birds that we might see flying

around on a visit. And one of our rarest animals...

Is one of our sheep. They’re the Whitefaced Woodlands, category

three endangered animal.

They're kind of like on a similar level to orangutans,

great white sharks and all these animals that you see David

Attenborough going around- your lowland mountain gorillas.

Sheep are the last thing you're going to think of as being

endangered.

KATE MARTIN: When you first sort of stop and look out across this

landscape, it can look, I think, at first sight, a little bit

bland, you know, it looks very yellowy, very browny, but

actually if you sort of get in close, you can see a real

variety of colour.

There is obviously the greens and the yellows of the grasses,

but there's also lovely russety orange colours, there’s pinks,

there’s purples.

What is interesting here is the lack of bird sound really. Bird

calls bird song, you know, the sort of chirrup of a robin or

the call of a thrush or a Blackbird, those usual sort of

garden birds almost, to sort of have that missing makes it even

stranger I think this landscape.

But I'm sure there's plenty of bird life. I'll just get my

binoculars out, have a scan round and see if I can see if I

can see anything exciting.

Aww that’s a Black Headed Gull, not with its black head,

actually this time of year.

So little red legs smaller than the Herring Gull or the Lesser

Black Back.

Actually you usually see a few of these together, so it's quite

strange to see one by itself. It's just pacing around, it's

looking a little bit lost and lonely, like it's waiting for

its mates.

There’s a lovely Kestrel just over to our left hand side that

keeps flying up and, hovering and then diving. So probably

some poor little vole or field mouse getting munched for

Kestrel breakfast at the moment.

There’s three Oyster Catchers just flying ahead in front of

us, two together and then one of its own that's calling the other

is like, “Let me in I want to be part of your group! ” Ah they

have joined up together now.

Oyster Catchers are only ever in beautiful places so I know I’m

somewhere lovely.

There's something over the far side that looks a little bit

bigger. Might be a Heron or something of that ilk just a

little bit too far away.

Oh, no, it's taken off. It's a Wood Pigeon. That was slightly

less exciting than I was hoping!

Even without trees, Wood Pigeons get everywhere.

So far, the walk's been along a sort of tarmac track and it

feels really, really safe. But I'm mindful that Glen said, that

we really need to watch where we put our feet, and it makes me

wonder if there's something possibly not under the track

we’re on maybe or maybe somewhere else that might be a

little bit dangerous.

It just has this feeling of an abandoned village that, you

know, literally people have just dropped everything and left very

much like the sort of legends of the Mary Celeste, that kind of

just left everything and walked away and then nature and the

elements have taken over.

So I think really we need to catch up with Glen and find out

what this place is all about cause It's very strange, but

before we do that, we have to dodge these sheep. I've just

walked across the road in front of us.

Hello, Glen!

This is a very snazzy ranger's office!

GLEN PEARCE: Hello, would you like a cup of tea?

KATE MARTIN: Oh, I'd love a cup of tea.

So how did this- firstly, come to be a nature reserve? Come to

be looked after by the National Trust? It's such a strange

place.

GLEN PEARCE: It's always been a fairly remote and protected

place, really going back to medieval times where there was

cattle grazing here.

Being just that short distance across the river. It was always

a bit on its own, it was always a bit secluded, so always had

sort of that air of mystery about it.

The Trust bought the site back in 1993. Prior to that, it had

been owned for 80 years by the military.

They started in 1913. So we went through the First World War into

the Second World War and then onto the Cold War.

And work sort of in between those periods as well. So-

KATE MARTIN: Yeah, so it was constantly used by them?

GLEN PEARCE: A real, real site of research, innovation and

exploring really new stuff here.

KATE MARTIN: I mean, you were saying when we started off when

we got off the jetty, you know to watch where i’m putting my

feet?

GLEN PEARCE: We talk to visitors about the need not to walk

across the shingle. And it's quite a difficult story to tell.

People think, how can shingle be fragile?

But then you talk about, you know, those microscopic

organisms, moisture and root systems in those that one

footstep and you’re destroying plants that have taken or ridges

that have taken thousands of years to form.

That's part of the story. The other reason is that 80 years of

military use of the site, lots of unexploded ordnance

potentially still on site.

It's quite difficult when you see now this virtually empty

landscape.

We know at the peak, you know, 600 - 1000 people were working

here. So it was, you know, a big site.

KATE MARTIN: And of guess it was quite secretive as well. If it's

doing research, it must have been sort of, you know, if you

worked here, you couldn't go out and tell your family what you

were doing?

GLEN PEARCE: Yeah, very secretive. It's been known

locally for generations as the Island of Secrets. And those

secrets, we are only still just beginning to know some of them.

KATE MARTIN: How'd you find out about the site? If it's all so

secretive?

GLEN PEARCE: I think I've got just the man that can tell you

that. I'd like to introduce you to Angus Wainwright, who is our

regional archaeologist for the National Trust.

KATE MARTIN: Hello Angus!

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Hiya!

KATE MARTIN: I can get up! I'm Kate.

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Great to meet you!

KATE MARTIN: You, too!

So I believe you're going to take me out and explain all

these weird and wonderful buildings.

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Yeah, exactly. I don't think it's worth talking

about in here. So let's get out and have a look at them on the

ground.

KATE MARTIN: Angus has brought me up and over a big steel

bridge, over a creek. And this is different again from the

areas we've seen so far here at Orford Ness and this area is

almost desert like for want of a better word.

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: You're right to mention a desert like

landscape because it is about as near to a desert as you'll find

in the British Isles.

KATE MARTIN: So we've just come to this square almost sort of

concrete and brick built building, and it's got a metal

staircase going up one side of it.

So are we go in up to the top, Angus?

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Yeah, we'll go up to the top.

KATE MARTIN: Amazing!

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: And have a look, you get a brilliant view

of everything from up here.

KATE MARTIN: Fantastic.

Oh my word.

What a strange place! What an odd landscape! It feels like I'm

on the moon!

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: So this building here had high speed

cameras in it recording the flights of a bomb from when it

left the aircraft to when it splashed in the sea over there.

And if you look to the right, you could see a big pit.

KATE MARTIN: Yeah a big hole!

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Can you guess what that is?

KATE MARTIN: Is it a bomb crater?

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: That is! That's a bomb crater.

KATE MARTIN: That came close!

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: That came close. You know, it just shows

that although this was military experimentation, it was

dangerous work even for the boffins who were here.

KATE MARTIN: So we see lots of strange buildings round here.

This one just sort of directly in front of us. That looks like

an old windmill. Is that what it is?

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: It does look like an old windmill. But

actually, what we call it the black beacon, and that's our

next target. So we're going to walk out there now.

KATE MARTIN: Sounds Sinister!

This feels a bit Game of Thrones I think round here.

There's a sort of tree to the right of it, which is like

completely dead and gnarly and this big black tower in front of

us, It does feel like this should be a dragon sat on top of

it.

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Yeah. So this is a late 1920s experiment. So

it had a rotating radio beacon, and it's a big aerial rotating

round inside this thing that looks like a windmill.

And it was a navigation beacon. So it was really like a sort of

radio lighthouse. And then later on it got used for work on the

atomic bomb.

KATE MARTIN: So you're telling me actual nuclear bombs were

dropped over there?

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Yes. In the sea. Not with their nuclear

bits!

KATE MARTIN: I was gonna say!

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: They were dummy nuclear bombs. So they

were the same shape and size and weight, but with nothing inside.

So they were looking at the ballistic properties of the

bombs.

Okay, Kate, I think it's time to go and look at the big buildings

over here. These are the atomic weapons laboratories.

We want to sort of- people when they come here to appreciate

change in nature. You know, we're watching manmade

structures disappear back into nature, if you like, the sort of

memorials to the Cold War just gradually crumbling in front of

us.

I mean, we've taken a sort of a bold decision really here, not

to intervene at all on these structures we're just walking up

to now, despite their significance.

You know, these are actually scheduled ancient monuments now.

So they're the equivalent of Stonehenge in national

significance.

KATE MARTIN: That’s amazing!

Right. We going to go in?

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Yeah, let's go. We've got to get this

padlock off.

KATE MARTIN: These huge sort of metal mesh doors look Massive.

How weird!

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: If you come down to this next gate, we can

look inside.

KATE MARTIN: Oh, my word!

Oh, you can still see the strip lighting and everything.

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Yeah.

KATE MARTIN: It’s smaller than I thought it would be from the

outside.

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Can you see on the right hand side a big water

filled pit? So that's where the atomic bomb would be mounted. So

this was used for vibration tests and drop tests.

So what Orford Ness was about was just going through those

environmental tests to try to put the bomb through all the

rigors that it might go through. So vibrations, shocks, heat,

cold, humidity.

So where we are now in this big pit, the bomb would be lowered

in there and then big vibrating units would be put on to it,

which would shake it around for a long period, and then it would

be taken out.

And then they would test all elec- test all the wiring to

make sure it was still functional.

KATE MARTIN: So that's how big the bomb is? it’s huge!

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Well the- for a spy you've just identified a

critical piece of information because that pit is the size of

Britain's first atomic bomb, which was called Blue Danube.

When this was operational. You've got to imagine something

more like a surgical unit.

KATE MARTIN: Okay.

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: So we've just gone through two. Well, we've

gone through one metal gate. We've been faced by another one

And we can see out the sea. But that originally that would have

a solid door on it. Yeah, another solid door here where

we're standing. So a lorry would come with a bomb in it through

that door into here.

That door will be shut. So the spy ships can't see. The one in

front of us will be closed as well.

Then the bomb would be lifted out on a gantry which has been

taken away. The lorry would go out and then it would be brought

through these doors into the laboratory.

And this is where white coated boffins would be working. It's

all air conditioned, so it wouldn't have nasty salt, salty

air in there, nice even conditions.

It was a clean room, you know, no bits of dust or grit could

get into the electronics. So it's absolutely different to the

kind of derelict state it's in now.

KATE MARTIN: This place is starting to give me a creeps. So

should we get out of here?

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Yeah. Let's go!

We'll go on and have a look at one of Orford Ness’ pagodas.

KATE MARTIN: Oh, that sounds very genteel. Is there going to

be tea? Tea and cakes in the pagoda?

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: I don't think there will be Tea or cake!

KATE MARTIN: Oh that's disappointing!

Coming around this corner Angus they are-

There's two absolutely huge, very, very odd looking

buildings. You've got- it looks like some sort of ancient

temple.

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Yeah, yeah, you're right. They do!

They do look like temples. These are locally called the pagodas.

So these are sort of iconic buildings at Orford Ness. So

they’re another couple of labs that were built to work on the

atomic bombs and they've got a different design.

KATE MARTIN: I mean, the one thing we're looking at here is

although we talked about sort of the building itself all going to

rack and ruin and I can see that there's obviously plants are

taking over the shingle, although humans may have

abandoned this, that nature has probably moved in.

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Yeah. So you've got some, you know,

really typical shingle beach plants here, these yellow horned

poppies, you know, they're very typical of this kind of habitat

and they've colonized.

But more importantly, we've got a very large gull colony at

Orford Ness, internationally significant.

And some of them nest on top of the roof of this building, kind

of using it as a protected cliff because they're up there away

from the foxes. So nature has used these buildings as kind of

new habitat, I suppose.

KATE MARTIN: It's really amazing Angus, the variety of buildings

that you've shown me today, you know, from the sort of pagodas

behind to those sort of first labs, that weird black beacon to

the ballistics tower, we looked out of at the beginning.

It's just such a strange hodgepodge of- I suppose they’re

all little time capsules in their own little way aren’t

they?

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: But we've just got one last place that I want

to show you before you go home.

KATE MARTIN: Is it real?

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: It is.

So this is a nuclear bomb. It's called WE-177. And this was the

final bomb developed at Orford Ness.

KATE MARTIN: That's a lot smaller than that big-

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: Yeah, but much, much, much more powerful.

In my head when I look at it, you know, the word weapon of

mass destruction, you expect something huge and black and

horrible looking.

But for me, the sort of white painted- it doesn't sort of feel

like a weapon of mass destruction until you kind of

think it through, what it's capable of.

KATE MARTIN: It's very sobering, really, isn't it?

Well, let's think, you know, if this had been let go on somebody

else, they would have let go something else on us. And it's,

you know, that's the thing, isn't it?

ANGUS WAINWRIGHT: We wouldn't be here.

The National Trust wouldn't be here.

So it's, you know, we're provoking a lot of thought with

the exhibition here and having this thing. You know- we've

always said this is the most significant object that the

National Trust has in its care.

KATE MARTIN: I mean, it's been a real roller coaster of emotions

as much as anything else it's been. Yeah, very eye opening.

Thank you very, very much for showing me around. It's been

fascinating.

Just reflecting back on the visit here of Orford ness today,

I don't know quite what was expecting when I arrived. I

think I was very focused on the sort of coastal conservation

side of things, you know, the shingle and the species and

habitats that are there.

I wasn't expecting quite as varied a visit as I've had.

You know, so strange sort of juxtaposition of these very

delicate, fragile habitats and landscape from, you know, the

shingle banks and looking at the salt marshes, stuff like that,

to this really sort of robust looking military history and the

sort of history of Orford ness in the sort of arms race.

It's one of those places where you can, you know, keep

exploring, keep going back to and never have the same

experience twice.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the National Trust

Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about Orford Ness check out

the links in our show notes. And don’t worry you won’t need to

sign the official secrets act if you want to visit.

If you have the time we’d love it if you could leave us a

review of the show on your podcast player.

We’ll be back soon with new episodes and a whole new season.

To be the first to listen make sure you’ve pressed subscribe.

But until then from me Kate Martin and from National Trust

podcast team, thanks and goodbye.