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.