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!
Hiya Kate!
I've always wanted to visit Orford Ness so I'm so excited about this today.
It's a very special location so come aboard. This is the Octavia... Fantastic!
Well named! Right, I shall come and join you.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Hello, would you like a cup of tea?
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.
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-
Yeah, so it was constantly used by them?
A real, real site of research, innovation and exploring really new stuff here.
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?
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.
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?
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.
How'd you find out about the site? If it's all so secretive?
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.
Hello Angus!
Hiya!
I can get up! I'm Kate.
Great to meet you!
You, too! So I believe you're going to take me out and explain all these weird and wonderful buildings.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Yeah, we'll go up to the top.
Amazing!
And have a look, you get a brilliant view of everything from up here.
Fantastic. Oh my word. What a strange place! What an odd landscape! It feels like I'm on the moon!
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.
Yeah a big hole!
Can you guess what that is?
Is it a bomb crater?
That is! That's a bomb crater.
That came close!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
So you're telling me actual nuclear bombs were dropped over there?
Yes. In the sea. Not with their nuclear bits!
I was gonna say!
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.
That’s amazing! Right. We going to go in?
Yeah, let's go. We've got to get this padlock off.
These huge sort of metal mesh doors look Massive. How weird!
If you come down to this next gate, we can look inside.
Oh, my word! Oh, you can still see the strip lighting and everything.
Yeah.
It’s smaller than I thought it would be from the outside.
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.
So that's how big the bomb is? it’s huge!
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.
Okay.
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.
This place is starting to give me a creeps. So should we get out of here?
Yeah. Let's go! We'll go on and have a look at one of Orford Ness’ pagodas.
Oh, that sounds very genteel. Is there going to be tea? Tea and cakes in the pagoda?
I don't think there will be Tea or cake!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
But we've just got one last place that I want to show you before you go home.
Is it real?
It is. So this is a nuclear bomb. It's called WE-177. And this was the final bomb developed at Orford Ness.
That's a lot smaller than that big-
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.
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?
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.
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.