Meet the world's one-of-a-kind ENORMO barge-bowling bridge of Falkirk
When is a wheel not a wheel? When it's a liftGeek's Guide to Britain Proving it's not just the Victorians who can make huge structures in steel, the Falkirk Wheel can lift six canal boats 25 metres in...
View ArticleBletchley rebooted: The crypto factory time remembered
High commands and dirty words in German – the story retoldGeek's Guide to Britain The Battle of Britain: it was won by the RAF and pilots in Hurricanes and Spitfires assisted by a new-fangled...
View ArticleTAT-1: Call the cable guy, all I see is a beautiful beach
57 years on, Reg man visits scene of first transatlantic voice callGeek's Guide to Britain A cabled telegram first crossed the Atlantic in 1858, but it took almost a century for voice calls to follow,...
View ArticleHow the UK's national memory lives in a ROBOT in Kew
El Reg visits the National ArchivesGeek's Guide to Britain The UK’s National Archives in Kew have enough gems and hidden secrets to keep Indiana Jones or Robert Langdon in sequels for the next couple...
View ArticleMosquitoes, Comets and Vampires: The de Havilland Museum
When the British aerospace industry was more than just British AerospaceGeek's Guide to Britain Approaching the museum down a bumpy single track road you start wondering if any of this makes any...
View ArticleIBM Hursley Park: Where Big Blue buries the past, polishes family jewels
How the internet of things has deep roots in the English countrysideGeek's Guide to Britain Would you like to work in a cross between Downton Abbey and Silicon Valley? For a small selection of IBMers,...
View ArticleMeasure for measure: We visit the most applied-physicist-rich building in the UK
Like an ass whose back with kilograms of Concorde bows...Geek's Guide to Britain Shielded by lime trees in a quiet corner of south-west London, a low, modern building constructed of green glass sits...
View ArticleKingston's aviation empire: From industry firsts to Airfix heroes
Sir Thomas Sopwith's suburban Surrey hubGeek's Guide to Britain He learned to fly aged 22, set up his first aircraft factory aged 24 and by 30 his fighters dominated the skies over the Western Front.…
View ArticleSuffering satellites! Goonhilly's ARTHUR REBORN for SPAAAACE
BT's sat comms site repurposedGeek's Guide to Britain Big data? Pah. Arthur is big hardware. He weighs in at 1,118 tonnes, has a diameter of 25.9 metres and is 52 years old. From his home, a high...
View ArticleMarconi: The West of England's very own Italian wireless pioneer
A trip to the Lizard King's monumentGeek's Guide to Britain This is the story of a 22-year-old technology genius, who, stung by the lack of interest in his work in his homeland, moved to a new country...
View ArticleSaturn's rings, radio waves ... poetry? At home with Scotland's Mr Physics
James Clerk Maxwell's houseGeek's Guide to Britain Say the the word “radio” and the mind goes to Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian emigrant whose work on the watershed of Cornwall and the Atlantic Ocean...
View ArticleBridge, ship 'n' tunnel – the Brunels' hidden Thames trip
Monument to a trio who left their mark on BlightyGeek's Guide to Britain When you mention Brunel to most people, they think of the one with the funny name – Isambard Kingdom Brunel. A few folks will...
View ArticleTaming the Thames – The place that plugged London's Great Stink
How Joseph Bazalgette flushed the capital into the modern ageGeek's Guide to Britain At various times in the history of the UK, there’s been a massive stink at Westminster, accompanied by demands that...
View ArticlePlanet killer: Ex-army officer's Welsh space-rock mission
Tunguska, Chelyabinsk... PowysGeek's Guide to Britain As I approach the Wales-England border, the rolling Herefordshire countryside sharpens into steep hills and narrow valleys. Powys is a county...
View ArticleThe Great Barrier Relief – Inside London's heavy metal and concrete defence act
Waves against the machineGeek's Guide to Britain Last time London flooded was 1953. Three hundred lives were lost, 30,000 evacuated and the damage totalled a considerable £5bn in today’s money.…
View ArticleGet thee behind me, Satanic mills! Robert Owen's Scottish legacy
Inside the works of Scotland's industrial revolutionaryGeek's Guide to Britain The European Route of Industrial Heritage marks New Lanark as an anchor point in the global development of textiles and...
View ArticleRock reboot and the Welsh windy wonder: Centre for Alternative Technology
Biomass and the pitGeek's Guide to Britain There are plenty of tourist attractions scattered around the coast of Cardigan Bay in Wales. But for the last four decades, the Centre for Alternative...
View ArticleBookworms' Weston mecca: The Oxford institution with a Swindon secret
The 400-year-old Uni library with a big-box backerGeek's Guide to Britain The Botanic Gardens, Sheldonian Theatre, Museum of Natural History – there’s plenty to see in Oxford. Off limits, however, was...
View ArticleBletchley Park remembers 'forgotten genius' Gordon Welchman
Head of Hut Six 'a disastrous example to others' – GCHQAn exhibition has been launched at Bletchley Park to commemorate the work of Cambridge lecturer and "forgotten genius" Gordon Welchman at...
View ArticleCome on kids, let's go play in the abandoned nuclear power station
After oil, before shale: the future that never wasGeek's Guide to Britain On the northern tip of Scotland stands Dounreay – 74 hectares of nuclear site encompassing the world's first fast breeder...
View ArticleThe field at the centre of the universe: Cambridge's outdoor pulsar pusher
Radio astronomy, sheds and high-explosive ordnanceGeek's Guide to Britain A field full of bits of old wire and an abandoned garden shed: it doesn't look like the place where Nobel prize-wining...
View ArticleInside Electric Mountain: Britain's biggest rechargeable battery
Swallow massive lake, regurgitate, repeatGeek's Guide to Britain From the outside, Elidir Mountain looks like an old industrial site that has returned to nature. The slopes facing the Llyn Peris...
View ArticleAvoiding Liverpool was the aim: All aboard the world's ONLY moving aqueduct
Barton Aqueduct – where heavy metal shifts H2OGeek's Guide to Britain There are several fine examples of Victorian engineering still working in Blighty. Tower Bridge in London is one of my personal...
View ArticleTuring, Hauser, Sinclair – haunt computing's Cambridge A-team stamping ground
From Acorns to bedroomsGeek's Guide to Britain King’s Parade in Cambridge looks like the last street on earth to have anything to do with computing. On one side is an absurdly ornate college gatehouse...
View ArticleGoing underground: The Royal Mail's great London train squeeze
Uber cars, Amazon drones? Pah! Driverless deliveries from a different ageGeek's Guide to Britain For the last 13 years, a tiny train tunnel running through the centre of London has remained empty and...
View ArticleLochs, rifle stocks and two EPIC sea gates: Thomas Telford's Highland waterway
Feats of engineering, projections busted - the Caledonian CanalGEEK'S GUIDE TO BRITAIN The Highlands are home to spectacular hills and mountains. You'll also find dotted around some fairly unusual...
View ArticleExtreme trainspotting on Britain's highest (and windiest) railway
Tibet? Pah! A £20m ride puts the Highlands at your feetGeek's Guide to Britain The world's highest railway is the Xining-Golmud-Lhasa railway at 5,068m (16,627ft) above sea level and running 815km...
View ArticleReg reader turns Geek's Guides to Britain into Geek's Map of Britain
Too lazy to plug GPS co-ords into satnav? Fear not, gypsythief has saved youA forward-thinking Reg reader has put the entirety of our Geeks’ Guide series onto a Google Map, for your navigational and...
View ArticleEverything you never knew about mail: The Postal Museum opens
Plus: We take a sneak peek at London's other tube network, Mail RailRoyal Mail’s Postal Museum, hidden round the corner from its central London sorting depot, is opening to the public after an 18 month...
View ArticleFancy that! Craft which float over everything on a cushion of air
A hidden British engineering gem: The Hovercraft MuseumGeeks' Guide to Britain Did you know that the word “hovercraft” was once patented? And did you know that Great Britain is a world leader in the...
View ArticleHotter than the Sun: JET – Earth’s biggest fusion reactor, in Culham
A star performer producing fission-free plasma powerGeek's Guide to Britain I’m in a room that, in normal circumstances, is not fit for human habitation. It features a number of big red buttons...
View ArticleWorcestershire's airborne electronics warfare wonderland
What Bernard Lovell did before Jodrell BankGeek's Guide to Britain When you first see the view from Croome's church, it looks like an English utopia. The landscape, designed by Lancelot "Capability"...
View ArticleLife's a beach – then you're the comms nexus of the British Empire and...
Inside Porthcurno's world-spanning telegraphy webGeek's Guide to Britain I'm sitting on a perfect sandy beach in dazzling winter sunshine which makes it feel two months warmer than it really is. The...
View ArticleFancy a viaduct? We have a wrought Victorian iron marvel to sell you
Myth, legend and the lucky escape of BennerleyGeek's Guide to Britain The pell-mell expansion of Britain's railways in the 19th century has bequeathed some impressive feats of engineering. Great stone...
View ArticleTake-off crash 'n' burn didn't kill the Concorde, it was just too bloody...
Yet Filton display shows it's among the world's best-loved aircraftGeek's Guide to Britain For a generation that never heard the sonic boom as Concorde broke the sound barrier overhead, the iconic...
View ArticleMirror mirror on sea wall, spot those airships, make Kaiser bawl
The North East's Zeppelin warning system is largely forgottenGeek's Guide to Britain Mention the development of air raid early warning systems in the UK and thoughts will most likely jump to the Chain...
View ArticleBlueprint of modern construction can be found in a tech cluster... of 19th...
The world's first iron-framed building will return to service soonGeek's Guide to Britain The top of Flaxmill Maltings' Jubilee Tower makes you feel like you're standing on the highest turret of a...
View ArticleAre you aware of the gravity of the situation on Mars? Why yes, say boffins:...
Shock after accelerometers hacked, in the old-school sense, and rock density probedBrainiacs have today revealed how they rejigged instruments aboard NASA’s Martian rover Curiosity to measure changes...
View ArticleWhat made a super high-tech home in Victorian England? Hydroelectric...
Forget the scones and gardens, Cragside house is engineeryGeek's Guide to Britain Imagine an ageing magnate in his private retreat, and you might picture English industrialist William – first Baron –...
View ArticleThe Central Telegraph Office was serving spam 67 years before vikings sang...
Farewell to St Paul's telco treasuryGeek's Guide to Britain The BT Centre is an unremarkable-looking building just north of St Paul's Cathedral, nine storeys of Portland stone with straight unadorned...
View ArticleOrford Ness: Military secrets and unique wildlife on the remote Suffolk coast
Shingle spit and you'll miss this science and history on t' beach gemGeek's Guide to Britain An isolated spit of land on the Suffolk coast, so narrow that in places you can cast a stone from one side...
View ArticleTalking a Blue Streak: The ambitious, quiet waste of the Spadeadam Rocket...
Memories of missiles on the moors of CumbriaGeek's Guide to Britain Of all the monuments to Great Britain's efforts to maintain its pre-war status as a global superpower in the post-war world, the...
View ArticleGerman scientists, Black Knights and the birthplace of British rocketry
El Reg visits Westcott and the Isle of Wight in search of more of Britain's forgotten rocket centresGeek's Guide to Britain It is difficult to trump the long-defunct Blue Streak missile development...
View ArticleCome kneel with us at UK's Cathedral, er, Oil Rig of the Canal: Engineering...
Give a Cheshire cheers to a true waterway wonderGeek's Guide To Britain One of the Seven Wonders of the British Waterways, the Anderton Boat Lift, near the Cheshire town of Northwich, is a perfect...
View ArticleRewriting the checklists: 50 years since Apollo 13 reported it 'had a...
It's instrumentation. It must be instrumentation. It wasn't instrumentation. Final part of The Register's look at Apollo 13Part two 55 hours, 52 minutes and 58 seconds into Apollo 13's mission,...
View ArticleThe Wight stuff: Marconi and the island, when working remotely on wireless...
Planning a post-lockdown trip to the isle off England's south coast? Don't miss the interesting bitsGeek's Guide to Britain Guglielmo Marconi is famous for sending the first transatlantic wireless...
View ArticleThe Eigiau Dam Disaster: Deluges and deceit at the dawn of hydroelectric power
A trip to beautiful Snowdonia lakes takes in early hydroelectric experiment... and a tragedy for a villageGeek's Guide To Britain They say that it is the history on one's doorstep which is most often...
View ArticleWestern Approaches Museum: WRENs, wargames, and victory in the Atlantic
Anonymous Liverpudlian building was once home to the strategists who beat Germany's U-boatsGeek's Guide To Britain Walking down the ramp into the Western Approaches Museum in Liverpool you are faced...
View ArticleVaccine dreams: A trip to Oxford to see a biscuit tin, some bed pans and...
No, not the title of an undiscovered Douglas Adams book, it's medical history in the UKGeek's Guide to Britain It looks like a bejewelled crown, spinning and sparkling as its surfaces catch the light....
View ArticleIs it a bridge? Is it a ferry? No, it's the Newport Transporter
Industrial elegance on the UskGeek's Guide to Britain Transporter bridges enjoyed only a rather brief period of popularity as the preferred way to get people and stuff across rivers. The first to be...
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