THE ORIGIN OF INDUSTRY! Iron Bridge Gorge

It's no big secret that we steampunks have something of a love-hate relationship with the Industrial Revolution.On one hand, it brought a whimpering end to the heyday of art and craftsmanship and forced millions of people into wage slavery, but on the other hand... gears! And other shiny things!

Love it or hate it, the Iron Bridge Gorge is where it all started out. With the right combination of coal and iron ore resources, and some guy who had the idea to work iron with coal instead of wood, the industrial age began with this big bridge here:

Pretty isn't it? Ah, lovely old days, when designers actually bothered with ornament instead of just cost.
Speaking of the past, tomorrow's post is Blists Hill Victorian Town, the massive and epic outdoor museum built to accompany the industrial history of this place!

Glastonbury Abbey Ruins!

This one's more or less self-explanatory. Medieval Abbey, destroyed during the Dissolution, and left to beautiful decay for several hundred years.

Glastonbury itself is quite the interesting town. It's believed to be King Arthur's burial place, which apparently means that it attracts tons of hippies. I wouldn't characterize myself as part of the hippie crowd, but where one counterculture gathers, others tend to slip in around the cracks, meaning I was able to find plenty of gothic and steampunk merchandise in nearby shops. I bought a lovely jacket, although I'll have to post it at another time--after a week of too little sleep and too much running around adventuring, I'm not in much of a state for modelling.

For now you'll just have to deal with these lovely abbey pictures.

A Fun-icular Ride

Ah, pardon the dreadful pun. It was the best I would come up with. A funicular, simply put, is a type of railway that climbs a steep hill with the aid of a counterweight.

And today, I got to ride this Victorian gem of one:

Exploring the Moors

I'm tired and kinda sick today so this one's gonna be mostly pictures. Some background: hiking in Dartmoor National Park (best known as the setting for Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.) The weather was quite nice, not very mysterious, but we got a few decent pictures.

The landscape was incredibly desolate. Fun fact: a prison was built on the moors long ago. This was a highly effective location, as any escape attempts would end with the escapee getting lost and eventually starving on the moors. 

These little birds (ravens?) have been all over the place in England. Whatever they are, they always seem to be strutting around with attitude.

Statue at the visitor's center. Sherlock here is way too cool to pay attention to demon hounds, even ones that look like they're about to eat his butt off.

An ancient stone cross. Nobody really knows anything more about it than that. It's one of those things that's kinda just always been there.

A random stone circle out in the middle of nowhere. Very mysterious and peaceful, and unlike Stonehenge, one of its more famous cousins, not crowded with hippies.

Horsies! All sorts of livestock, mainly sheep, cows and horses, wander the moors.

An ancient stone bridge. These things were everywhere.

And literally just on the edge of the moors, as though somebody had drawn a line around the edge of them, it was all bluebells and rivers and green pastures full of sheep.

Le Me, the Mighty Cliff Climber Person!

After a morning of castle adventures we went on a "simple" walk. I put the word "simple" in quotations because, although the trail was fairly short, we had to climb all the way down and up this behemoth of a dip in the ground:

By the time we reached the top, I no longer gave a
damn about looking photogenic. Don't judge.

 See those little white things going up the hill? Those are steps. And this picture really only shows about the top half of the climb. Mind you, as I had been told this walk was only a couple miles, I hadn't bothered to put on shoes more comfortable than flip flops.

As much as I'm complaining about this, the ocean views were completely worth it.

Our main destination was this little chapel along the coast. Although it is still used for worship on occasion, the building was so old and remote that it nearly appeared abandoned. The walls were covered in carved graffiti dating from as far back as the 1600's.

Up Next: I enjoy a Devonshire cream tea and track down the Hound of the Baskervilles. 

CASTLEZ!

Day two of my epic journey! Today I time traveled back even farther than my usual Victorian destination and into the remnants of a Medieval castle! Corfe Castle was built by William the Conqueror in the 11th Century, and even ten hundred years later, it looks spectacular.

LET THE PICTURE SPAMMING BEGIN!

Up next, how I got a tan in England!

I'm in England!

At long last, my pilgrimage to the birthplace of steampunk and the Industrial Revolution has begun! I arrived in Winchester yesterday afternoon bedraggled, jet-lagged, and just about falling over in exhaustion.

Doesn't it look like an airship should to come floating out the top?

My journey began with a joyous escape sorrowful goodbye as I graduated high school. Nothing much out of the ordinary about that event, although the venue, I think is somewhat worthy of mention.
Miller Park is a massive building in a neo-industrial style with such fancy details as a retractable roof. Sounds like a perfect airship hangar, no? Sorry, but it's actually just a pretty normal-looking stadium that houses a pretty mediocre baseball team, so it only gets a mention here.

After all, I had places to be, so I walked out looking a bit like this:

Anyway, onto the interesting crap: GOING TO ENGLAND!!!1!1!
(Proceeded by that excruciating butt-marathon known as eight hours on a plane.) At the least the airport in Madrid where I had a layover looked pretty cool. I can't get any pictures of that up right now, but I will, I promise. In fact, if I forget, reach through the internets, slap me, and remind me to add them.

L's childhood home. Sadly, fictional.

But I do have pictures of Winchester! You see, my love of this town goes even before I knew what steampunk was, all the way back into the Anime Phase. And during that phase, my favorite anime character was the super-awesome and exceedingly cute detective L. And his hometown was Winchester. Bad news, I didn't see any of my favorite characters walking around town, but I did find plenty of other awesomeness. Without further ado, the gallery!

A few pictures of mainly the cathedral and High Street:

Keep an eye out for updates; I've got more pictures, but it's tricky to get them all sorted out on the go.