Dungeness Sound Mirrors July 2008

Phantex · Apr 1, 2010

A few from a while back for my first post...the last 3 are from the area beside the mirrors

The small railway, presumably for getting equipment/fish to and from the road/ shore

the_historian · Apr 2, 2010

Nice one! I've just finished reading about these in Building Radar by Colin Dobinson too.

muppix · Apr 2, 2010

Perfect example of how HDR should be used. Numbers 3 and 8 are a little OTT IMHO and would have worked really well in mono.

Nice one!

m.

lost · Apr 2, 2010

muppix said:
Perfect example of how HDR should be used.

Most of them look a bit 'virtual reality' to me.

Foxylady · Apr 2, 2010

These are great. I don't recall seeing the Dungeness ones before...quite different to others elsewhere in Britain. Love the 'sputnik' one. :mrgreen:

Enjoyed seeing the other bits and pieces too. Nice work.

chaoticreason · Apr 2, 2010

Great shots,and many thanks for ratling my murky cage of a brain into awareness,that next time I go visiting my father (who lives in kent) ,I have go and see some of these great precursors too radar.
lovely photos of a world caught in limbo between,that which we could do and that which we wanted to do.
Praise be due to all that helped eventually figure radar out,that one definitely threw hitler for a good while.
Great shots,I love the rust in pictures nine and ten,HDR or not,they are all cool photos.
Thanks for sharing some great pictures

Phantex · Apr 2, 2010

Four of them are 'old style' multiple exposure, layered in Photoshop (#'s 3,6,8,10), last one has been desaturated; all the rest were taken on a beautiful day and are as the day was...

I have to admit I'm not all that keen on #8 myself!

hydealfred · Apr 2, 2010

Very nice pictures well done.

godzilla73 · Apr 2, 2010

I believe the little railway was built by the Royal Engineers in the 1920s/1930s to service all kinds of testing and experimental work going on at the marshes, including the sound mirrors. I also believe that at one point it did connect up with the RHDR which is not far away. Please correct if I am wrong about this as it is a long time since I did any reading on it.
GDZ

oldscrote · Apr 2, 2010

looking for more info I found this great bit of film.

http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/soundmirrors/1942/warden-point-sound-mirror-on-youtube/

hnmisty · Apr 4, 2010

Thanks for sharing, never seen anything like this before!

The guy who first discovered radar (or rather that you could use radio waves to find things) was way back in the 1900s and he was German, but no one was really that interested in what he'd found!

caiman · Apr 4, 2010

I believe the little railway was built by the Royal Engineers in the 1920s/1930s to service all kinds of testing and experimental work going on at the marshes, including the sound mirrors. I also believe that at one point it did connect up with the RHDR which is not far away. Please correct if I am wrong about this as it is a long time since I did any reading on it.
GDZ

Um, wrong, sorry. The pic is of one of the little fishermen's railways - there's several of them running from hut to shore. And as he says, used for moving fish, supplies and so on as it is not easy to cross the shingle beach.

The narrow gauge military railway that you refer to is probably the one to the south west of Lydd, say about four miles to the west of Dungeness - very visible on Google Earth. It is (was?) primarily used for moving targets around for military training.It would not have been connected to RHDR as they were different gauges.

pirellipete · Apr 4, 2010

There were some of these Sound Mirrors in the cliffs just outside Hythe, (Kent), to the West of the town, but only walking distance as mates and I would walk the dogs there on a Sunday morning after a heavy Saturday night.

They were profiled into the cliffs, presumably for camouflage,

that said, the Dungeness site's are a great 'find'

bagpuss-65 · Apr 4, 2010

near to the port lympne zoo on the hill top above dymchurch there used to be a little museum in a cottage that had a concrete gun slab in one of the bedrooms left over from the war

oldscrote · Apr 4, 2010

I was surprised at how many sound mirror sites there were,at least 14 sites along the south and down the east coasts,also a site in Malta.Most annoyingly I was born on the Isle of Sheppey and visited Warden regularly as a yoof without knowing what treasures I was missing.Ho hum

godzilla73 · Apr 4, 2010

caiman said:
Um, wrong, sorry. The pic is of one of the little fishermen's railways - there's several of them running from hut to shore. And as he says, used for moving fish, supplies and so on as it is not easy to cross the shingle beach.

The narrow gauge military railway that you refer to is probably the one to the south west of Lydd, say about four miles to the west of Dungeness - very visible on Google Earth. It is (was?) primarily used for moving targets around for military training.It would not have been connected to RHDR as they were different gauges.

Agreed this picture might be a fishermans railway, but the royal engineers did build a line to connect the RHDR to the sound mirrors. Have a gander at

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Department_Halt_railway_station"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Department_Halt_railway_station[/ame]

and
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Lydd&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=10.676975,28.081055&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Lydd,+Romney+Marsh,+Kent,+United+Kingdom&ll=50.956109,0.954909&spn=0.002778,0.006856&t=h&z=17

GDZ

caiman · Apr 5, 2010

but the royal engineers did build a line to connect the RHDR to the sound mirrors. Have a gander at

War_Department_Halt_railway_station
and
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&so...06856&t=h&z=17

GDZ

Ah OK that's interesting. I stand corrected.

chris · Apr 5, 2010

This site gives the open days for 2010 (they're on an island and they unlock the bridge then) - provisionally 10 am – 5 pm on Sunday 18th July. There's also some walks starting later in the year. The Open Day is free of charge and there is no need to book, although they ask for a donation. If you get there early they'll often let you in to take a few unpeopled shots - they seemed good people

http://www.rmcp.co.uk/NoticeBoard.php

godzilla73 · Apr 6, 2010

caiman said:
Ah OK that's interesting. I stand corrected.

No problem - its only by kicking these things around that we find out anything new!

Dungeness Sound Mirrors July 2008

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