Welcome to the Rudloe and environs website.
Here you will find news, articles and photos of an area that straddles the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north-west Wiltshire.
Contributions in the form of articles or photos are welcome. Even those with completely contrary views to mine!
Thanks to the website builder 1&1 and Rob Brown for the original idea.
Rudloescene now, in January 2014, has a sister, academic rather than anarchic, website about Box history here: http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/
It contains thoroughly professional, well-researched articles about Box and its people.
Contact rudloescene through the 'Contact' page.
Gibraltar's Northern Defences are slowly being cleared of decades-worth of vegetation which was so dense that the area became known as 'The Jungle'. According to Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia during a visit to the site on Friday 9th May 2019, the Northern Defences are being transformed "from a jungle into a jewel". The long-term aim of the project is to create another leisure area for the people of Gibraltar and a tourist attraction. Dr Garcia's visit coincided with the discovery of an ancient defensive wall shown in plans dating back to 1627 and referred to in the 1700s as the 'Hanover Line of Defences'. Overall, the Norther Defences include a network of tunnels, vaults, batteries and galleries as well as the defensive wall. The defences are so extensive that it is still possible to become disorientated (particularly in dark tunnels) and lost, which happened during our visit when we ended up off-piste in ascending the steps shown in the title photograph (which shows only about a third of the 'stairway'); following the significant climb we came to a dead end.
The view north(-east), from one of the lookouts of the Northern Defences, across Gibraltar cemetery and the runway to La Linea and beyond. Note the Jewish section of the cemetery, at left, marked by the lack of headstones.
Part of a 'street' sign inside one of the tunnels - I had to guess that the camera was pointed in roughly the right direction
The line of the Northern Defences with tunnel entrances into the Rock along the wall at right
View north from the Northern Defences across Victoria Stadium and the Bay of Gibraltar. The common acanthus mollis in the foreground.
The view north from the Northern Defences across Victoria Stadium and the Bay of Gibralter. Thapsia villosa (carrot family) in the foreground.
One of the wall recesses now home to wild plans including, at a guess, magydaris panacifolia or daucus carota (wild carrots), crown daisy, rock marigold and thistle
Another (not the title photo) staircase along the line of the Northern Defences
Lookouts or embrasures of the Northern Defences seen from the town
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