Royal Gunpowder Mills, Waltham Abbey

Spent a lovely day with our friends Al and Liz where we were royally looked after and wonderfully fed - lunch and dinner, more of which later.

The journey was its cusomary problem, the Dartford Crossing being jammed for the second day on the trot so we had to divert through the wonderful Blackwall Tunnel to get to their place. More often than not, whenever we go to Waltham Abbey we have to use the Blackwall Tunnel.

A lovely lunch followed on the heels of chocolate biscuits and coffee before we visited the Royal Gunpowder Mills which is only short distance from them. This shot is of the remains of one of the mills, where the manufactured gunpowder is ground to produce the finished product.

The Royal Gunpowder Mills site was used for many many years to manufacture gunpowder (obviously), cordite and in its later years was a research centre. It is a place of historical importance yet is under threat as there are proposals to turn the site into a PGL Adventure Holiday for young people which would drastically curtail the access of the general public to this site and have a detrimental effect on the heritage site.

Too many details to go into now but if you want to read further, go to the protestors site. It is a very interesting place, parts of it are really overgrown with tumbled down but historically significant buildings throughout woodlands which in themselves are of ecological importance.

We were chucked out at closing time but that didn't matter as it was time for scones and clotted cream which on the scone-ometer scored 44 out of 44. A short trip to Al and Liz's allotment helped create a bit of room for dinner which was slow cooked pigs' cheeks and new potatoes (grown in bags on their allotment) followed by apricot upside down cake, finally washed down by coffee and an excellent dram of Glenmorangie.

If you can get them, you really ought to try pigs' cheeks (if you're not a vegetarian of course), meaty and tasty and unusual.

The journey back was, thankfully, uneventful. I was asleep for most of the time.