All for one and one for all

I have written before about the sealed-off country house of Compton Wynyates. I rode past again today and took a similar picture to the old extra, as well as a picture of the hand-forged gates with their "PRIVATE ESTATE" and "STRICTLY PRIVATE" signs - a gated non-community. A hidden beautiful Tudor building, reserved for private pleasure by those who have merely inherited it for 400 years. I can't quite reconcile myself to that

This is a different kettle of fish. Also gated and fenced; also bedecked with keep out signs - some an alarming sickly yellow, with an x-rated graphic. During our recent visit from the energy man, he told us the rough location of 'our' sub-station. I went in search, and found it in an isolated location on a back lane. I wonder how the site was chosen. You can glimpse the view through the no-compromise fence, and it's really quite a pretty place for something that doesn't exude immediate charm

The National Grid does a good job of explaining what a sub-station is. They must be everywhere - tucked away like this one, maybe, but we must all pass them all the time, without registering their presence. A piece of our national assets, far more critical to our daily lives than a 400 year-old mansion

Stripped to its essentials, it is a transformer: coils of wire that generate magnetic fields when electrical current goes through them, which in turn creates current in other coils of wire. Get the number of coils right, and the electricity is transformed from one voltage going in to another voltage going out - a physics magic trick. High voltage power can be moved long distances without much loss of energy; lower voltages can be fed into our homes with less risk of the incident on the yellow sign

It just sits there doing its thing; no smoke, no pumps, no constantly moving parts, no effluent, no drama. Supporting our village and a few others. A keystone of modern life, keeping the show on the road TV