Simon English
England Revisited

On a fence post between corn + potatoes fields between Badsworth + Upton. 9 miles S.E. of Wakefield.

On a young oak next to a deep ditch between fields of wheat. Either the original fence has gone or I am misreading the distant landmarks. The little oak seems to be a feature where the fence might have been.

Today the fields look like prairie as they are all, as far as the eye can see this year, under wheat. This was not always so and I can remember a more varied pattern of crops. I gather that, in the distant past, the farm was dairy. It would then have had secure fences and hedges but this is unnecessary with arable. The surprisingly deep ditches are however permanent divisions between fields. There are redundant wooden gates in some roadside hedges with distinctive very large stone gate posts, too narrow for modern machinery. There is, to the east, a new gate made of steel girders and padlocked. I should imagine that this is defence less against thieves as off-road 4X4 drivers using footpaths as playgrounds.

The view from point 29 seems much the same however the distinctive feature due east is Upton Beacon. It appears to have a few more houses built on it but now dwarfing the stump of Upton Windmill, which is now incorporated into a modern house, is the huge funnel shaped water tower. In my old photographs there is evidence of scaffolding so maybe it was being built when I first visited. On that occasion the distinctive local landmark was the stepped radio mast, originally part of the post war nation wide GPO network. This is still there but with different equipment attached.

To the north east there is an unimpeded view of the eight tooling towers and two chimneys of Eggborough power station some 8 or 9 miles away. Due north through the trees over Badsworth I think that I can see a chimney from Ferrybridge C. This power station advertises itself as now Co-firing coal with biomass. It can burn 800 tonnes of coal per hour during which it uses 218 million litres of coolant water. The biomass is woodchip but where is this being imported from? Is this related to the price rise in timber recently? The chimney was emitting smoke but whether this was cleaned by the new Flue Gas Desulphurisation plant yet I cannot say.

If it was Ferrybridge that I could see then it is a structure that one can see from two points. The other being the open cast pit at point 27 that used to ship its coal to the power station by barge down the Aire.
Points 34, 32 & 29