a telephone, a centroid, a bus and a hill walk
A Telephone ...
... so our tale does indeed begin with a phone box, a working phone box, no less. At least it was in use when StreetView toddled past. It is plonked in Dunsop Bridge, one of a collection of Northern place names than can sound made up for a comedy sketch show. Not far away, you will find Bashall Eaves, Cow Ark, Slaidburn, Tosside, Wigglesworth and Rathmell.
Dunsop Bridge (in Lancashire) ...
... and has a bridge ...
... is, sort of, near Clitheroe ...
... over the River Dunsop (there's original!) ...
... which joins the River Hodder near Thorneyholme, the 'big house' of the village.
The Best name on the map is "Knot of Sugar Loaf"!
The village has a car park with toilets ...
... a shelter for bus passengers in one direction right next to an unofficial bike park ...
... and a bus stop pole and flag for travel in the opposite direction.
StreetView revealed no obvious timetable information at shelter or pole; but, on closer inspection there is a timetable frame directed at toilet and car park customers, not those waiting on the roadside.
This miniscule village has a post office ...
... and a cosy tea room.
Were the intrepid tourist to enter the phone box, there would be revealed a plaque.
This humble BT payphone, it claims, marks the "centre of Great Britain".
It isn't!
But it may be the nearest payphone to the centre of Great Britain.
fbb will dutifully return to whatever stops at those stops in tomorrow's expository eclectic episode; but, for the time being we must make our acquaintance with a Centroid.
No, not an android, but a centroid.
A Centroid
A centroid is the point at which a two dimensional shape could, in theory, balance on the point of, say, a pencil.
You can even have a centroid which is in thin air, being the balance point of a shape you could never balance.
So the best way to find the "centre", (i.e. the centroid) of Great Britain would be to balance GB on a pencil. There are a number of problems with this plan, even assuming you had a big enough pencil.
The big problem is that GB is definitely very not flat.
But the sainted Ordnance Survey decided that the best they could do is find the centroid of GB assuming it was flat, technically a 'plane figure'.
We need a bit more geographical definition.
What IS Great Britain? Yes, the creator of the above graphic has left out the flag of Northern Ireland. So here it is:-
And here is a graphic explaining the difference between the various names used for, well, our bits of world geography.
The British Isles is the whole lot. The United Kingdom includes Northern Ireland but not the Republic of.
Great Britain is the big island, sometimes including it's accompanying little islands. The OS includes the little Island's in its sophisticated centroid calculation.
So where is the centroid of Great Britain, i.e. England, Scotland, Wales and their associated island appendages.
A Hill Walk
We can start at Dunsop Bridge ...
... striking north along a path on the western side of the bridge ...
... along the River Dunsop to Brennand Farm.
High on the hills of Brennand Fell you will find Whitedale Hanging Stones.
These picturesque lumps of rick mark, according to the OS, the true and accurate centroid of Great Britain.
Then it is due horth across open moorland.
To complete their growing knowledge of geometry and topology,, readers might like to explain how you can find the centroid of a simple triangle.
It is much easier than finding the centroid of Great Britain.
Tomorrow - A Bus.
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Delay Repay Repaid
Readers my remember that the fbbs arrived back from their recent trip to the Isle of Wight TWO hours late.
The Ryde Esplanade to Axminster tickets were duly photographed and the long list of questions answered.
So, after a frustration morning filling in the "easy-to-use" on-line form (!) fbb was told that the refund was on its way.
Yesterday afternoon note was received on-line.
fbb was expecting just the return half of the fare, but nice kind South Western Railway sent the full £161.60 for the two return fares.
Apparentry that is the correct procedure if your journey is delayed by two hours or more. fbb simply did not know.
A cheap holiday!
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Next Balancing Britain's Bus : Thur 5 Nov
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