Friday, September 29, 2017

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.272: A Dome Upon A Nameless Hill


One of the more curious of Horsingdon's structures lies on the outskirts of suburban modernity, sitting on a flat, scree-strewn hilltop not far from the Ebury Way, and overlooking a flooded gravel pit at the boundary between Horsingdon and Trentford. Had the BBC been given access to the area in the 1970s, they would have almost certainly used it as a location for Doctor Who - or one of the drearily dystopian dramas which were a common denominator in the Cold War-inflected mediascapes of the period.

The entire area is surrounded by barbed metal railings, with 'Keep Out' signs in loud red lettering posted at regular intervals. Rather unnervingly, the railings circumvent the area completely, with no gate visible anywhere along its bounds. Unless there is some other, hidden mode of ingress, it seems that whoever constructed the railings did so with the intention of sealing off the site forever. Perhaps this is for the best, for the area is permeated with an aura of utter, unremitting desolation, which appears to have as its locus the strange white dome which rests upon a nameless hill.

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