Travel with Rick Steves · Saturday, October 24, 2026
Author Robert McFarlane describes Orford Ness on the coast of Suffolk, a former British military and atomic weapons test site built on a shingle spit that has now transformed into a deteriorating landscape where nature coexists with old military installations.
“a nuclear weapons test site, which lies on a shingle spit about 10 miles long that lies off the east coast of England.”
“They took seven tons of mercury out of the optics because the optics sit on a mercury bed because it's almost frictionless and they can revolve on that.”