In the wake of World War I, the United Kingdom developed a powerful yet relatively low-tech architectural system for detecting incoming enemy airplanes, the remnants of which can still be found across the countryside.

Starting in the 1920s, these concrete sound mirrors were built to passively gather, reflect and concentrate acoustic waves, directing the sound to listening posts on the ground — key infrastructure in an extensive early warning alert system.

Incoming sounds were amplified by microphones and listened to by operators wearing headphones. Today, the remains of these mirrors are largely abandoned and in various states of disrepair, though some are protected with walls or fences and accompanied by historical plaques.

Based in Basel, photographer Piercarlo Quecchia discovered the existence of sound mirrors thanks to an album cover featuring one such structure. From there, he began the search out, find and photograph them — 13 in total (all that remain), most of which are located along the southern edge of England.

They may look monolithic and simple, but the curves of these structures were carefully calibrated. The designs were specifically calculated (and sound mirrors accordingly engineered) to pick up aircraft engine noises in particular.

“They represent an incredible demonstration of how sound can generate a physical form,” explains the photographer, in which “both the curvature radius and the dimensions of the dishes are studied and designed according to the sound frequency that they must reflect,”  He hopes the series will continue to raise awareness of these artifacts and bolster preservation efforts.

Like the airmail arrows that once guided planes from coast to coast across the United States, it can be easy to overlook such geometrically simple leftovers, at least until an understanding of their historical origins leads people to spot and appreciate them.

Call it a Cock & Bull story but a disproportionate number of British pubs, bars and taverns have ‘cock’ in their name. What’s up with that?

Ye Olde Cock

While we’re on the topic, why don’t these outwardly manly establishments have any femininely-titled counterparts, as in “hen”… what did you think we meant? Anyway, the real reason England boasts so many “cock” pubs has nothing to do with salaciousness, Beavis- er, faithful reader, but for now feel free to feast your eyes upon one of the better known examples: Ye Olde Cock Tavern, on Fleet Street in central London.

It’s uncertain whether the famed 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys really “drank a cup of Cock ale” at Ye Olde Cock Tavern, though he was known to frequent a number of watering holes in and around Fleet Street. Modern-day publicans should have no hesitation when it comes to getting their Pepys on, however, because what happens at Ye Olde Cock Tavern STAYS at Ye Olde Cock Tavern. Credit photographers quite peculiar, David, and nikoretro for posting the images above at their respective Flickr accounts.

The Famous Cock

Note, if you will, that Pepys wasn’t just enamored of any type of ale. No indeed! The er, barley literate wordsmith expressed a specific hankering for “Cock ale”… not that there’s anything wrong with that. He wasn’t the only Brit-brew-bro to feel that way, either, although with the passage of time the cocks have fled from the beer barrels to the pub signs. Ponder on that if you will, while you ogle Flickr member Ewan Munro‘s shot of The Famous Cock (formerly The Cock, and before that The Old Cock Tavern) near Highbury & Islington station in north London.

Cock O’ The North

So, just what WAS this bewitchingly “cocky” beverage that had the perspicacious Pepys, pen in hand, popping into pub after pub? According to Hannah Woolley, who wrote “The Accomplish’d lady’s delight in preserving, physick, beautifying, and cookery” in 1670, the standard recipe for Cock Ale called for infusing a boiled cock in eight gallons of ale along with raisins, nutmeg, dates, mace, and fortified wine for about a week. And by “cock”, she means “rooster”… that’s almost a relief! Flickr member crabchick brings us this September 2000 image of Cock O’ The North (since renamed the Westbury Park Tavern) from the very cocky city of Bristol.

Cock & Crown

One might say Cock Ale was chicken soup for the drunkard’s soul, and you wouldn’t be far off the mark. Sure, pickling a whole chicken in spiced beer may be weird (not to mention being a gross violation of the German Beer Purity Law of 1516) but the restorative qualities of such con-cock-tions were rather well known by the late 1600s. Flickr member Tim Green snapped the Cock & Crown tavern in Crofton, West Yorkshire, late in 2014.

The Fighting Cocks

Them’s fightin’ words… or fighting cocks, which strikes us as being illegal, unpleasant, and a lyric from ELP’s Karn Evil 9. In any case, a pint of cock ale would really hit the spot iffen you was a’fixin’ to do some fightin’. A case of cock ale, on the other hand, might have you fightin’ to get up off the floor. Seems like a textbook example of the Fight or Flight reflex in action, and the action’s happening at The Fighting Cocks pub in Moseley, Birmingham. Snapped by Flickr member Elliott Brown in December of 2009, this Grade II Listed building dates from the dawn of the 20th century and boasts its own integral cock tower. Make that CLOCK tower, dangnabbit!

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Fully Cocked 10 British Cock Pubs Taverns

A plastic fantastic, life-size LEGO teardrop trailer made from over 200,000 assorted LEGO bricks boasts electric power, running water and a fold-up bed.

Given enough LEGO bricks, plenty of time and a LOT of patience, one can construct just about anything. Of course, really big things like, say, life-size vehicles, demand exorbitant amounts of LEGO bricks. In the case of this Guinness World Record-winning “largest caravan built with interlocking plastic bricks,” the number of bricks required comes to exactly 215,158. Give or take a couple of extras to step on in the dark.

“Caravan”, by the way, is the British term for tow-able travel trailers. The term is being used here (and at Guinness) because the trailer’s public debut took place at the British National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Hampshire. A total of 12 modelers worked for over two months and racked up more than 1,000 man-hours to construct the trailer, which appears perfectly authentic – from a distance, at least.

Closer in, there’s an “8-bit-ish” look to the trailer and its many accessories, a consequence of its unique construction. Step inside and the brick brilliance rises to another level: a two-element oven range and frying pan “cooks” a brick breakfast of eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes, soon to join a vase of fresh-cut flowers on the kitchen table.

A LEGO milk carton chills in the ‘fridge while off in the bathroom, matching toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste await beside the functional sink. After dinner, relax with a game of chess – it isn’t just the castles that are made of bricks.

This LEGO teardrop trailer can support such a roomy, well-equipped lifestyle because it’s, well, life-sized at 3.6 meters (11.8 ft) in length and standing 2.2 meters (7.2) in height. Plastic or not, the trailer’s anything but fragile, tipping the scales at a hefty 1,200 kg or 2,645 pounds. It’s not all LEGO, though: construction involved layering LEGO bricks over a conventional trailer chassis. This method results in a “practical caravan” that showcases the innate strength and versatility of LEGO’s plastic bricks.

One caveat restraining the designers was that only standard, off-the-shelf LEGO components could be used. Even so, the trailer looks – and works – much like a factory standard classic T@B 320 teardrop trailer. That includes fully-functional electric lighting, plumbing that provides running water, and folding seats that do double-duty as a bed.

This unique LEGO “caravan” made its public debut at the British National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, where it took pride of place at the Caravan and Motorhome Club collection. Bright Bricks, a renowned LEGO building specialist (yes, such a thing exists) constructed the trailer for the National Caravan Council’s “Freedom to Go” campaign.

“Freedom to Go is delighted to have the LEGO caravan on display at the National Motor Museum,” stated Dan Connolly, Freedom to Go’s Campaign Director. “The LEGO caravan was built with the intention of building awareness of leisure vehicles and the great adventures you can have with them,” he added.

A nifty video from Freedom to Go illustrates (with time-lapse effects and an integrated brick counter) how the Bright Bricks team built the trailer. Good thing they documented the process… if YOU had to assemble something from a quarter-million LEGO bricks, would you want to do it again?

These charming British shops and boutiques just couldn’t compete with big box stores but that’s not the only reason they’ve bitten the biscuit.

Why try owning and operating a store selling niche items when Asda (owned by Walmart), Tesco and of course Amazon can stock most of their inventory in a single aisle? While lower prices and greater convenience are welcome benefits of this socioeconomic transformation, the carnage inflicted on Britain’s shopping streets was, is and continues to be staggering. Take “Bling” for example… an abandoned East Yorkshire accessories boutique displaying (as of March 2010) only a broke-ass Venus de Milo surrounded by stripped shelving units.

Let It Go

“Fridges, Freezers & Fridge Freezers” could be a follow-up to Monty Python’s legendary Spam sketch – all that Spam, Spam, Spam, Baked Beans & Spam needs to be stored somewhere, amiright? The erstwhile owners of this Doncaster, West Yorkshire kitchen chillling appliances outlet at least had sufficient space on the facade to display their phone number… twice.

Priceless Characteristics

Allow us to state right here and now that all of our featured images were captured by Flickr member and urban landscapes photographer extraordinaire leon S-D (littleweed1950). We’ve cherry-picked from well over a thousand eerily beautiful images of closed and abandoned UK shopfronts including the befuddlingly-named “Characteristics and Electrotec” in Bridlington, East Yorkshire. That’s just off the charts, even for Quainte Olde Englande.

What the heck did this store sell (or at least TRY to sell), anyway? Radios, CBs, “Fancy Goods”… is that last one a euphemism for something? Who can put a price on “Characteristics”? Nobody now, it would seem. In any case, the photographer thought this shopfront was so nice, he visited it twice – in September of 2009 and again in January of 2013. Curiously, though the shop remained abandoned the facade was mildly rejuvenated with a coat of blue-green paint, thus improving its visual characteristics.

We All Float

“I’m going to need to stock up on unsinkable meats and produce,” said no one ever. Seriously, even the captain goes down with the ship and he’s not going to be upstaged by some leftover broccoli. You’ll find the bubbly former “Buoyant Foods” store in Town Centre, Grimsby, Lincolnshire where it looked rather grim in November of 2009.

Keep Us In Sus-Pants

Have you noticed that British real estate agents use the term “To Let” on their “for sale” signs? Have you also noticed the two-word phrase looks alarmingly like the one-word er, word “Toilet”? Even more so here in beautiful downtown Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, where the agent’s typical triangular sign leaves the former store’s name as “S-TY PANTS”. Now what could that really be, hmm? We’re sure the neighboring shop’s sign (“The POO”?) isn’t influencing our thoughts at all.

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Shopping Block 20 Deservedly Abandoned British Stores

Starting in the basement of a home owned by a wealthy philanthropist in the 1700s, a network of tunnels descends into the earth beneath the city of Liverpool, their full extent still undiscovered even after fifteen years of exploration. Why did tobacco merchant Joseph Williamson start building them, and just how far do they go? Some people say they were meant to be the final refuge of a death cult in the event of the apocalypse, and the secretive nature of the tunnels don’t do much to refute that theory.

There are no records from Williamson’s time to give experts any clues, and over the centuries, the portions of the tunnels that were penetrated by the public were filled with trash and debris, creating quite a cleanup job for locals working to preserve them. The twisting labyrinth was forgotten for decades before their rediscovery in 2001, and a group called ‘Friends of Williamson’s Tunnels’ has been volunteering to dig them out ever since.

Known for his charity work, Williamson may have just initiated the project to provide work for the many local men who were unemployed after the Napoleonic wars. Some of the tunnels seem to have been built and then immediately bricked up. But this and other maze-like pathways that ultimately lead nowhere could also be an attempt to disguise the true breadth of the tunnel system.

Of course, the most obvious explanation is that Williamson was using them for illegal activity. Smuggling has been the main purpose of similar tunnels around the world, from the drug tunnels at the Mexican-California border to the human trafficking tunnels of Portland, Oregon. It’s impossible to say now whether these particular ones carried illicit goods, were envisioned as emergency bunkers or were perhaps a part of some grand plan to redevelop Liverpool.

The volunteers digging the tunnels have filled over 120 dumpsters with debris since they began, and they still have no idea how much more work is left to complete. Among it they’ve found all sorts of archaeological treasures, from pipes to ceramics. Many of these are now housed in the Liverpool Heritage Center, where excavated portions of the tunnels can be toured.