Hogwarts and the Ancient Egyptian Mummy…

Nice local news article about Blackheath Hospital (or “Hogwarts” as it has been referred to in the past) being used to CAT scan Ancient Egyptian Mummies here.  There are some more detailed images of tiny mummified remains being scanned here.   What a bizarre job that lady has!

Sorry I haven’t posted more lately – I’m hoping to have something very interesting related to the Blackheath Arts Club / GPO building soon!

Ancient Blackheath revealed by Metal Detector

Just spotted this amazing metal detector find, a 19th Century golf badge from the Blackheath Golf Club:

I started in a different location. Got 2 signals within 18″ of each other. Dug the first: a Sharps. Checked the hole, and had another signal (around 30-40 VDI). That signal turned out to be a pistol bullet. Checked the hole again, another 30-40 signal…another pistol bullet. At this point I was getting excited!  Rechecked the hole, another pistol bullet! Once again, I checked the hole after digging….another signal! And now there seemed to be several! This process was repeated another 17 times, and all from an area about 4′ around!!!! I was incredulous!!
We continued digging bullets for the next 30 minutes to an hour. All of a sudden, over the sound of my headphones and threshold hum, I hear, “Holy $#^%$!! That’s about the most personal thing you could find! Tony, come look at this thing!! #%$%, $^%$^, *&^%$!!!!!! ”
James was waving me over. He’d just dug what appears to be a crude ID tag!! It was a small silver coin, which was obviously VERY old. It had the following writing in cursive: “J. D. H____” and the date “1841”. James was shaking when he handed it to me to look at!

Now, the Bugle had assumed that this discovery had been made by someone waving their metal detector around on Blackheath. There’s a Google Map on the Treasure Map site, showing where the discovery was made. I looked at it, and didn’t recognise any of the place names. So I zoomed out a little. Perhaps it was in Kent? As I zoomed out, I noticed that the main roads all had little badges on them. Then it hit me. This map wasn’t in Blackheath, in Kent, or even in the UK… The find was made in the USA…

Before you get too excited about the prospect of ships exporting bits of Blackheath across the Atlantic, the Golf Tracer website points out that:

These buttons were reproduced in many different variations and are plentiful throughout the World.

So the badge shown above doesn’t necessarily come from Blackheath – it could be the 19th Century equivalent of the Manchester United football shirt: from the UK, but manufactured (and worn) all over the place.

It’s still pretty amazing to think that a piece of Blackheath’s culture travelled so far back then… Perhaps someone with more knowledge than me can contact Clem McNure & Tony and let them know a little more about how the badge ended up there?

Google Street View comes to Blackheath

View Larger Map

So, it’s finally happened.  Those mysterious looking black VW Beetles have finally dumped all their data into the Google Hive Mind, – lo and behold – we have Blackheath in glorious pseudo-3D almost QuickTime VR Panoramatastic streetview!

The screenshot (from Google) doesn’t do it justice.  Click on the link, and have a look for yourself- you can move all around Blackheath, step by step, as though you were walking down the streets.  I can see my house!  But the real magic is that you can turn your head.  The 360 degree panoramic stitching is really quite amazing.

Anyway, it renders the poor old Bugle’s Virtual Tour of Blackheath to the dustbin, I suspect… And the various Google Maps 3D views don’t seem quite as shiny any more either.

Anyway Buglers, let me know what you spot as you saunter through the cyber streets of Blackheath…

UPDATE: It goes as far as The Pagoda! Map here

The Blackheath Tea Hut! Map here.

The Princess of Wales pub! Map here.

Ferrets on trains

Hello Blackheath… Been suffering a bit of Blogger’s Block lately – although this message from Mrs Bugle made me smile:

“Watching the man with the beaver on the train. “

Glad to see that the eccentrics of Blackheath are still doing their bit.

All the best to all of you – keep an eye out here, and when I think of something to tell you, I’ll be sure to post again, hopefully soon!

Peter Horse

Completely bizarre, but quite funny blog post about Blackheath…

“A wise man once commented that any pub with ‘Railway’ somewhere in its title is almost certainly a complete dive.”

http://peterhorseface.blogspot.com/2009/03/estate-agents-description-of-blackheath.html

Have you lost your rail ticket?

Matt says:

Community service time! I found an oystercard just down the road from the Hare & Billet today. I’m going to hand it in at Blackheath Station tomorrow morning, but I thought it might be worth advertising the fact it’s been handed in, here. There was a photocard with it – is there any chance this man is one of your readers?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/latt/3331890306/

I know how annoying it is to lose your ticket, not to mention how patronising the “don’t do it again – we won’t give you another one” letters from our favourite Train Operating Company can be… Hopefully the mysterious ticket holder will claim what is rightfully his! Drop me a message if you read this, and I’ll put you in touch with Matt…

On another note, the photo above was taken from Matt’s Fickr page with a copyright sign on it, so I’m probably not supposed to have it on my blog… And I’ve made it a bit less yellow too – so Matt, switch to Creative Commons for your public photos if you can!

The Dead Zone

Here’s a thing to try if you’re coming back to Blackheath from London by train in the rush hour.  Station yourself next to someone jabbering away on their mobile phone, and watch what happens between Lewisham and Blackheath.  I guarantee you that their call will drop, just before you get to the square-looking houses on the left-hand side of the track before the Station Car Park.

I saw it happen to a girl on Tuesday evening… Sure enough, my phone refused to connect to the internet, and her call went dead.  Is there something down there between the trees?  We’re in London, it’s not an area full of skyscrapers, and it’s not in a big valley!

Click-and-draggable map above from The Bugle’s Google Map!

Landboarding – Grass not Snow

This looks like fun, if a bit risky… The Polish writing on the page says “Try to beat speed of sound on the grass”, according to Google Translate. It claims to have been shot in Blackheath, but it looks like Greenwich Park to me.

Madame Chocolat wrapping up

Just noticed that the ominous looking “SOLD” sign above Madame Chocolat has finally kicked into action.  The sign on the front of the shop reveals that they are shutting up shop, but will still be available for catering, and other things.  Which is a shame.  I hope the replacement is as quirky and interesting as the previous shop was, and not a second bijou-starbucks tucked away on Blackheath’s high street.

The mysterious volcano of Blackheath

Twitter user @beglen sent a message to my twitter account, asking if I had seen the “bubbling heath”… Intrigued, I went to take a look at the flickr page suggested, and sure enough, there is a mysterious venting of gas from the depths… I believe the photos are near the Hare & Billet pub, next to the pond that is constantly overflowing.

So what could it be? Do we have a smaller Blackheath Loch Ness Monster? Has Spring Heeled Jack returned to scare us, or could it be another mysterious haunting on the Hare and Billet road?

Or perhaps there is a more geological explanation, and soon all of Blackheath will generate its electricity from thermal spa, like they do in Iceland… I can dream…