Smurfit

After watching Blade Runner 2049 for the second time it was late at night and I was driving home. There’s a paper mill near me, there were two but one shut down and I suspect it will turn into housing soon. The other seems to be working well and has expanding recently. The original location of these next to a major waterway made sense after the war. This area used to make bricks and cement but is slowly changing to a mostly expensive housing area rather than making stuff.

There is a need for communities to make stuff and to be based near things where tangible things are made. You can’t fill whole swathes of the country with just housing for all the people who work away. I see so much of the land around me going to housing when more is needed for enterprise and making things. Society doesn’t just exist or work because of people living there, you need decent work for locals too [spot the socialist].

Last night when I took these photos it was misty and the light was lovely. Here’s the current paper mill, Smurfit Kappa.

Industry By Night
Industry By Night

The colours here were just beautiful and the way the steam and water vapour was drifting over the sky made this stand out. The darkness surrounding the plant broken by the light of the manufacturing makes this stand out like Eden in the wilderness.

Once I turned down Bull Lane the view was just as lovely but more monochrome. I stopped my car and turned the lights off. I only had a short while to take some photographs before another car turned on to the road. I probably suddenly appeared when I put my lights back on! This picture makes me think of the Exorcist poster.

Bull Lane By Night
Bull Lane By Night

Privileged

I live in one of the three villages of the Medway Gap. I have only just heard of the term Medway Gap, I was preparing the previous communication and looked up Eccles on Wikipedia and there was a link to something called the Medway Gap. I think I prefer the Three Villages moniker but Medway Gap is a pretty good name too.

The Medway Gap is a part of the Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Kent. My village doesn’t quite make the cut into the AONB but I do get to look up at the Downs every day and often run through the lovely countryside.

Here’s the Kent AONB:

Here’s a link to the website of that organisation.

The Medway Gap is a little part of this map just outside the AONB but nestled between the conurbations of Maidstone and Rochester. To live here it feels as though you are deep in the countryside of Kent but in reality there are two motorways within 3 miles, a mainline railway to London, a major river and the Channel Tunnel Highspeed Railway passes under the Downs within this area.

Here’s a map of the Medway Gap.


View Medway Mosaics in a larger map

Here’s my rubbish attempt to show the route of the high speed rail link:

High Speed Rail Link - Tunnel Highlighted
High Speed Rail Link – Tunnel Highlighted

The title of this communication is privileged. I feel privileged to live here and see this lovely landscape every day.