Origami Ride

The Folding Society is a nationwide group of folding bike enthusiasts who run monthly bike rides in various parts of the country for it's members. This month's offering was to start from Tutbury, with a projected distance of about 15 miles and including a guided visit to the site of the Fauld Explosion of 1944, so this was a ride that I did not want to miss.
Almost 30 riders on a variety of folding bikes (mostly Bromptons with a few Dahons, Moultons and a couple of Airnimal Rhinos) assembled at the Ceramic Cafe in Tutbury at 10am and it was well past 11am when we finally got away after the pre-ride tea, snacks and introductions. Riders came from far afield, mostly by train or car, but one brave soul had ridden his Bromptom from Northants, a distance of 80 miles, camping overnight on the way. He was first to arrive.
The route was almost entirely on quiet country lanes, rather hilly, but well within the capabilities of cyclists in the prime of life (like wot I am).

Another unusual sign for our collection.

During WW1 RAF Fauld was an undergound munitions store using the tunnels of a gypsum mine for the storage of bombs and ammunition. At 11 minutes past 11 on 27th November 1944 the whole place exploded killing 70 people, countless farm animals and devestating the surrounding countryside. One farm on the site just disappeared.
The crater is 300 ft deep and 1/4 mile across. It was the biggest non-nuclear explosion ever in this country. The crater is not visible from any highway, so we parked our bikes in a field under the watchful eye of a flock of sheep and continued on foot led by our guide, a lad of six at school in Burton on the day of the explosion  He remembers it well.  The classroom floor and all the desks were lifted by the blast from six miles away and outside a nearby church steeple collapsed. At home his Mother ran out into the street, and was immediately knocked down by one of the few cars on the roads in wartime. One of those days, I suppose.
During the intervening years the crater has been fenced off  by the Ministry of Defence and countless trees have colonised the site.
Photographs do not really convey the enormity of the site, but it can be seen clearly on OS map sheet 128.

The Fauld Crater