Great British Road Journeys - Norfolk - King's Lynn to Thetford Ep.2
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- Опубликовано: 3 фев 2024
- #driving #infrastructure #cars #roadtrip
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In this video we visit Norfolk and travel from Kings Lynn to Thetford. Along the way I'll be taking a look at some exciting laybys, $hit fired power stations, some trees and lots of other things that you're sure to find absolutely fascinating.
Using a copy of the 1923 Michelin Guide, I'll be travelling the country to see what remains and what's changed since it's publication. The guide offers suggestions on thing to see and where to stay all with the goal of getting you out there and exploring in your motor vehicle. 
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The more I watch John’s videos, learning about the history of our road network, the more I feel like I’m fully qualified to be a road planner. Despite having no qualifications in road planning. “But that’s not what we got”, “but it was cancelled”, “and it’s bloody useless” 🤷🏻♂️
If you add some urbanist channels to the mix you can get that same impression with a lot of other urban planning topics as well. And add some of those channels about building collapses perhaps for similar thoughts.
I watch this shit and im American 😂
You're hired. We need this bypass that's going to cost millions buuuuuut never actually going to be built? When can you start?
After some iterations playing Cities Skylines I'm sure you can make a better job.
But more than half of the road net design isn't technical, it's political (with the excuses that it's too expensive)
After seeing many of our nations roads, i can confidently say you are overqualified.
Bravo on the very subtle duelling banjos at the first mention of Norfolk at 20 seconds. Very clever, almost imperceptible. Classy
The highlight of my Sundays is here again! Cheers Jon!
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Black cat roundabout roadworks closed @@AutoShenanigans
@AutoShenanigans nice too meet you again! I'm a good fan
@@AutoShenanigansCarbon is about control and nothing more.
Never let a politician tell you they will make your life better if you give them all your money and rights ..........
♥️👍🇬🇧
Agreed😊
Sundays aren’t Sundays without Jon standing in a field. I’m liking this series mate. Good work.
Love me some Norfolk videos, have a high six!
Oh! Less of the Norfolk jokes or I'll send my father, uncle and brother round,
He'll give you a proper slap. 😁
If I told my younger self I would one day be entertained by watching a man drive round the UK giving me facts about the UK road network, I'd laugh in my face! Keep up the good work dude. 😂❤👍
A job half done is a job half finished. That flyover with extra roundabouts is a piece of art.
Nice of the Normans to put in a steel staircase to get to the top of Castle Hill.
Thoughtful people those Normans.
I grew up in Thetford and used to climb up there as a kid. There were no steps, we had to crawl up on our hands and knees through 6 foot tall brambles trying to avoid the d0g$h1t.
Either the steps are modern or I'm older than the Normans! (Feels like it sometimes!!!)
Loved the Chicken Shit. Great informative video. I like where you use maps to show how the road layouts have changed, supposedly for the better
Afraid he missed the point of the biomass power station though. It's not to create power sustainably, it's to reduce the emissions from chicken crap - power is a side benefit. If you don't do anything with the manure it produces methane, with is 25-30 times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
If we want to eliminate these emissions then we need to stop eating chicken (though overall it's pretty low carbon) but otherwise, burning the waste and getting energy from it is the best idea.
There's two plants in East Anglia, the other is at Eye in Suffolk.
@@david_harveyOn the old airfield?
I believe that the advantage of the biomass power station is that it is burning wood chip for the most part which is not fossil carbon unlike the gas powered station.
That said, the gas fired power station is pretty much state of the art in that it uses gas turbines to burn the gas and spin a generator and then they recover much of the heat from the exhaust to generate high pressure steam for a steam turbogenerator. By the time the steam is finished with it is below atmospheric pressure! Unlike the old coal thermal stations that struggled to convert more than 20% to electricity the gas stations are near 80% efficient.
Better still, it’s an interruptible gas supply such that at times of peak national gas demand it can switch over to kerosene to relieve pressure on the gas grid. Green energy is all about subtle shades of green and we use the greenest first before resorting to less green options. We are also crap at putting our side of the story out there. 😢
You need to be able to present your side of things in a 15 second TikTok done in mime to a Top 20 Hit from the last year.
Chicken shit is greener than the black coal that we used to burn..!!
Just a quick addition to Thetford, they have a transport museum almost next door to the bus station. Worth going to if you want to see Corporal Jones' butcher van from Dad's Army.
Thetford - the home of the Dads Army cast when they did the filming.
And another railway reference!
Not just the RAF the USAF love it too often seeing their aircraft out of lakenheath e.g. F-35 , F-15s as well as osprey tilt wings.
Hardwick roundabout was so big when it was first built that some motorists didn't realize it was a roundabout. They thought it was just an ordinary road and ended up driving the wrong way round the thing.
The roundabout was a pain to use around holiday times until they built the flyover. It still gets busy but the worst bit is between the industrial estate and hospital roundabouts if you're heading to the North Norfolk coast/ not towards Norwich.
It has to be one of the largest roundabouts in the country, which is a bit incongruous given that most of Norfolk is pretty quiet.
@@Pesmog This road should be dual carriageway between Swaffham and Kings Lynn (cancelled) and the flyover to the A17 (which is what this section of A47 used to be) should have been dualled up to Sutton Bridge (which was the original plan). Instead this was all scrapped, the changed the road from the A17 to the A47, cancelled the West Lynn interchange flyover & left the A17 single carriageway all the way to Newark (bar the Sleaford Bypass which is only 2.3 ish miles long)
@@S.ASmith The A17 is a shambles and a missed opportunity. One of my least favourite roads in the UK. They are going to have to spend serious money on it one day, particularly the bits at Sutton bridge and the Newark A1 junction. 👍
That roundabout is a nightmare! The amount of times I have been on in and people get in the wrong lane and cut everyone up. Usually try to avoid it but depends on where I am staying in Norfolk to on how get to Lynn
We used to get poultry house manure, delivered by the articulated lorry load, at the mixed farm I worked on. We had to leave it, weathering, for a year before spreading it and even then it used to make your eyes and nostrils sting. It also used to clean the rust off the loader bucket. Burning it seems the best thing for it. The Methane it emits while rotting down is four times worse as a greenhouse gas than the CO2.
Quite agree.
The Hardwick Roundabout is Rabbit Central. In Spring it's festooned with bunnies.
It keeps the local press busy discussing what should be done about it.
Oh yes! The best greasy spoon breakfast ever, nearby the speedway track.
They’re starting to colonise the McDonald’s now
yes I have seen the rabbits,
By the time this series is finished you won't be able to go anywhere in the UK without risk getting lynched! Love it.
It is the USAF that love Norfolk. Every half hour 24 hours a day a USAF plane will take off from Mildenhall and buzz Norfolk for a bit or whatever they do.
Yeah, or Lakenheath, but it could also be the RAF from Marham.
That was an F-15 fighter, so I would've come from Lakenheath, not Mildenhall. Mildenhall is a heavy base and mostly has KC-135s
For our American cousins, Thetford was the birthplace of Thomas (Rights Of Man) Paine. There is a statue of him in the centre of the town. He is holding a quill pen in such a way taht makes him look as though he is playing a game of darts!
The plinth is inscribed with quotations, one of which especially deserves repetition today: "I had rather record a thousand errors dictated by humanity than one inspired by a justice too severe".
For our Canadian friends, George Vancouver was born in King's Lynn - after whom the city in British Comumbia was named.
The book he's holding is upside down as well.
@@user-mn4cc6bb7t There's a Vancouver in the US too (WA), next to Portland. I've wondered how often the two get confused.
I have that briefly in my Thetford video.
Lived in Brazil 10 years now, used to drive this route all the time. Thank you!
i really enjoy your videos - keep up the good work! But I think you've missed the point on the chicken crap power plant. All the carbon it emits was captured from the atmosphere during the life of the chickens (or at least while the crops were being grown that went into their feed). So in the long run, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is not increased by the overall process - ie. it's carbon neutral. That's completely different to burning hydrocarbons where CO2 that was trapped over millions of years in fossil fuels ie being dumped into the atmosphere over a much shorter timespan.
How is what any different except for timescale
@@SportyMabamba It's fundamentally different. We can grow crops forever, feed chickens on the grain, burn their shit and make electricity without having *any* effect on atmospheric CO2. That's what's meant by a "sustainable" system - one that can run indefinitely without running out of materials or doing serious damage to the environment. In theory, we could do the same with fossil fuels - but we'd have to burn them at the same rate as they're created - which happens over geological timescales. I don't know if anyone has worked out the rate per year at which crude oil, natural gas and coal are formed - but I'm pretty sure that to use them at a sustainable rate we'd need to be consuming them at a tiny, tiny fraction of one percent of our current rate. Having petrol-powered cars could arguably be sustainable in theory - but the number of them would probably have to be reduced to a few dozen in the whole world.
Nice to see Norfolk's motorways featuring in your video's, Jon. 😛
They've been missed out for long enough!
I'm not even British myself, but Jon's presentation is something I look forward to every Sunday evening! Maybe someday I'll be able to drive down these roads...
Nice one, thanks for watching!
This is the best video I've ever seen about anything
Good to see you mate!
Only Jon could make me want to visit Thetford.
You've been spreading a whole lot of love.
Don't bother it's cack! Forest is nice though. Now Lynn is interesting.....
Loving the Great British Road Journeys, what a fab addition to the rest of the videos. Happy days, thanks Jon
Love the videos and this is a nice follow-up to the Motorways.
Not sure (as it depends where the Biomass comes from I think) but assuming it is current farms and not dug up from old sites, that is the difference. I believe (but could be wrong) releasing CO2 that was captured by animals and released (which would likely happen if we left it) is different to digging up and releasing CO2 buried and previously captured in the ground.
Ah nice to see a trip along a road i travel fairly regularly when going to stay at my dads flat in hunstanton from Bury St. Edmunds. Have to say i despise that hardwick roundabout! Always end up in the wrong lane going northwards 😂.
Auto Shenanigans, the covert motoring geek's equivalent of Songs of Praise
Every Sunday
Thetford forest was started to provide pit-props for the mining industry.
previous to that it was a desert with sand dunes...
@@kimwhitbread2799 and millions of rabbits
Not forgetting the Thetford Stags...
I love watching your videos when I'm high.
Next time you go to Thetford check out the Dad's Army museum. The museum is here because most of the location filming was done in and around the town.
The RAF do love Norfolk and they love my home county of Lincolnshire as well, i think theres more RAF bases in those counties than anywhere else in the country
Fascinating! Memories.
You started almost exactly outside where I lived in Kings Lynn. A good place for a pint was The Crown and Mitre just of Tuesday Market Place. A very interesting pub run by a nicely eccentric character called Roger.
I've had the privilege of cycling to Ipswich a couple of August Bank Holidays and getting a deserted Hardwick Roundabout all to myself (the flyover was actually being built when I moved there). An amazing experience. It was like the whole country got up at dead early o'clock and buggered off to the seaside leaving the inland bits deserted. I did it in 6hrs one year! I was a Lot younger and a lot fitter.
Thetford is where the Dad's Army cast stayed during filming around Thetford Forest. Since I was there, there's a statue been put up of Captain Mainwearing. Dr Who was also filmed around there or possibly the sand quarry by Middleton near Kings Lynn which is all that's left of the Kings Lynn and Dereham railway to Norwich. Most of it is now under the A47.
I've also gone to Norwich via Dereham and then straight South to Ipswich. I mention this because the road (I forget its number) is dual carriageway on the Norfolk side with a concrete road like a bit of the M90 in Fife. As soon as you cross the Suffolk border, it's singled carriageway with all sorts of speed limits, some being 50.
Somewhere in Norfolk was just about the last remaining bit of three lane road where the middle lane was used for overtaking in either direction. These were quite common in the UK, but yes, bloody dangerous though they lasted longer than you'd imagine. They were changed to two lanes with each lane being a bit wider.
The reason the biomass power station is better for the environment is that the CO2 is already in the cycle , the gas one is burning stuff that was not in the cycle. No reason to panic or anything but that is the idea behind it.
I also think that allowing the biomass to decay naturally would release methane which is many times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2, so burning it decreases the global warming that would otherwise result.
@@KevinKittenThat methane would break down in the end anyway so all you are doing in the biomass plant is speeding up the process. Until our government gets its finger out of its arse and builds 50 nuclear power plants its a decent option.
Deepest darkest Norfolk - next time you're in the area have a look to see if you're near Rendlesham Forest the site of the noxious Alien ship that everybody denied happened but now say it did.
Transport archeology at its best 👏👏👍😀
That stretch of the A134 is one of my favourite roads, and now i know more about whats around! Thanks Jon 😊
Oooo, spotted the Freightliner green/yellow canary liveried class 66/5 locomotive there, nice one hehe.
I was quite convinced you were going to mention that Thetford Forest is where Dad's Army was filmed. Chicken shout 😂😂😂
I drive the part of the A47 almost daily/weekly and the amount of traffic and the amount of accidents is dreadful...all because they didn't build that damn second flyover at pullover.
Great video bud, have a safe travels to wherever next 🦆🤟🏻
Hey Jon the old Campbell soup factory was a bit of a traffic landmark at KL. near to the Hardwick Roundabout. But hey, landmark loss is Tesco gain.
I did read about it and consider it for "inclusion" but there's nothing left to see :( not even an old piece of hardstanding.
Yeah the tower was pretty cool and something to look out for when on the flat repetitive fenland roads. It might still be there on google street view from the 00’s?
burned chicken manure emits CO2 that was absorbed by plants from the air the same year, so in a scale of the year it does not emit anything. While gas burning power station emits CO2 that was taken from the air a million years ago, making th air as it was million years ago when people did not exist.
Yeah he missed the point of the biomass power station, which not to create power sustainably, it's to reduce the emissions from chicken crap - power is a side benefit. If you don't do anything with the manure it produces methane, which is 25-30 times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
If we want to eliminate these emissions then we need to stop eating chicken (though overall it's pretty low carbon) but otherwise, burning the waste and getting energy from it is the best idea.
This definitely deserves its own show on the TV, top job 😊
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Hello Jon, how the devil are you, have you had a good week?
Hey Jon. It's the River Great Ouse, sir. 😁 I live by the same river in Bedfordshire.
It just gets better. A brilliant presentation.
Sunday wouldn’t be the same without Jon and another awesome video. Thank you Jon
So many bright ideas our local council of kings lynn had but never got around to doing. Like the Wash wave power plant that never took off that was going to cost around £7million back in the 70s, now would cost 100 x that I'm sure. Then there's the bridge that was going to be built from Boston Lincs to Kings lynn through the Terrington St Clement Marsh, another back burner project that never took off, costing the industry billions in long delayed travel via Sleaford, Sutton Bridge A17 to Kings Lynn. Nice video John.😊❤️
My grand parents used to live in Theford, I have climbed Castle Hill many times in my life, and my heart broke the first time I arrived and the stairs where there, only been about 10 years or so, but really made it easy to get up the hill. It used to be a proper challenge.
The last maharaja of the Punjab owned the Elveden estate just outside Thetford. He was given 17,000 acres of Norfolk agricultural land by the India office as compensation for the British basically taking control of the Punjab. Quite a good deal for us at the time. The maharaja didn't make much better use of his new estate than he had of the Punjab. He ran up massive debt's and the estate was sold to clear those debts when he died. It's now owned by the Guinness family.
Well Done Sir you seem to have survived running running out of motorway quite nicely, i like these it was defo a good idea
Another great addition to your body of work, sir!! 👍
Never expected to see you pass through our little corner of Norfolk ☺
I'm from Mundford, so much interesting history around here
Moving from North London to Kings Lynn in 1969 the route has long memories for me.
Get your good self along from Kings Lynn to Boston and have a look at the swing bridge, it is ace. Cheers
Nice see that you’ve been Up Lynn!!
Yay Thetford, the place I grew up. I knew you'd finally make your way there. :)
Came here for the roads. Stayed for the labour camps, flint mines, biomass power stations and old ruins.
The energy generation/CO2 info was very interesting. It feels inevitable that we are going to have to make changes but we also need to be careful about the alternatives. We might be creating the same problems, just from a different source or location.
A great watch to let my dinner go down! Safe travels Jon🚙👍🦊
Now i know where the stairs that Sam Pilgrim rides his bike down is 😂
Thought the same thing!
I travel to the area around Thetford several times a year for birdwatching, and there is often a steady stream of F15 and F35 fighters taking off from RAF Lakenheath, plus the occasional Boeing 777 painted all in white that got lost on its way to Stansted
Fun fact last Friday I had a job near Thetford just off the A134 and then drove it almost to Kings Lynn to head to Downham market and across to Stamford.
As someone who has lived my entire life in West Norfolk you have nailed it, albeit you have been polite not to mention the webbed feet in Lynn and Chavs in Thetford. The power station was indeed built on an old Fisions fertiliser plant.
Thetford Priory built 11.07, closed 15.40 and by twenty past 6 it was ruin. That’s a busy days work
I believe there is a 'Dad's Army' museum in Thetford (apparently a lot of the outside filming was done in the area). It's a shame it wasn't given a mention.
Ah, just posted something similar. Well done for beating me too it. :)
Yes. Someone I know was in Dad's Army and he's in Thetford.
Could have mentioned Dads Army and the steam engine works.
You can still go down a pit at Summerlee in Coatbridge near Glasgow.
Interesting, thank you for continuing.
Kings Lynn is also home to ex F1 driver and now commentator Martin Brundle.
I also believe George Russell is born there.
The Brundle family used to own a Toyota dealership at Tottenhill which is located on the A10 towards Downham Market. Martin lives in Gayton still I believe, which is just outside of King’s Lynn.
Nearly half-way to a quarter of a million subscribers, Jon. And I'm here, waiting for it to happen 😇
That A47 flyover roundabout duopoly made my head hurt and then I remembered also that Brits drive on the left side... and I just gave up.
Nice one!
I've been down inside one of the flint mine shafts at Grimes Graves 👍🏻🙂
Me too, but a very long time ago.
@@orwellboy1958 Yes, mine was ages ago too. Probably back in the late 80s
I remember Thetford Castle from an Episode of TIME TEAM back in the Day.
"Ely, King's Lynn, and the sea."
An evocative line that's been stuck in my head since I read _Tom's Midnight Garden_ many years ago.
Excellent, Jon. Your research is brilliant. I didn't realise the Chicken Shit Factory (A.K.A Thetford Power station) was such a large CO2 producer. One thing that you may have missed on the A10 section was the Setchey oilfield which operated from 1918 to the 1930s.
Afraid he missed the point of the biomass power station though. It's not to create power sustainably, it's to reduce the emissions from chicken crap - power is a side benefit. If you don't do anything with the manure it produces methane, with is 25-30 times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
If we want to eliminate these emissions then we need to stop eating chicken (though overall it's pretty low carbon) but otherwise, burning the waste and getting energy from it is the best idea.
Nice, I didnt know about the oil fields!
Wriggling on the line, now I'm hooked , reel me I with this wonderful video,.
Very insight brother , love it.
Great to see you visit my home village of West Winch, I’ve always wondered what the old bit of road next to the A10 was, now I know! Another great episode where this Norfolk boy learnt something new about his County. By the way, as a former resident of Great Yarmouth don’t bother visiting, there’s nothing ‘Great’ about it, even the new Herring Bridge closed two days after opening! Safe travels.
Awesome Video
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Awesome stuff jon makes the week better
Excellent!!
excelent video. Fun fact Thetford and the area around it was the main filming location for Dad's Army
Scottish forestry was planted in the '20s too. WW I used a lot of wood for the trenches so it had to be replaced.
Brilliantly done Jon 😊
Where you were stood, next to the railway bridge is almost bang on top of the top secret GPSS (now Exolum) pipeline. It was used in WWII to supply airfields with aviation fuel. It’s still in use today but has been privatised. It’s still a state secret. The marker boards (white post with a yellow hat and black line) are the original WWII markers.
I very surprised you didn’t mention the name of the power station as you would need one to produce all that s**t to burn.
Your videos are always interesting thank you
Always enjoy a bit of misspent public money, and I’d recommend a series subtitle ‘Jon’s quest for idiotic intersections and road improvement debacles’. Trawled up a goody on the A47. And the mega carbon spewing green power station that no doubt got a truckload of public subsidy. Keep ‘em coming!
I was impressed that at 7:31 you called the road from Thetford to Diss the A-One-Oh-Six-Six rather than be tempted to call it the A-Ten-Sixty-Six, especially as you mentioned the fort the Normans built on Castle Hill just a few seconds later.
Thanks for the vid Jon, happy sunday
Hi Jon, Another great video for a Sunday afternoon, Take care
Always excellent videos John. Thanks
Brilliant new series.
Brilliant Jon thank you
What an amazing new series 👏
Thanks a lot mate, most awesome
No wonder that bloody roundabout (Hardwick) is such a nightmare! I hate driving that past that thing.
Love your vids very interesting and comical at the same time with the history of places near by great entertainment
Cycled that, but in the opposite direction Thetford to King's Lynn, when a mate and I cycled round East Anglia in '86.
Really enjoying this new series (as much as the original), I appreciate the amount of research you undertake and history we learn for the journeys you are taking.
Can't believe you didn't stop in the jewel that is Downham!
Lived there all my life, wouldn’t call it a jewel
Magnificent scenery, thank you. Wonderful, historic news with current views. Great idea to mix road observations with the new travel log series. Much appreciated Jon 😊
Like added for good measure and as a small token of thankfulness for you, taking us all along your UK, sightseeing routes. An amazing old house and awesome forest 👍