Driving to
Scarborough for a long weekend I took a quiet country road off the road near Malton. I threaded through farms and fields and pastures
and post boxes and arrived at a small town called Brompton. The Sat-Nav took me to the back of the town and put me by pretty
church looking onto a river. It looked a bit sorry for itself like a discarded
television, not needed anymore. As I alighted from the car a horse looked up as
though visitors were few.
Here lie the remains of Sir George Cayley, a versatile engineer and
vital cog in the history of aeronautics. He was probably the first person to
understand the mix of four properties that act on an object in such a way that
it lifts into the air and remains there (thrust, lift, drag, gravity.)
He designed and built the first piloted glider. When people think of
flight they think of the Wright Brothers but fifty years before their success
George made the first major breakthrough relating to defying physics - making
heavy metal fly. He could have done nothing and lavished his massive inherited
fortune on booze and good-time gals. He inherited Brompton Hall (in which the
stairwells were used do experiment on various wings), Wydale
Hall and other estates on the death of his father, the 5th baronet. He had
imagination and spirit though and not only did he engage in flying machines but
self-righting lifeboats, tension-spoke wheels, the "Universal
Railway" (his term for caterpillar tractors), automatic signals for
railway crossings, seat belts and small scale helicopters.
Some flying experiments were done on the fields by Wydale
Hall and his footman, servants or butler were probably one of the first
aviators. What a pity he didn’t invent the cine camera so we could witness
these early flights. Did anyone die?
I had a quick look around the cemetery but no dirt paths to a certain
grave, no ornate headstone on George’s head, nothing. When I got into the
church I found George was so important he was buried in there having conked out
at 83 years (a good age for the epoch.)
I had the church to myself and found the poet Williams Wordsworth married
here. A copy of the marriage certification sat on the side for any thief to
take. The place was silent save for my footsteps. I went and stood Wordsworth
and his fiancé Mary Hutchinson stood to be married on 4th October
1802.
I was going to pull the ropes, get some huge bells clinging and wake
up the church a bit but I’m a coward and just sat in the car with a coffee and
listened to some Van Morrison.
Where Sir George
is buried…
Preaching, “If
you use the last bit of toilet roll – replace it!”
Spooky eyes…
William Wordsworth
and Mary Hutchinson stand here as they were married...