Page 9 of A Sky Full of Stars
‘Hello there!’ The ringing voice, with its broad, rolling Somerset ‘R’, was attached to a stout, grey-haired man wearing a green sweatshirt and a broad smile. ‘I was wondering if you’d make it without a guide.’
Charlotte found herself smiling, but slightly overwhelmed by the expansive greeting and firm handshake of the man who quickly introduced himself as Brian O’Connor, former custodian of the observatory and current chairman of LBAS – the Lower Brambleton Astronomical Society.
‘Hi,’ she said as her hand was being shaken vigorously. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’
Brian jangled a set of keys that he’d unhooked from his belt, and as the two of them made chitchat, he unlocked the gate and then led her to the grimy-looking front door of the old observatory building.
‘I’m sorry it’s in such a state,’ he said as he began searching for the right keys to admit them. ‘It’s been left to decay for a good few years now, and though LBAS still meets from time to time, none of the surviving members are as spry as we used to be, so those meetings tend to happen in the pub – especially when it’s damp outside!’
Charlotte nodded. ‘The observatory is rather tucked out of the way up here,’ she said. ‘But it still seems a shame it’s going to be torn down.’
Brian gave her a tight smile. ‘It is what it is,’ he said. ‘And to be honest, there are plenty of people around here who’ll be glad to see the back of it.’ He gestured around the immediate grounds. ‘As you can see, it’s been a bit of a draw for the parish’s less, er, desirable inhabitants.’
He didn’t wait for her to reply, but turned back to the door and, with a heft of his prop-forward’s shoulders, he pushed it open. ‘Bear with me a second while I go and switch on the fuse box,’ he said as he hurried inside the building. ‘I wouldn’t want you to take a tumble on your first day.’
As Charlotte hovered inside the doorway, waiting for the lights to come on, a waft of damp, dust and neglect found its way to her nostrils. She hadn’t been advised to wear a mask, or any protective gear, while she was archiving but she was beginning to wonder if the university really knew what she was going to be dealing with. She suspected Flowerdew Homes, despite her contract, just wanted the place emptied as quickly as possible, and they weren’t too bothered about how she went about it. What she could make out from the light of the outside world, as it did its best to penetrate the gloom of the observatory, was that there was a lot of junk to contend with. But, she thought as the main area shimmered to life and the space came into view, perhaps there might be some treasure as well.
‘You can come in, now,’ Brian called from the back of the space. He walked briskly back to join her, a bright yellow hard hat perched atop his head, and another in his hand for her. ‘Flowerdew insisted that I give you one of these for when you’re working inside the building,’ he said, ‘and there’s a hi-vis yellow vest hanging on one of the hooks on the right-hand wall. Even if you’re up here alone, you should probably get used to wearing them.’
Charlotte nodded, feeling nervous all of a sudden. This was the first time she’d worked in a building in this state, and she had sudden visions of parts of the dome, which, when she glanced upwards, seemed more rust than anything else, falling down on her when she started moving things around.
‘Wow,’ she said, as her gaze shifted to take in the space she’d be calling her office for the next few weeks. ‘It’s really quite something…’
‘You should have seen it thirty years ago!’ Brian replied. His voice assumed a faraway timbre. ‘Back in the 1990s, the observatory was one of the most important astronomical sites in Somerset, if not the whole of the south-west. Everyone thinks of the Bristol or Redland observatories when it comes to local hotspots, but here had its fair share of discoveries, too.’
Charlotte got the feeling that Brian was warming to his subject, but she was in no rush, and she was interested. ‘Such as?’ she asked, prompting him when he appeared lost in thought.
‘Well, of course, you must know that the observatory was built in 1895 by Dr Eleanor Winslow, a pioneering astronomer of her time. She wanted a somewhere away from the city’s lights to study the stars.’
‘Yes,’ Charlotte nodded. ‘The Winslow papers form a central part of the archive for the West Country. Dr Winslow and her team made significant contributions to the study of variable stars and the mapping of the Milky Way.’
‘That’s correct.’ Brian nodded approvingly. ‘The observatory was bustling with activity until the 1960s, when, with the advent of better technology, it began to be used more recreationally than as a serious venue for research. It was kept alive by a long line of volunteers, and became the beneficiary of a number of bequests, donations, gifts, which meant that the Lower Brambleton Astronomical Society could use it as their base for the next thirty years or so.’
Charlotte could well envisage the kind of hobbyists and enthusiasts who would have kept the observatory ticking over. People who had a passion for their subject, chronicling the activities of the stars above them while they still could.
‘So, what happened?’ Charlotte asked as she and Brian began a slow tour of the building. ‘How did it fall into such disrepair?’
Brian sighed. ‘A combination of factors, really. After all, we are out in the sticks. As I’m sure you’ve worked out, Lower Brambleton’s infrastructure isn’t the best, and there’s virtually no service out here for mobile phones, internet, other communications. Part of its appeal used to be that remoteness: after all, we astronomers are constantly on a quest to avoid light pollution, but what gave it its strengths back in the day eventually made it weak. Most of Lower Brambleton uses a satellite network for the world wide web, but there was no way that this place, effectively a hobby observatory, was going to have the funds to put in something like that. And so, what once gave it an advantage has become a liability.’
‘I’m surprised, though,’ Charlotte observed, ‘that the universities passed it up. It must be a site of special scientific interest, still.’
Brian shook his head. ‘Most of the Winslow papers have been removed and archived. You’ve probably handled a lot of them yourself in the course of your research. As for the rest…’ he paused. ‘Well, let’s just say there are some who’d rather the more recent history of this place stayed buried. There are a few people around here who will be glad to see it torn down and built over.’
As she had when Lorelai had spoken about the subject, Charlotte felt a desire to know more. There was a story here, she was sure of it, and, fascinating as the original story of Eleanor Winslow was, it was the more contemporary history she was curious about. ‘What do you mean by that, Brian?’ she asked.
Brian sighed. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Why don’t I give you the proper tour while I tell you, and then you might get to realise why getting rid of things isn’t always the worst decision.’
Ears pricked, Charlotte felt a frisson of excitement.
11
Charlotte’s curiosity began to rise as Brian led her carefully around the interior of the observatory. The ground floor was cracked and uneven, the tiles lifting from damp and neglect. Faded posters from the 1980s and 1990s, advertising public stargazing nights and special lectures, and photographs of celestial events and past members of the Lower Brambleton Astronomical Society lined the walls, their edges curling with age. Charlotte didn’t have time to wonder why the LBAS hadn’t started to clear up already: the entrance hall and ground floor felt like a time capsule. She had the feeling, though, from the conspiratorial tone of Brian’s voice as he began to speak again, that she was about to find out.
‘There’s been a lot of legal wrangling over it,’ Brian said as he led her across the floor towards the open, curved staircase that led up to the viewing gallery at the top of the dome. ‘It’s been locked up for the past few years and because the Winslow papers were removed in the late nineties, no one was bothered about the rest, until Flowerdew started sniffing around to develop the area. When their offer was accepted for the land, they put in high-level security, and made sure everything was safe. We at the Lower Brambleton Astronomical Society weren’t allowed in to retrieve anything, either. They bought it right from under us.’
‘But surely it was better for the experts to remove what’s in here than just chuck it into a skip?’ Charlotte asked.
Brian paused at the foot of the steps that began the ascent to the ancient, dilapidated, green-stained dome. Back in the heyday of the observatory, the dome would open like a gigantic celestial eye, to allow the telescope an uninterrupted view of the night sky. Now, since the telescope had been removed some years ago, its absence made the area seem wide, empty, devoid of purpose.
