Belaugh from the sky...

Posted June 29, 2005 4:11 PM.

This may seem many months too late for other people to be interested, but I was roaming around Google Maps the other day and decided to try out their satellite imagery for the UK. Until a few days ago there had only been risable quality, super-long-distance photos of Britain - and if you zoomed in you got the standard grey squares that are more traditionally associated with sensitive parts of the US. Anyway, I typed in my parent's postal code and came back with this startling image:

I've had to shrink it down a bit to get the full image to fit. You can see the original picture here though: Belaugh on Google Maps. Frankly, it's stunning. I always knew that my parents' village was situated in a little bend in the river. I've written about the village a couple of times in the past: Factfile: Belaugh, Norfolk is the best summary I've got. But I've never really been able to visualise it, and maps of the area are incredibly spotty and ill-focused. But suddenly I get to see the whole village from an entirely unexpected angle - I can see the farm nestled in the bend itself. I can see the 'Unsuitable for Motors' road and how secluded the village is - no one ever needs to drive through it on the way anywhere... And when I zoom in still further, I can see my parents house, and the river where I used to go canoeing and the church with the hidden passage. Yay, Google. Nostalgia, information, context and perspective - showing me things I never could have seen alone. Wow.