from The Guardian

‘Gateway to the heavens’ … Kielder Observatory. Photograph: Charles Barclay
———————————————————————————–

“It is the darkest place in England. The Kielder Forest, occupying 250 square miles and situated just where Northumberland brushes against Scotland, has the lowest levels of light pollution in the country - making it the perfect place to watch the stars. Here, far from towns and cities, where all that artificial light smogs up the skies, Charles Barclay, a young, London-based architect, has designed a gloriously inventive yet low-key observatory. It is a place where amateur stargazers and professional astronomers can share telescopes, viewing platforms, ideas and knowledge, beneath one of the most wonderful sights the country has to offer, as the sun sets on clear days and eyes adjust to the seemingly infinite expanse of stars above.

‘Kielder observatory is situated on Black Fell, just outside Kielder village - Photograph: Charles Barclay
———————————————————————————–

This really is a remote spot. It is the last great, uninvaded playground of the red squirrel, as well as home to otters, roe deer, six species of bat (happily evident in the hot summer skies) and any number of birds of prey, from goshawks to windhovers. Unless you are prepared to drive, though, the Kielder Observatory, built for the Forestry Commission and the Kielder Partnership, is very hard to get to. The last passenger train stopped at Kielder Forest station in 1956. If trains were running along the route today, they would be busy all summer: there is so much to see, by day as well as by night. There’s the vast reservoir, opened in 1982 and almost instantly redundant, designed to quench the thirst of heavy industry along the Tyne, Wear and Tees. There are 155m trees, great stretches of moor and bog, and a cluster of enigmatic artworks, plus numerous other structures - including Japanese architect Kisa Kawakami’s Mirage, which features 1,000 steel discs woven between trees - all commissioned over the years by the Kielder Partnership.

And now there’s the observatory. I finally got here by the post bus that runs morning and afternoon from Hexham, half an hour from Newcastle upon Tyne by train. The observatory - which is not staffed all the time, so check before you go - is a small wonder, a kind of wooden pier stretching over land. When the doors of the turrets concealing its telescopes glide open, it looks like a child’s drawing of a warship. With its decks and galley, its largely timber and steel construction, and great views out across the waters of Kielder Forest, the observatory really does feel like a ship at sea - especially as night settles in and only the ghostly shrieks of barn owls remind you that you are a long way from tidal waters.
——————————————————————————–

——————————————————————————–
Set on concrete stilts, the observatory has two hand-cranked, rotating telescope turrets; between them sits an open-air terrace where amateur stargazers can unfold their telescopes, and a timber retreat called the “warm room”. This is where professional astronomers can operate the smaller telescope remotely, by computer. The room is equipped with a stove, and there’s a compost lavatory next door. All the energy the observatory needs is generated by a 2.5kw wind turbine and by solar power. This special building touches down on the Kielder landscape as gently as a long-legged fly on the nearby reservoir.

It has not been expensive: the total cost, including equipment, was £415,000. Projects like this will never make architects well off, yet who could resist such a challenge? Charles Barclay was a natural choice. He has a good feel for buildings that are inventive and gentle, as well as being imaginative and economical; his best work includes the renovation and remodelling of an 18th-century barn in the Cotswolds, and a new timber house for a Cornish dairy farmer at Liskeard.

There were more than 200 entries in the competition to design Kielder observatory. The winners were Charles Barclay Architects - Photograph: Charles Barclay
———————————————————————————–

Barclay’s observatory is a happy balance between what appears to be little more than a simple, almost cartoon-like, timber gangway with some sheds on top and some fine technology inside, with the cranks and cogs needed for the telescope turrets sitting delightfully within the simple wooden walls, floors and ceilings. It is rather like being in an early Victorian steamship, especially in the dark, when the red lamps glow (red keeps light pollution to a minimum). The timber, Douglas fir and Siberian larch, has had to be imported; the abundant supply within Kielder Forest is not suitable for building. Equally, there’s a nice balance between the computer-linked telescope and its larger sibling, a 20in Pulsar Optical, a mighty star-spotting device.

So the Kielder observatory is not just a special building in a special place, but a gateway to the heavens. At night, in the darkness of the forest, the sky is anything but still: shooting stars flare, satellites flash as they spin past, planets appear to rise and fall, and the moon glides by. I trained my telescope on the Dog Star, at its height in summer (hence the phrase “the dog days of summer”). It was the clearest view of it I’ve ever had.

The observatory joins a growing cluster of unpretentious, low-cost British buildings by intelligent architects that offer something way beyond what money can buy, far from the world of crude modern development. These gems include the simple yet sophisticated An Turas ferry shelter on Tiree, designed by Sutherland Hussey Architects; and Tony Fretton’s Faith House on the Dorset coast. Both are, as it happens, good places to watch stars from. And, because of their rarity, these buildings, along with the Kielder Observatory, are curiously exotic, and well worth working that little bit harder to get to - much like the stars themselves.”

The UK’s most famous observatory is in Greenwich. Commissioned in 1675 by Charles II, the facility was designed by Sir Christopher Wren with Robert Hooke - Photograph: Jeremy Horner
———————————————————————————–

Built from stone in the 1720s, Jaipur observatory in India boasts 14 major devices and is used, among other things, to announce the beginning of the monsoon season- Photograph: Travel Ink
———————————————————————————–

The huge radio telescope dishes of the Very Large Array (VLA), situated on the plains of San Agustin 50 miles west of Socorro, New Mexico - Photograph: Roger Ressmeyer
———————————————————————————–

WM Keck observatory in Hawaii. The twin domes of this station sit atop a volcano - Photograph: Roger Ressmeyer
———————————————————————————–

Parkes observatory in Australia. The telescope, affectionately known as ‘The Dish’, is one of the largest radio telescopes in the southern hemisphere, and was used by NASA during the Apollo moon missions - Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images
———————————————————————————–

———————————————————————————–

Popularity: 3% [?]