Aye to the telescope

[Mike]

The Magazine's search for Britain's greatest unsung landmark is over. The thousands of votes have been counted and Jodrell Bank in Cheshire is the winner.
It is a slice of science fiction in a green and pleasant land.

Leaving sleepy Macclesfield and pottering down the winding country lanes of this affluent, footballer-sprinkled section of Cheshire, motorists suddenly catch a glimpse of something startling.

Through the gaps in the hedgerows, you can see a landmark in the scientific history of Britain, the country's largest radio telescope.

UNSUNG LANDMARKS VOTE

29,093 votes were cast for the final 8 unsung landmarks
Jodrell Bank received 21.03% of votes cast
Second place went to Humber Bridge and third to the New Severn Bridge

It is an eye on far-away galaxies, 365 nights a year, rotating as it tracks faint radio signals from stars that imploded millennia ago.

Precisely 250ft across, Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope weighs 3,200 tonnes and remains one of the most important in the world. About to celebrate its half-centenary, it is a monument to a more innocent age when faith in science and progress was perhaps more wholehearted than it is today

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5314172.stm