The Links page is the central clearing house for all external links and all pages on the website, allowing easy access to any external site and any well-buried internal pages.
Most of these external sites are from the planning department. Further down is one requested by our Health and Safety Department, a couple off How To... and a few General Interest pages, which are little to do with us.
Sites may move on and off the page depending on our mood. They are included below in some sort of order. The current total of external links is 26, serving 24 websites. At the bottom is a list of all of the 96 pages at present online. A few gaps are left where numbers are retained for long-term projects or where pages have been withdrawn, either as obsolete or just plain not wanted. Some pages have "simple" versions, without background pictures or exceptionally large maps, and these are marked with "(alt.)" below. Click on the main link for the full page, or the word "(alt.)" for the simplified one. The content for both types of page is identical. Where two pages with simple versions are linked, the two simple versions link to each other and the two full versions link to each other.
Links to the links (click on the title at the top of the section to go to the actual department homepage)
Planning Department (20)
Comment, Satire and Tripe Department (2)
How To... (2)
General Interest (2)
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http://www.deanforestrailway.co.uk/
The Dean Forest Railway site, for the railway which is the local preserved railway to the Wye Valley Railway. The WVR is mentioned by the Planning Department at length.
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/m/monmouth_troy/index.shtml
Monmouth Troy station - a little page dedicated to this unfortunate station with a few details. There is also a link back to this site.
http://www.sungreen.co.uk/Default.htm
The Forest of Dean photography site, with good photos of the area's history, including the local railways.
http://www.tinternvillage.co.uk/page-5/page-46/
The Old Station at Tintern has a website - here it is.
http://www.urban75.org/photos/wales/wye.html
It's a very good site and it's a shame that his information mostly comes from the same places as ours. The site contains a lot of other stuff and some good pictures of the Monmouth Troy station building during disuse.
Dayhouse Quarry at Tidenham is now a diving centre and this is the website. Blasting may take place from 9 am to 10:30 am, 12 to 1 pm and 3 pm to 5 pm.
http://www.pontypool-and-blaenavon.co.uk/index.html
We include a reference to this on one of our Planning Department pages on the Wye Valley Railway, so as it is an external link it has to go in here. This railway owns Britain's highest railway station (something alarmingly high and barren which they won't own up to but is over 1300ft).
It was a locomotive now owned by this organisation which hauled the last loco-hauled passenger train to pass through Tidenham Tunnel on Sunday 13th August 1978 (exactly 21 years prior to the founding of the OB). Therefore we have mentioned this in our page on the WVR and added a link, which duly gets in here.
http://www.srpublicity.co.uk/brs/media/play16.htm
We mention this advert in relation to train jams while explaining why trains are better than cars and bikes. So here is the external link.
http://www.monmouth-today.co.uk/
The Monmouthshire Beacon reported on most of the railways around Monmouth and is a useful local reference. So we thought we'd give it a link.
http://www.railwayholidays.co.uk/
Pontrilas station building has found a new use - a holiday cottage. Here is the website.
Monmouth Troy station building has also found a new use. It was dismantled in 1986 and taken to a better place - this is where it went. It's Winchcombe station on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, which runs from Toddington to Cheltenham Racecourse.
Comment, Satire and Tripe Department
The Order of the Bed has decided that it may help people better understand certain parts of what it wants to do with itself if it feeds you this idea.
http://www.deathbyhealthandsafety.co.uk/
For a long time the Health and Safety Department were allowed a link to the Health and Safety Executive website with a comment about how 4x4s can do more damage to a brick wall that the average car. Subsequently the Department has lost its identity and been subsumed into the Comment, Satire and Tripe Department. The new Head of Department has decided to deploy a more interesting website, despite claims from the Head of Health and Safety that it's a silly website and contains nothing of interest. Do watch the video about the need to exercise proper safety techniques to cross your driveway.
http://stronghold.heavengames.com/
Mentioned in How To... while telling you about taking castles.
http://www.castlewales.com/home.html
All the castles in Wales, UK, and a few on the English-Welsh border. With a fair bit of detailing, and lots of pictures.
General Interest (these pages have little to do with the website and are mostly put in because we think they might interest you)
http://pathetic.org.uk/index.html
The competition for medium distance traffic with the railways. Pathetic. Well, maybe not all of them, but several of the ones on this site. Ever seen the local motorway of Moreton in the Marsh, Gloucestershire? How many motorways were due to make up the London Orbitals? Wondered where the M64 and M59 are? What happened to the M531? How important the M50 could have been? The answers are all here. The Pathetic Motorways of Britain (M69 not included).
PS: We don't count aeroplanes as competition for medium distance traffic as flying a meduim distance by air is stupid - far too expensive if there's an alternative route And very bad for the atmosphere.
http://www.infocom-if.org/index.html
Infocom: a company which existed from 1980 until 1986 when it was bought by Activision. They wrote computer games, and continued to write until 1989 when Activision killed the sorry remnants. Only second-hand versions are available now. This is the closest to the official Infocom site you'll get until Activision realises that they are sitting on a potential gold mine. Infocom made text adventures, which they described as being "like waking up inside a story." The games were addictive - but noted for verging on the impossible. Versions available include Commodore C64, Atari ST, Apple II, Amiga, PC... but this website doesn't sell them. It just offers histories of the company and famous writers and a narration of each game, as well as a link to Activision and eBay, now the best place to get these things. A library for them is not an option as each game would probably be out for over a year and maybe 15 (we spent 18 on one and then got a few hints). You also get a good chance to die of starvation, being beaten up, being attacked by trolls, and of high blood pressure. These include Zork I, Zork II, Zork III, Wishbringer, Planetfall, Ballyhoo!, Enchanter, Sourcerer, Suspended, Deadline, Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy and the all-round irritating but funny Bureaucracy.
http://gawainsmum.wordpress.com/
The Founder's mother has, for reasons best known to herself, started keeping a blog. Therefore it is receiving a link. It contains a mixed bag of posts reflecting the views of its author, who seems to suffer from get up and go.
Also on this site (page number has little to do with age of page or location, although pages have been created in groups and the lower numbers are generally the older pages):
Currently the absent pages are 27, 29, 30, 39, 41, 43, 65, 68, 85 and 98:
17/04/11