Winchcombe, Sudeley Castle DCNN 4978 – A case of Horrible History.

51.94800 1.95401 Met Office Assessed CIMO Class 4 Installed 1922,Temperature records from 1/3/2001

Winchcombe is a small Cotswold town with a railway station on the preserved Gloucester Warwickshire Steam Railway which has the very impressive Stanway Viaduct. Sudeley Castle itself is a Grade 1 listed Castle with extensive gardens that is now a major event centre and tourist attraction. These types of stately homes were often the sites of weather stations in the earlier days of modern meteorology and while the Met Office quotes a “start date” of 1922 there are records of a recording site here in the 19th century. It is the modern historic use of this site that is of concern.

The Met Office assesses this site as Class 4 (additional estimated uncertainty added by siting up to 2 °C) though this acknowledged “uncertainty” does not make them reticent to make this site a regular star performer in their Daily Extremes page as the regional and national hot spot.

Cheltenham is just two stops down the line and was the 1990 national record breaker of the 79 year standing 1911 record. The Montpelier Park manual reading was, however, highly questionable given the urban location and the packed audience for the concert taking place at the time.

To confirm the issues downgrading the site the 10 metre circled area for Class 3 below indicates the problems with tree growth to the south west of the screen acting as a wind break and creating shade problems.

Noting these trees, as ever, I consulted historic aerial imagery to see any changes over time particularly as the archived temperature records only started from the 1st March 2001. The image below is from 2003.

So no weather station at the current site and no trees either. Time to start searching…..yet again.

Again from deep in the archives that very few people would ever bother to examine, (after all why bother simply “trust” the Met Office) came this first note:

STATION HAD BEEN CLOSED FROM 31/12/1945 UNTIL REOPENING ON 01/03/2001

There is no explanation as to why this weather station had been “closed” and indeed exactly what “closed” means is somewhat obscure. Was the site taken away or was it just left there unused or what? This is very reminiscent of Faversham were the site stopped being regarded as a functioning unit in 1990 only to be “re-opened” in 1998. I assume these sites continue to exist but either nobody takes observations or if they do these observations are not recorded. All of this comes into question with the Wattisham/Wethersfield site example where otherwise unrecorded data was brought into use when convenient.

A further archive note revealed this even more confusing aspect.

2001-04-27

2009-04-01

SITE INFORMATION

SITE WAS AT NGR 4031 2276 ELEV 109

This gives the coordinates of a different site suggesting operational dates from the beginning of the temperature archived period to the date when the station stopped giving manual observations. So what does the digital readings archive tell us? Despite giving coordinates of the current site (they always seem to do that despite the known former location) the manual readings stop on the 5th april 2009.

And then the next archived readings from the automated site start from 19th March 2010 presumably from the new location. NO overlap period data to verify correlation between the two sites exists. This is almost certainly because the very last thing the Met Office wanted was any evidence to demonstrate that they were in no way at all well correlated – the agenda to “prove” warming overrides all other considerations, scientific credibility just gets in the way.

So where was this former site? Well those given coordinates are very different to the current site but not fully detailed enough to get a precise identified location. UK National Grid Reference finder gives me this below when I round the eastings and northing to ending with an additional “00”

This equates to digital grid referencing of 51.946888 -1.9563069 but I cannot so far visually identify the old screen from available historic imagery – if anyone can find it within the likely local vicinity I would be very appreciative if they can let me know.

This is a summary of the situation. There was a very long standing (possibly Victorian) weather station at this site. This former manual reporting site was “closed down” between 31/12/1945 and ‘”reopened” as manual reporting presumably at the same site 1/3/2001. This site was then finally shuttered 5/4/2009. A new automatic site opened at a different location 18/3/2010 with no overlapping period data available to ascertain whether or not the two sites readings showed any correlation. There are no readily available public notes to indicate the changes. The new site appears to have had new trees planted close by on its installation that have subsequently degraded a generally poor site. A wide angle view indicates there was no shortage of space to adequately site a good quality weather station.

A near neighbour takes an interest in my work and often proof reads reviews for me. Initially he was sceptical of my work but as time has gone on he has objectively considered my posts and come around to my view. Reading this one and some recent works he asked me for that BBC report into increasing temperatures. where it stated “The number of days we see over 30C during summer has vastly increased in recent decades compared with the early 20th Century as a result of climate change.”

He commented “They {the Met Office} are just like kids playing with this aren’t they. They are getting kicks out of messing up the system to prove their phoney argument” I did not argue the point with him.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/07/10/winchcombe-sudeley-castle-dcnn-4978-a-case-of-horrible-history/