Atom Panopticon

Location: Wycoller Country Park, Laneshawbridge, Colne BB8 7EQ
Opening times: 24 hours
Entry: Free
Access: Free parking on site.

By the time we had read the brown sign we had practically passed it, but Annie and I each agreed we had to turn around and investigate. Like the Coldstones Cut, the name of the attraction gave no indication of what it actually was, but there was no way we were bypassing something called the Atom Panopticon. A quick U-turn later and we were pulling into the car park, from where it is impossible to miss the Atom Panopticon.

View from the car park. The Atom is a viewing point shaped like a large egg sitting on a hill overlooking Wycoller Country Park and beyond. Alternatively, it looks like the Flintstones’ holiday home. The work of Peter Meacock and Katarina Novomestska, it saw off nearly 200 rival designs. It was completed in 2006.

*The views of the Lancashire countryside are tremendous.*

The hill at the top right of the picture is Pendle Hill. This is where George Fox had a vision that set him on the path to form the Quakers, and thanks to the Pendle Witch Trials of 1612 it has invariably been linked with witchcraft and the supernatural. Fun fact: Pendle comes from ‘Penhill’, a combination of the Cumbric ‘pen’, meaning hill, and the Saxon ‘hill’, mean, um, hill. Thus, Pendle Hill could be translated as ‘hill hill hill’.

‘Panopticon’ is a phrase coined by 19^th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Bentham was interested in penal reform, and in his application of the word a panopticon was “a circular prison with cells arranged around a central watchtower allowing inmates to be observed without knowing when they are being watched”. Being unaware of when they were being observed would mean, theoretically, that the prisoners would regulate their own behaviour. However, the word now more generally means a space providing an all-encompassing or panoramic view.

*The interior of the Atom and the almost inevitable vandalism, although oddly the exterior seemed free of such defacing.*

Destination or Diversion?

The Atom itself is no more than a diversion, but Wycoller Country Park is a destination.

Destination or Diversion?

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