I find it sad when I see old mills being demolished. Maybe it’s because of their immense size and seeming permanence, or just their familiarity in the northern landscape, but gradually the number is decreasing. I must admit that the rate of demolition seems to have slowed in the past few years, partially due to them often being converted to apartments, partially due to their not being that many left now, and those that are, are often in the less salubrious areas of town where the type of people who buy fashionable apartments probably wouldn’t be welcome.

Looking up

I’d seen some reports on various exploration forums of this mill, but hadn’t had chance to go and have a look. However, I was in Oldham visiting my company’s site nearby, so at dinner time I popped out.  It’s probably too late to explore now as the majority of the floors now appear to be in a large pile outside the building, so as I was in work wear, and there was demolition workers on site, I settled for a few externals from the adjacent ginnel.

Big claw – more precise than the swinging iron balls of old

These are from my phone – I’d taken my Nikon F100 film camera to use up some film, but the batteries expired just as I took the first shot! D’oh! That’s the thing with film cameras, the batteries last months, or years, and as the battery meter is best described as ‘vague’, so I never even thought about checking it before I left the house. Oh well, that’s why I got a phone with a decent camera, you never know when it’ll come in handy!

Most of the upper floors were now in a big pile outside, not ideal conditions for exploring really.