Vernon Carus’ Penwortham Mills were one of my earliest explores back in 2007. The mill had only recently closed after the company relocated to a brand new factory a few miles up the road. The local vandals had been visiting so security had been reinstalled on site in the old security office and after a tip-off that he was quite amenable to a look round, I went for a look on the drive home. Sure enough, I got invited in to look round, and although the factory had been stripped of pretty much everything, I got a few interesting photographs. I did miss out on the textile machinery in one of the sheds to the north of the main mill block but I never found access to it, despite my best efforts.

Fast forward a few years and security was removed and the place had got torn apart by vandals. Soon, the sheds were demolished and the site was left to rot. More vandalism and some arson left it in a sorry state which is what I found on my most recent visit.

Having recently bought a drone (DJI Mavic 2 Pro, if you’re interested), it seemed appropriate to start here as it’s not far from home and on my way home from work.

At some point it will get demolished, and the site housed over, presumably once they figure out how to get a better access road to it – the current one uses a single track tunnel under the west coast railway line, and isn’t really up to large volumes of traffic such as you’d see of a morning or evening.

So, just a couple of shots, taken while I was figuring out the best way to photograph buildings from above (I’d only ever used the drone above fields and woodland before, so this was a different experience).