There were three main areas visited – the winding engine hall, the adjacent power house and the heapstead under the upcast. The winding engine hall is now used as an events venue and has a large collection of mining memorabilia which was interesting but not what I wanted to photograph. The power house was more my cup of tea as it is in an unrestored state and the large windows on three sides offered some great light.

The multicoloured generator reminded me a lot of my visit to Pyestock which was of a similar era, and it will be interesting to see if / how this can be integrated into whatever the plans are for this particular space. I know that Holmes Mill in Clitheroe have successfully built a bar round the intact steam engine on site there, so it is possible to make machinery a centre piece of redevelopments.

The large windows also offered great views of the headstocks, but they’re so damned tall that it was really hard to photograph them from inside. I ended up using the superwide lens on my my iPhone for the one above, and the 14-30 on my Nikon for the one below and it was still a struggle.

I didn’t take many photos in the winding hall, it’s been turned into a museum of sorts and is also used as an events venue. The control desks for each of the winders have been relocated to positions alongside the winding engines to open up the floorspace but have been left in a suitably rustic condition.

The last place I photographed was the capped upcast shaft in the heapstead. There are a number of lamps en-situ to light it, but I struggled to make an interesting photograph here. It’s certainly impressive in there as a structure, but not particularly interesting from a photographic perspective.

I did really want to get a side-on photograph outside of the headstocks similar to the one I took in 2009 as I’ve had a battle to make that usable for my typology, but unfortunately there was a car meet on in the adjacent field and I didn’t particularly want a foreground full of lowered Vauxhall Astra’s, so I’ll save that for a future visit.

Clipstone Headstocks are open to the public on selected weekends and I’d definitely recommend a visit, check their website and Facebook page for more details.