Astley Green Colliery – a geographical ambiguity. Saying it’s in Wigan will trigger the locals into fits of raging denial. While it doesn’t actually sit in the town of Wigan, it sits within the borough of Wigan, specifically Astley Green which comes under Tyldesley. The site is leased from Wigan Council, and if you’re travelling…
Category: Black and White
#666 – Scottish typology images
Two different headgears, five minutes apart. Barony is much easier to photograph, its sheer size make it relatively easy to photograph, although to get far enough away means you have to shoot from the south and wander into some undergrowth. But it stands in splendid isolation apart from various boards explaining the history and what…
#659 – Price and Kensington Bottle kiln
Stoke is somewhere I only ever drive through on the A50 while trying to get somewhere else. Other than a couple of visits to Chatterley Whitfield Colliery on the outskirts, I’ve never had cause to stop and explore. But as I was heading down to the East Midlands and had some time to spare, I…
#658 – Ratcliffe Power Station 2
It’s possible to see the cooling towers from the south and the west, so I had a quick look round to get a few different perspectives. There are eight in total, neatly arranged in two rows of four. I found that the most interesting composition was the one above, with the sun over my shoulder…
#657 – Ratcliffe Power Station 1
Ratcliffe Power Station was one of many built in Britain in the 1960s and 1970’s but it’s claim to fame was that when it closed at the end of September 2024 it was the last coal burning station in the country. Positioned to take advantage of the abundance of coal that was mined by the…
#656 – Brierfield Gas Holder 2
I’ve not got much by way of history, but there again it’s a gasholder – they aren’t the most storied of things. What I’ve found online is that it was built by the Tunstill’s (owners of Brierfield Mills which is just a stone’s throw away) and taken over by the Nelson Local Board in 1888…
#655 – Brierfield Gas Holder 1
I last went here in 2015 when I was accompanying my friend Katriina around a few places in Lancashire and we had a quick look here. It was around this time that the National Grid were accelerating their removal of gas holders and I regret not photographing more. I had it in my head that…
#653 – Clipstone Colliery Revisit Part 1
I’d last visited Clipstone Colliery in March 2009, not long after the site had been cleared, leaving just the magnificent grade 2 listed headstocks and power house standing alone in a recently graded field. In fact there were still piles of rubble round the back and the fence had not been erected around the buildings….
#652 – Clipstone Colliery 2009
These are some photographs that I’ve never published on this blog, although if you follow me on social media you will have seen them, and the colour versions appear on theviewfromthenorth.org. I visited here in 2009, and the site had just been cleared of all the surface buildings. All that was left was the grade…
#651 – Pleasley Colliery Revisit
I first visited both Clipstone and Pleasley Colliery on the same day in March 2009 and while Clipstone was my priority this time I thought I’d pay a quick visit to Pleasley as it was only 25 minutes away. Back in 2009 I was years away from starting my headgear typology but while I had…
Mechanical Landscapes 