The M65 motorway was opened in sections between 1981 and 1988, and formed a link between Blackburn and Burnley, two old mill towns in terminal decline. So much so that it was nicknamed ‘the motorway from nowhere, to nowhere’. Maybe the planners simply had their map upside down, but the rest of the motorway i.e….
Category: Industrial Landscape
#433 – The last days of Sunnyside Mills, Bolton
I happened on this article last week and decided to take some time to get a few photographs of this landmark mill tower before it disappeared. I got there just in time. Demolition contractors were on site and much of the rest of the mill had already gone. It’s a difficult place to photograph as…
#432 – Rossendale Mills – Albert Mill, Haslingden 5
I mentioned in my previous post about the east Lancashire mill towns being located in valleys or on hillsides. In some respects, it’s similar to the coal mines in the Welsh valleys – although in this instance it is geography rather than geology that dictated this. The textile industries initial growth was powered by water…
#431 – Rossendale Mills – Albert Mill, Haslingden 4
A slightly different perspective to the first one I posted in this series, but all 4 were taken within 20 feet of each other on the same stretch of pavement, albeit using either a 14mm, 18mm or a 35mm lens on my Fuji XT-10. It perhaps needs a little more ‘breathing space’ on either side…
#430 – Rossendale Mills – Albert Mill, Haslingden 3
Saw tooth north light roofs are ubiquitous on textile mill weaving sheds, and can sometimes be found atop the multi storey spinning mills as well. It’s unusual to be able to look down on one from the ground though, but the local topography was on my side here. I’ve never really had the chance to…
#428 – Rossendale Mills – Albert Mill, Haslingden 2
Haslingden. Someone once told me that there are only two types of weather in the East Lancashire town of Darwen – rain, or about to rain. In fairness, this is true of most of the East Lancashire mill towns, stuck in their little valleys or clung to hillsides. From a monochrome photographers perspective this is…
#427 – Rossendale Mills – Albert Mill, Haslingden 1
Going east from the sun-drenched lowlands of Chorley where I reside, the landscape starts to quickly get hilly, and within the many valleys of the West Pennine Moors are numerous former mill towns. Haslingden is one although there aren’t many mills left here. Albert Mill and its characteristic north light windows are almost a landscape…
#426 – Library of Congress Images – Steel Mill Panoramas
I’ve never worked in the steel industry but I’ve visited the steelworks at Redcar and Scunthorpe and it’s an industry that, as a photographer, continues to fascinate me. The sights, smells and sheer physical size and complexity of the plants are rivaled only by oil refineries. The American steel industry, like the British one is…
#425 – Library of Congress Images – the night photography of Jack Delano
I’ve featured quite a few of Jack Delano’s Library of Congress photographs on this blog over the last 18 months or so. Maybe it’s because he photographed subjects that I am interested in, but his photographs stand out for some reason. While some of the portraits of the railway workers on the Santa Fe and…
#422 – Rhydymwyn Valley Works, aka The Mustard Gas Factory, Part 3
The Atom Bomb Connection Rhydymwyn was used to house gaseous diffusion machines with the objective of separating the uranium isotope U-235 from U-238 as this was thought to be the quickest way of producing enough material for an atom bomb. The site was chosen for a number of reasons – there were empty buildings of the right size, it…
Mechanical Landscapes 