Industrial Photography – Page 15 – Mechanical Landscapes

#519 – Manchester – English Steel, Armstrong Whitworth and a railway line to nowhere…..

Looking north to Ashton Old Road and the site of the old North Street Works This is Redby Street in Manchester, a short insignificant street in the Openshaw district. It connects Ashton Old Road and Whitworth Street and is surrounded by wasteland. There doesn’t seem to be that much in Openshaw these days, but at…

#517 – Slater’s Terrace and Sandygate Mill, 2006

I’ve recently been digging through my archive for forgotten or undiscovered images and I took a look through an album of photographs I took in 2006 around the Weavers Triangle area of Burnley. It was a bright Saturday morning and unfortunately I was shooting into the sun, a fairly elementary error in my planning which…

#515 – Cononley Lead Mine 2

A spot of history – the mineral rights to the area were owned by the Duke of Devonshire, and to develop the mine he brought in the famous Cornish mining engineer John Taylor which would doubtless explain the Cornish style design. The engine house is thought to date from about 1840, and housed a beam…

#514 – Cononley Lead Mine 1

The tin mines of Cornwall, or more specifically the beam engine houses are a unique site around the county. The high walled engine houses and the tall chimneys were some of the first mechanised deep mines in the country and a site unique to the south west. Or so I thought……. I was researching mining…

#454 – Lambert Howarth Mill Demolition

I’d read that this mill was being demolished, but hadn’t been able to get over to see it, until demolition was pretty much complete. This is probably the last bit of the Weavers Triangle to be redeveloped, and had been empty since Lambert Howarth closed in 2005 after the owners Lambert Howarth lost a contract with M&S….

Lifting an Engine

Originally posted on Planes, Boats, Trains:
Title: Albuquerque, New Mexico. Lifting an engine to be carried to another part of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad shops for wheeling Date: March 1943 Photographer: Jack Delano Source: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/owi2001022482/PP/

#415 – Leigh Spinners Mill Engine – The Giant Awakes………..

After years of service, the giant was no longer needed. Obsolete and old, it was given a spot of oil and the blankets were put on. The giant went to sleep, resting, and maybe mourning the loss of it’s twin next door, cut up by the scrapman after a boiler explosion ripped apart it’s lungs….

#413 – Pullman Car Works

This gigantic place was the centre of the Pullman Palace Car empire. Quite literally – the Pullman company built an entire town round the works, and called it Pullman. The town survives today, as does the Pullman brand but very little of the factory does. Google Streetview shows that just the central tower section (and…

#412 – Library of Congress Images – Ferris Ships, Western Marine & Salvage and the Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay

One of the problems with the LoC archive is the erratic key wording and classification. Some pictures are done well, some poorly, some not at all. So it can be pot luck what a search comes back with, and when you are looking for something else a picture may turn up by chance that is…

#37 – Industrial Throwback

It was the smell that hit me initially. A deep, slightly sulphurous smell that reminded me of the aftermath of a passing steam train. But while that is fleeting, this was a permanent, pervasive smell that could be smelt well beyond the shoulder high perimeter wall Inside, the site was dusty and grubby, and outside…