While Burnley was known as a textiles town, the decline in that industry in the mid 20th century left a great deal of empty mills, and a number of these were taken over by the expanding aerospace industry. The catalyst for this was WW2 and with Burnley’s relatively remote location and skilled workforce, Lucas industries…
Category: Urban Exploration
#654 – Clipstone Colliery Revisit Part 2
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…
#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…
#650 – Imperial Mill Blackburn 2
As I moved out of Blackburn in 2004 and stopped working there in 2006, I rarely go back unless I have to. It’s a town I have mixed memories of, and as I wasn’t born there, and most of my friends from there have also moved elsewhere, so there’s little to take me back. Nonetheless,…
#641 – South Wales Road Trip Part 9 – Cefn Coed Colliery
The primary reason for my Wales trip was to photograph the remaining mines for my typology and I have opted to photograph them all from the same side on perspective. This is easier said than done, and not all of the remaining headgears can be photographed side on, but I was going to do my…
#634 – South Wales Road Trip Part 2 – Penallta
Pennalta Colliery was my first planned port of call on my South Wales road trip. My plan was primarily to get a photo for my headgear typology and then get some from the adjacent housing estate that has recently been built on part of the site. I’d done some research on the internet to get…
#589 – Brierfield Mill revisited – Etchings
I was revisiting my photographs that I took at Brierfield Mill in 2016 for a potential image sale, and I came across these that I took. I’d ‘starred’ them in my Lightroom catalog but had never processed them so, five years on, I thought it was about time. I’m told that although they were removed…
#552 – A Decade of Industrial Photography – Final Reflections
I always used to worry that I’d run out of places and things to photograph. It’s not so much that I let my photography define my identity, as I enjoy the whole process of research, photographing, and processing my photographs. Over the past decade, my focus has moved away from urban exploration and more into…
#551 – Review of the decade – 2019
As per the last few years, 2019 saw no urbex and a continuing focus on the industrial and urban landscape. After several years of waiting for a drone with the spec I wanted at the right price I finally took the plunge and bought a DJI Mavic Pro 2 and it’s seen a bit of…
#548 – Review of the decade – 2016
A more stable role at work meant I had more time to focus on photography and an opportunity fell into my lap – a commission from a PR company working for O2 who wanted to use me for a job. I also revisited two sites from a few years back, visited a re-opened Mancunian cotton…
Mechanical Landscapes 