Category: Urban Landscape
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#542 – Review of the decade – 2011
2011 was my first full year of fatherhood and the sleepless nights coincided with a lot of business travel. Consequently photography fell down my list of priorities as my camera was mainly aimed at my daughter. Nonetheless I managed to fit a couple of explores in, and got a few snaps of the PS Ryde…
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#539 – Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station #1
Big coal fired power stations are slowly disappearing from our landscape. The nation – indeed the world – is slowly moving away from coal burning energy generation and all of the UK’s coal burning power stations will be closed by 2025. Even before the current generation of power stations closures, the number of stations had…
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#536 – Brent Bravo and the Industrial Landscape of Teesside
Last year, I visited Teesside to see the Brent Delta oil rig at Able UK’s yard in Seaton Carew near Hartlepool. I wrote last time about the surreal landscape of the Tees, and how incongruous it is to see an oil rig. Actually, it blends in quite well, but it is still a massive lump…
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#526 – Old Negative Scans Part 6 – Dunaskin
Dunaskin was a funny one (funny odd, not funny ha-ha). An ironworks that had bee converted to a brickworks that had closed and then reopened as an industrial heritage centre, which then closed and was abandoned. I took these on one of my Nikon F100’s with a half decent 28-105 lens on it which is…
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#525 – Old Negative Scans Part 5 – Old Lane Mills
Not many film photos from here, just variations on a theme really. I didn’t take any internally, just views across this wasteland. However, I prefer these than the ones I took digitally. These can be seen on my website here.
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#524 – Old Negative Scans Part 4 – Royd Edge Mills
Another day, another ruined Yorkshire mill. This was Royd Edge Mill in Meltham, previously home to Brook Dyers, and it had been closed for 8 years when I visited in 2007. Needless to say, it had been heavily vandalised and was pretty stripped out but I got a few good photographs from my digital camera…
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#523 – Old Negative Scans Part 3 – Ivy Bank Mills
Ivy Bank was another ruinous death trap, and I loved it so much I visited twice! My own personal death wish aside, I found it very photogenic even though I had to watch where I stood – the floor in some areas was distinctly spongy, and I erred on the side of caution and took…
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#522 – Old Negative Scans Part 2 – Grove Rake
I’ve covered Grove Rake several times on this blog as it was an interesting site and I made some interesting images. I’ve been twice – 2008 and 2015 – and on the first occasion I took a film camera as well as my digital SLR to record some scenes. It’s a bleak location on the…
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#520 – Hotspur Press Again
A few more of Hotspur Press in Manchester, this time taken with a proper camera! As I was visiting Manchester anyway, I thought I’d park in the multi storey car park behind as it would allow me to get a different perspective on the place. I wanted to capture the contrast between the new and…
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#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…
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#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…
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#516 – Hotspur Press
Medlock Mill, aka Hotspur Press has been on my radar for some time but has never been a priority and I always forget to take a look when I’m in Manchester. I finally remembered when I was in the area but only had my IPhone and not much time, so it’s another one to add…
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#511 – Pincroft Dyers
Lancashire 1938? No, 2018. It looks like polluting black smoke emerging from the chimney, but it’s actually just steam, the vignette I’ve applied has had the effect of darkening the vapour. This is Pincroft Dyers is one of the few remains of Lancashire’s once dominant textile industry. I spoke to one of the shift managers…
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#496 – Denis Thorpe’s ‘A View From The North Exhibition’ and book
Cammell Laird’s 1988 I recently had the huge privilege of meeting Denis Thorpe at the opening of his ‘A View From The North Exhibition’ at Stockport Memorial Art Gallery. I’ve been a fan since seeing his exhibition at the Lowry a few years back and my copy of his book ‘On Home Ground’ is well thumbed.…
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#495 – Cammell Laird 2
Is there anything more symbolic of shipbuilding than the cranes? In years past, these giant structures towered over the yards and the surrounding landscape like the chimneys of the textile towns. For miles, these huge cranes lined the banks of the Tyne and the Clyde, helping construct thousands of ships. While the Mersey is an…
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#494 – Cammell Lairds 1
As I stood on the Birkenhead Priory tower overlooking the yard the 10.55 hooter, followed by one at 11, I presume signifying a tea break. I remember my own time spent working in a huge factory where our day was dictated by the rhythm of the hooter. 7.30 hooter – pick up the tools and…
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#488 – Manchester Mayfield Station 3
And so to the last few from Mayfield. Running the full length of the station and its platforms is a vast undercroft. Many old Victorian stations have these vast underground areas, some of which are accessible and in use some aren’t. For example, the area under Manchester Central – the former Manchester Central station –…
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#487 – Manchester Mayfield Station 2
After closure, the site remained in Railway ownership and has been used as a location for numerous TV series. In 2005 it was hit by a fire, and in 2013 the majority of the huge roof structure was removed due to it being unsafe. A small section of framework was kept in place, probably to…
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#486 – Manchester Mayfield Station 1
Manchester Mayfield Railway Station (NOT ‘train station’ please, we’re not in America), is the largest derelict space in Manchester, a remarkable feat given that it’s been abandoned for over 30 years. It’s even more remarkable when you consider the extraordinary amount of development that has happened in Manchester since the infamous bomb in 1996. Mind…
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#484 – Beehive Mills, Bolton
OK it’s a visual cliche, but it’s a scene that will soon vanish. Beehive Mills, a grade 2 listed twin mill in Bolton will soon be demolished for more housing, so I thought it prudent to go and have a look while I still could. The first mill was built in 1895 with the second…
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#462 – Mechanical Landscapes Website Relaunch
So after two years of wrestling with my Zenfolio hosted http://www.mechanicallandscapes.com, I’ve ditched it and moved to Squarespace. While I can’t fault Zenfolio’s customisation options, it drove me round the twist sometimes, and despite doing everything recommended on the SEO front, traffic was next to nothing. So I’ve cut my losses and built a much simpler site…
Mechanical Landscapes 