Mechanical Landscapes

  • #231 – Huncoat Power Station

    #231 – Huncoat Power Station

    East Lancashire is a pretty grim place, and I’m saying that from the bitter experience as I used to live and work there. Most of the large private employers have moved out, and with the current swingeing public sector cuts, it ain’t getting any better. If it wasn’t for the aerospace sector, there would be very…

  • #230 – Grove Rake Fluorite Mine

    #230 – Grove Rake Fluorite Mine

    Britain is a pretty compact nation, and you’re ultimately never that far from civilisation. Compared to say America, where you can drive all day and still not get across a state, in Britain, you’d run out of road before running out of day. So to go somewhere by road that is truly in the ‘middle…

  • #229 – Robert Fletchers Paper Mill – Part 3

    #229 – Robert Fletchers Paper Mill – Part 3

    The ‘Top Mill’ that we explored is in the background. Here, Azubi is enquiring if it would be at all possible to come in and have a look round. The light was fading fast now, and we made our way down the footpath down the side of the site, to the driveway back to the…

  • #228 – Robert Fletchers Paper Mill – Part 2

    #228 – Robert Fletchers Paper Mill – Part 2

    Employees Handbook para (d) Long Service Benefits It is hoped that your association with the Company will be a long one, and that you will qualify for a Long Service Award. After 42 years’ service, men receive a gold watch, and after 37 years’ service, women receive a silver teapot. Big, bad Beloit from Bolton. The room…

  • #227 – Robert Fletchers Paper Mill – Part 1

    #227 – Robert Fletchers Paper Mill – Part 1

    Employees Handbook para (b)  Employees’ Transport For the convenience of shift workers arriving and leaving at 6.00a.m., 20.. p..m and 10.00 p.pm. daily, a bus service is operated between Oldham and the Mill, via Lees and Mossley. Employees wishing to avail themselves of this service may obtain from the Time Office particulars of fares charged and the necessary…

  • #226 – People In Railway Photography Revisited – Part 2

    As I wasn’t using the optimal lens for the job, cropping played an important part of post processing., and this is where having a reasonably high megapixel count comes in handy. Now I’ve never subscribed to the theory that you should get it right in camera and never crop – it’s a laudable idea, but…

  • #225 – People in Railway Photography Revisited – Part 1

      Due to the usual late running on the Saturday of the East Lancs Steam Gala, the planned nightshoot was also running late, so by the time the assembled throng were let in, the engines were still being put down for the night. Never one to miss an opportunity to do something different, I hiked up the…

  • #224 – Calshot

    Here’s one I wasn’t aware of, probably because it’s not in an advanced state of decay! This is the SS Calshot, a tug tender built at, and  used on, Southampton docks during the era of the great ocean liners – Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Normandie, United States, etc. Although it was open to the public,…

  • #223- Derelict Mills 11 – Oakwood Mill

    #223- Derelict Mills 11 – Oakwood Mill

    Some places are so derelict that they aren’t even worth spending much time photographing, let alone trying to find a way in. I’d spotted this place near to the old Railway Warehouse hidden in the woods in Mossley, so after mooching round there for a while, I thought I’d have a look at this place.…

  • #222 – Derelict Mills – Part 10 – Vernon Carus

    #222 – Derelict Mills – Part 10 – Vernon Carus

    More often than not, the places I go are dead. Not just as a building, but the companies that inhabited it have also died, along with all the traditions, products and culture that was unique to that enterprise. Technology and commerce move on, budgets shrink, new companies with lower costs come into the market, older companies…

  • #221 – Derelict Mills – Part 9 – Albion Mill

    #221 – Derelict Mills – Part 9 – Albion Mill

    It’s weird and slightly perverse how some places that I’ve visited have ended up. The ruin that was Cheadle Bleachworks, a place that looked like it had been carpet bombed, ended up as luxury apartments, while this place, as sturdy and intact a mill as I’ve explored, ended up being demolished not long after I…

  • #220 – Derelict Mills – Part 8 – Griffe Mill

    #220 – Derelict Mills – Part 8 – Griffe Mill

    When you are particularly interested in something, you develop a consciousness for it. Professor Peter Wiseman in his brilliant book ‘The Luck Factor’ writes at length about this phenomena, and how people who believe that they are lucky or unlucky see and do things that back up that conviction – spotting five-pound notes on the…

  • #219 – Derelict Mills – Part 7 Ivy Bank Mill

    #219 – Derelict Mills – Part 7 Ivy Bank Mill

    The diversity of places that I’ve explored has ranged from completely intact places like Pyestock and Fletchers Paper Mill, to stripped out hulks such as Old Lane Mill. But this would suggest that some kind of spectrum of dereliction exists with fully intact at one end and empty shells at the other, when in actual…

  • #218 – Derelict Mills – Part 6 – Westwood Mill

    #218 – Derelict Mills – Part 6 – Westwood Mill

    Sometimes I feel compelled to go and visit places, even if I’m not in the right frame of mind. I’d had my eye on this place for a while, and I needed to visit somewhere to photograph for a nightschool project. Reports on the internet showed it to be pretty stripped out, but with one…

  • #217 – The View From The North

    Just realised that it’s now over four years since I launched theviewfromthenorth.org. I know that four years is neither here nor there, as we only tend to celebrate anniversaries that are divisible by 5 for some reason, but slowly but surely, interest has grown in the website, and it’s moved from being a place where…

  • #216 – Derelict Mills – Part 5 – Old Lane Mill

    #216 – Derelict Mills – Part 5 – Old Lane Mill

    Maybe as late as ten years ago, I’d never have found a place like this. I often use Geograph to search for places, and came across this place in Ovenden, near Halifax. Thanks to the power of the internet, it’s possible to scout for locations without leaving the comfort of your own home. Tools such as…

  • #215 – Derelict Mills – Part 4 – Edenwood Mill

    #215 – Derelict Mills – Part 4 – Edenwood Mill

    Success in many fields is all about timing, being in the right place at the right time. Take football. There are numerous players who made decent careers out of not doing a great deal effort wise, but had the seemingly uncanny knack of suddenly coming alive once or twice in a game and ending up…

  • #214 – Derelict Mills – Part 3 – Knoll (Wellington) Mills

    #214 – Derelict Mills – Part 3 – Knoll (Wellington) Mills

    Despite training as an engineer, and even being recognised by the Engineering Council as a Chartered Engineer, I can be a bit of a Luddite when it comes to new technology. Take sat navs. My theory is that you only really need them for the last 5 miles of a journey as you can get…

  • #213 – Style

    I wrote about style a while back, and I was reading through my notebook last night when I saw this passage that I’d copied from an article by David Ward, the well known landscape photographer. Kind of echoes my own thoughts really. “Style is the single attribute that proclaims the author of the image, yet…

  • #212 – Derelict Mills – Part 2 Bailey Mill

    #212 – Derelict Mills – Part 2 Bailey Mill

    Sometimes windows of opportunity open and you happen to be in the right place at the right time. This was the case when I explored Bailey Mill in Delph in 2007. I’d seen a couple of report on the place on 28 Days Later, and got in touch with the last person to explore it.…

  • #211 – Derelict Mills – Part 1 Bradshaw Works

    Printing & Steaming Building. Much of the foreground was cleared of buildings in the 1960’s. The buildings here were the Making Up, Stitching & Damping Room, and the Colour and Roller Store Growing up in the magnificent Lancashire town of Bolton, I was surrounded by the derelict and decaying remnants of the towns textile industry.…