Mechanical Landscapes

  • #126 – Mechanical Monster

    Bucyrus-Erie BE1150 Dragline Excavator at Swillington, near Leeds in Yorkshire. It’s preserved as a tribute to the ‘Sunshine Miners’, those miners who worked in the nearby opencast workings. I blogged about it last year, thought I’d mention it again, as it’ll be open again for the annual Heritage Open Days on 11-12th September, and if you’re into big mechanical engineering, you really…

  • #125 – Tilted Compositions 2

    Site of what was (I think) the Group 2 area of Royal Ordnance Chorley, now Buckshaw Village. It’s all been cleared and graded, this single lump of reinforced concrete is pretty much the only remnant of anything resembling structural engineering. From a photographic perspective, the tilted compositions hasn’t worked here – a super wide angle lens would have been…

  • #124 – Narrow Gauge in West Lancashire

    OK, not my usual style as it’s not black and white, but I made the short journey to the West Lancs Light Railway for it’s Quarry Engine gala. I’ve often cycled to their base at Hesketh Bank as it’s a pleasant ride from Chorley, but they don’t seem to run on Saturdays when I tend…

  • #123 – Loch Of Tranquility?

    A group of us had gone to Scotland for a very pleasant week at a ‘castle’ on the bank of Loch Long, and I’d done a bit of research to see if there was anything in the vicinity worth exploring. The only thing easily accessible was the abandoned Admiralty Torpedo Testing Station at the other…

  • #122 – A Windmill? In Wigan?

    Standing alone in the middle of a field on the outskirts of Wigan is this rather forlorn looking windmill. It was originally built half a mile away to serve the Haigh Brewery, but was at some point moved and rebuilt in its current location. Sadly it’s fallen into disrepair no doubt due to it’s slightly exposed position…

  • #121 – Hot Work

    It’s easy to see industrial sites through rose tinted glasses when walking round old, derelict sites or museums, but I’ve spent my career in factories and I know that even today, industry can be hot, hard, sometimes dangerous work. This old foundry is a great example of that – podging rods such as this were used to tap the hot…

  • #120 – Cupola Flowers!

    Like all abandoned sites, nature has taken up where it left off before the site was developed.

  • #119 – Tilted Compositions

    I shared a draft of a book project with a friend of mine and she commented that she’d get rid of the photos with angled compositions. This intrigued me, as this is a composition that I often use, but on reflection, I can understand why some people don’t like it. Traditionally, it’s said that tilted…

  • #118 – only post this week!

    As my baby daughter has just arrived, my priorities are currently elsewhere, so this will probably be my only post for a week or two. Back soon!! Andy 🙂

  • #117 – Lethal Processes

    #117 – Lethal Processes

    I don’t know what this building used to do at Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) Wrexham, but I suspect it was something dangerous that involved making or processing something lethal. Either way, it’s remained unused for over 60 years, the only evidence left being the foundations for something, and a large sunken pool of water at one end…

  • #116 – Grown Up Scalextric – Chassis

    #116 – Grown Up Scalextric – Chassis

    One I missed from the series of images that I posted from the Leyland Test Track. I’ve since been told that this is probably a wrecked computer monitor, but I saw it and noticed the word ‘chassis’ on it’s base and thought it appropriate. It’s perhaps not as prominent in the composition as I’d have…

  • #115 – Pattern

    Pattern found in the foundry. Note sure why, but casting patterns are often painted red (although you can’t see that in this photo). There were quite a few patterns left around the place, quite surprised they’d not gone on a bonfire when the place shut.

  • #114 – Book Review – Forbidden Places

    There’s one or two urbex books being published by mainstream publishers (there’s an awful lot being self-published on Blurb), the most notable being the superb Abandoned Places by Henk van Rensbergen, which I posted a review of last year. Forbidden Places is very much in the same vein. The book is by Sylvain Margaine, who…

  • #113 – 13

    Huge bowl mounted on a railway wagon for transporting iron round the works. Sometimes photos work just as well in colour as they do in black and white, this is an example of that, as the rich brown texture of the image is such a dominant part of the composition. By converting to black and white,…

  • #112 – Terex

    This giant dumptruck had its engine removed before being dragged by a bulldozer up the hill to its current resting place. I can only imagine the strength of the guy who apparently sat in the cab and steered it while it was under tow as without an engine there’s be no power steering!

  • #111 Bunker

    #111 Bunker

    Entrance to some kind of bunker at ROF Wrexham. This was once a huge site, but it was closed after WW2 and most of it has been cleared for the Wrexham Industrial Estate. A few buildings remain, but are often innaccesible due to the thick undergrowth that, especially in summer, prevent you getting anywhere near.

  • #110 – Grown Up Scalextric – One Way

    #110 – Grown Up Scalextric – One Way

    I quickly got bored of photographing tarmac. I can do that in my street outside my house, so I looked for things that made this place unique. There weren’t too many, but there one or two things that made it interesting.

  • #109 – Grown Up Scalextric – Tyres

    #109 – Grown Up Scalextric – Tyres

    I don’t know why, but I was surprised to see piles of tyres at the test track. Turns out most of them were to indicate where manholes were, becuase the manhole covers had all been nicked. However, it did seem appropriate somehow.

  • #108 – Grown Up Scalextric – Armco

    #108 – Grown Up Scalextric – Armco

    I used to have a Scalextric when I was younger, complete with banked corners,  cross-overs and all sorts. At around that time, this place was in full swing, testing trucks from the production lines at the nearby Leyland Motors Works. Since then, the place has gone into an irreversible decline, and like pretty much all of…

  • #107 – Developing A Style

    I responded to a thread on the Talk Photography discussion forum about developing your on style of photography. I realised some time ago that shooting something that you are interested in, regularly, helps you to develop a style. While it’s not something that you can consciously do (really, as it’s something that evolves over time), here’s a…

  • #106 – The Coolest Car In The World

    Not something I’d normally post, but I saw this, the ‘Milles Pattes’ (Millipede)  in the Michelin Museum in Clermont Ferrand, and realised that it was the coolest car ever built. Citroen DS’s are ace, but by ingeniously making one 50% wider, giving it two engines, ELEVEN wheels (there’s a truck wheel in the centre of the…