Mechanical Landscapes

  • #638 – South Wales Road Trip Part 6 – Port Talbot

    #638 – South Wales Road Trip Part 6 – Port Talbot

    Following the relative disappointment of the steam covered scenes I photographed earlier, I found my hotel, rested up after a long drive and reviewed my photos from Hafodynyrys, Penallta and the steelworks, then went for something to eat. As I ate my tea, I glanced outside and noticed that the sky had cleared, the sun…

  • #637 – South Wales Road Trip Part 5 – Port Talbot

    #637 – South Wales Road Trip Part 5 – Port Talbot

    A few years ago I’d seen a photo on Flickr taken from a street in the Margam district, that depicted a blast furnace towering over the terraced housing. This was exactly the kind of scene which fascinates me and I resolved to make my own version of the photo. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realised that there…

  • #636 – South Wales Road Trip Part 4 – Penallta

    The aerial photograph from 1930 of the site shows what I think is a coal washery along with extensive railway sidings to the east of the site. These are long gone and housing has recently been built on the site, it as this is at a lower elevation than the colliery, the headframe on the…

  • #635 – South Wales Road Trip Part 3 – Penallta

    I’d seen a few photographs online of the upcast headgear, viewed through the downcast headgear structure. My plan was to try and hold my camera over the fence and photograph this through the legs to see if I could get a usable photograph for the typology but I wasn’t expecting much. As I ended up…

  • #634 – South Wales Road Trip Part 2 – Penallta

    #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…

  • #633 – South Wales Road Trip Part 1 – Hafodyrynys

    #633 – South Wales Road Trip Part 1 – Hafodyrynys

    This bizarre contrivance is a slime thickener, which was part of a coal washery, the only remaining part of the former Hafodyrynys colliery. A colliery had been in operation at Hafodyrynys in the 1870’s, and another opened in 1914 which operated until the 1950’s. The old shafts were closed and three drifts were sunk, with…

  • #632 – North Sea Canal Industrial Landscape 3 – Seaway Alfa Lift

    This gigantic crane is mounted – somehow – onto a ship, the Seaway Alfa Lift operated by Seaway7 and can lift 3000 tonnes. The boom is normally lowered and stowed flat over the bow but it was undergoing some kind of maintenance while in port. I tried to capture it juxtapositioned with the gantry crane in…

  • #631 – North Sea Canal industrial landscape 2 – industrial minimalism

    As we cruised up the canal, I observed the archetypal Dutch countryside, which was for short spell largely agrarian until the outskirts of Amsterdam at which point the landscape changed dramatically to one of docklands and industries. I decided to keep myself amused by photographing small fragments of it. I took just one lens with…

  • #630 – North Sea Canal industrial landscape 1 – IJmuiden Steelworks

    In my last post, I talked about a photo taken from a ship leaving Southampton, and these are taken the following day as we approached the coast of Holland. The smoke from the chimneys of IJmuiden Steelworks was visible some miles out to see, and as we got closer the unmistakeable cluttered skyline of the…

  • #629 – Marchwood Port

    This photograph is of a scene that I saw and photographed knowing that there was potential in it, but I’m not sure if I’ve managed to bring that potential out yet. Marchwood is a military port, but unlike Plymouth and Portsmouth it is not a dockyard. Rather its purpose is more to load cargo ships…

  • #628 – Talbot Mill, Manchester 2

    As I often do, I’ve inverted this reflection because, well it just works better this way in my opinion. I like the way the texture of the fluffy clouds gives way to the lumpy asphalt. This was taken on my phone, the grittiness of the puddle and the textures elsewhere make up for some of…

  • #627 – Talbot Mill, Manchester 1

    #627 – Talbot Mill, Manchester 1

    As of the time of writing (November 2023), there are very few mills and warehouses around city centre Manchester that haven’t been renovated or pulled down. Medlock Mill is I think the only one left within the ring road (Chatham Mill potentially but seems to have had some internal refurbishment), but just beyond it is…

  • #626 – DOT Motorcycles factory, Manchester 2

    #626 – DOT Motorcycles factory, Manchester 2

    A few reflections as I seem to be in that groove of late. I’m in two minds about how to present these reflections. The natural way i.e. as photographed is fine, but when you see it inverted it makes more sense as you can see what it is. But then you are tempted to read…

  • #625 – DOT Motorcycles factory, Manchester 1

    The old DOT Motorcycles factory stands on Ellesmere Street, just off the Mancunian Way. I must have driven past this place countless times and never noticed it which is slightly embarrassing given my ability to spot old mills and industrial buildings from hundreds of metres away, often at great speed. It was once the home…

  • #624 – Mather Lane Mill No.3 (Brooklands Mill) Leigh

    On the south side of the Bridgewater Canal is the other remaining mill of the Mather Lane complex, Mill No.3 which is also known as Brooklands Mill. Unlike No.2 mill, this is still in industrial / commercial use but split into multiple units as is normally the case with old mills. The adjacent mill (No.1…

  • #623 – Mather Lane Mill No.1, Leigh

    Just up the Bridgewater canal from Butts Mill are Mather Lane Mills, a small complex of mills that straddled both sides of the canal. Wikipedia tells me that it was built in 1882 and the Bolton architects of Bradshaw, Gass and Hope were responsible for the design, as they were of many Lancashire mills. In…

  • #622 – Butts Mill, Leigh 3

    My last photo of the front of the mill was taken from further away than the ones in my last post, but made a feature of the corner markings. I’ve processed all the photos the same way, making the grass really dark and ‘muddy’, and bringing out the whites of the field markings. It was…

  • #621 – Butts Mill, Leigh 2

    Butts Mill sits opposite Dootsons Park Playing Fields, and a game of youth football had just finished when I got there. This was a shame as it would have been nice to have got some players in the frame when I photographed the mill, but I think an empty pitch works equally well. I decided…

  • #620 – Butts Mill, Leigh 1

    I stumbled across this place a few years ago when I was driving past and didn’t have a camera with me, and it’s taken me a long time to go back to take a closer look. It’s an impressive place and, well the Historic England listing describes it better than I ever could: “Cotton spinning…

  • #619 – Higher Walton Mill 2

    I wanted to take some alternative views of the mill but struggled to find a perspective I liked as not only is the mill set back from the road, it’s at an angle to it as well as below the road level. The perimeter fence did catch my eye though. It’s not something I’d normally…

  • #618 – Higher Walton Mill 1

    #618 – Higher Walton Mill 1

    Like many Lancashire towns, Preston once had dozens of cotton mills, but very few have survived. There are of course a couple of significant exceptions, with the refurbished Hesketh Mill on New Hall Lane being something of a landmark as you approach the city centre, and the gigantic Tulketh Mill – complete with chimney –…