Tag: 2007 explorations
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#302 – Loom Of Doom
In the corner of the top floor of Bailey Mill, sat this, one of the last looms produced by the Dobcross loom company in nearby Diggle. The loom industry used to be huge, with the likes of British Northrop in Blackburn employing 3000 people at their massive site in Blackburn. But with the rapid decline of…
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#301 – Closing forever
Multipart, Pilling Lane, Chorley, May 2007 As part of the once-vast British Leyland empire, the huge Pilling Lane site in Chorley was a distribution centre for Multipart, BL’s spares arm. In the early 80’s large amounts of money were spent on the site making it into a state of the art facility according to contemporary…
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#299 – The Hotseat
Take a seat! Brook Dyeing 2007. It’s gone now, and there wasn’t much to see in the first place, other then the remains of the water wheel pit, but I recently stumbled across this photo I’d forgotten about.
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#298 – Ainscoughs Flour Mill
Another joint explore with Gibbo and R1. Standing prominent on the rural south Lancashire flatlands, is a tall brick chimney and a Victorian flour mill. Probably the largest and highest structure between Liverpool and Preston, Ainscough’s flour mill was once a major employer in the quiet little town of Burscough. It closed in the late 90’s…
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#295 – Old Urbex Reports – Pyestock Part 2
And so on to the famous air house. This large building contained 8 centrifugal compressor/exhauster sets that blew large volumes of high pressure air to all the test bays across site, and is probably the best known building due to the huge number of photographs on urbex sites of its multi coloured turbines. I had…
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#294 – Old Urbex Reports – Pyestock Part 1
Number 10 Exhauster Cell Number 10 Exhauster Cell control room Hidden deep in woodland between the mainline railway and what is now Farnborough Airport, lies a huge, once top-secret aircraft engine test facility, abandoned and decaying, silent and eerie, no longer reverberating with the screaming wails of gas turbines and jet engines. This area was…
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#262 – Prestolite of Leyland
I was quite surprised to stumble across this vast crumbling edifice, less than 10 minutes from my home, as most of the former Leyland Motors plants in Leyland had been cleared. Yet, sat behind rows of houses and a dense row of shrubs was this huge, wartime-era factory, now empty after its last occupants…
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#261 – Cheadle Bleachworks
For reasons that are, at best unclear, and at worse, downright weird, I have this thing about industrial ruins. Not so ruined that you can’t tell what it was, but ruined enough to be beyond repair. Proper mongy old crap – roofs caved in, doors hanging off and such like. They’re usually quick to explore…
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#259 – Staffordshire Collieries Part 1 – Chatterley Whitfield
Another one from the archives here, this was an ‘official’ visit to this crumbling edifice on a so-called open day. Actually, that’s being harsh and doing a disservice to our guides from the Friends of Chatterley Whitfield, who are probably more disappointed about the condition of this place than anyone else, and I’m sure…
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#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…
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#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…
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#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…
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#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…
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#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…
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#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…
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#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…
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#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.…
Mechanical Landscapes 