Mechanical Landscapes

Tag: Industrial Landscape

  • #679 – Hatfield Colliery 4

    #679 – Hatfield Colliery 4

    I first posted my photographs of Hatfield Colliery a few years back here, here and here. But I took quite a lot on the day and I sometimes dip back into them to process one that I didn’t bother with first time around. This is one of them and while it’s maybe not of the…

  • #675 – Chatterley Whitfield 2

    #675 – Chatterley Whitfield 2

    I took a number of photographs of this view, trying to find the composition that was ‘just right’. And that is both the benefit and curse of digital photography, each exposure costs £0 so you can click away, unlike with film where very exposure costs you anything from several pence to several pounds depending on…

  • #674 – Chatterley Whitfield 1

    #674 – Chatterley Whitfield 1

    The crumbling Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is somewhere I’ve visited a couple of times on the annual Heritage Open Days and it’s a site I enjoy wandering round. They also open on some Saturdays so I decided to coincide a visit with a trip to the Foxfield Colliery. Unfortunately an email was sent out a few…

  • #673 – Foxfield Colliery Revisit 2

    #673 – Foxfield Colliery Revisit 2

    So while my primary reason for visiting was to get photographs for my typology, I did want to see a bit more of the site. Most of the original site is now a more modern industrial estate and yards, but as well as the two headgears and sidings, the railway also own a few smaller…

  • #669 – Astley Green revisited 1

    #669 – Astley Green revisited 1

    Astley Green Colliery – a geographical ambiguity. Saying it’s in Wigan will trigger the locals into fits of raging denial. While it doesn’t actually sit in the town of Wigan, it sits within the borough of Wigan, specifically Astley Green which comes under Tyldesley. The site is leased from Wigan Council, and if you’re travelling…

  • #660 – Middleport Flour Mill, Stoke

    #660 – Middleport Flour Mill, Stoke

    I took a wander round the Middleport area as I wanted to photograph the bottle kilns at Furlong Mills (not the easiest things to photograph and they’re not very interesting photos), but a tall brick chimney nearby piqued my interest. Turns out it was the Middleport pottery, which I didn’t have the time to go…

  • #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…

  • #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…

  • #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 –…

  • #587 – Steeltown Landscapes 2

    Unlike the sprawling, overwhelmingly oppressive landscape of the steelworks at Scunthorpe with its acres of cooling towers, blast furnaces, coke ovens, conveyers and other artefacts of industry, the visual landscape of the Aldwarke steelworks in Rotherham is more generically industrial. Like Scunthorpe, it’s not easy to photograph from directly outside, you have to go on…

  • #466 – Return to Grove Rake 1

    #466 – Return to Grove Rake 1

    I rarely return to places I’ve explored, primarily because they tend to be demolished, regenerated or burnt down in the time that follows my visit. I made an exception this week to revisit Grove Rake Mine on the windswept wastes of County Durham, a place I previously explored in November 2008. The place was as…

  • #403 – Pen-yr-Orsedd Quarry Part 3

    #403 – Pen-yr-Orsedd Quarry Part 3

    Winding engine (I think) in one of the sheds. Just a few more random ones from the visit. It was good to have some expert accompaniment on the visit, so thanks again to Iain Robinson for spending a good part of the day with me as he’s very knowledgeable on the local quarry industry and…

  • #402 – Pen-yr-Orsedd Quarry Part 2

    #402 – Pen-yr-Orsedd Quarry Part 2

    While I’m not a frequent visitor to North Wales, I have visited at least annually over the past ten years, and had experienced only one sunny day in that time. So I was pleasantly surprised to experience the area when it wasn’t smothered in cloud, fog and rain. Photographically, this represented a departure from me for two…