Tag: Lancashire
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#555 – Swan Lane Mills, Bolton
I grew up in Bolton, a Lancashire (or Greater Manchester) mill town, although by the 1980’s – a time when I hit my teenage years and became more aware of the built environment around me – most of the mills had closed and many had been, or were being, demolished. There were well over a…
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#554 – Cowling Mill, Chorley
Cowling Mill is one of the few remaining textile mills in Chorley and was a typical South / Central Lancashire red brick mill. It opened in 1906 and ran until 1959, a time when huge numbers of local mills ended production. It got put into multiple usage for many years thereafter and began the inevitable…
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#551 – Review of the decade – 2019
As per the last few years, 2019 saw no urbex and a continuing focus on the industrial and urban landscape. After several years of waiting for a drone with the spec I wanted at the right price I finally took the plunge and bought a DJI Mavic Pro 2 and it’s seen a bit of…
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#549 – Review of the decade – 2017
Telamon – May 2017 I vaguely recalled seeing pictures of a shipwreck in Lanzarote, and I was delighted to discover that it was just down the road from where we were on holiday. The wreck had been there for many years and the front of the hull had long since broken off, but it made…
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#548 – Review of the decade – 2016
A more stable role at work meant I had more time to focus on photography and an opportunity fell into my lap – a commission from a PR company working for O2 who wanted to use me for a job. I also revisited two sites from a few years back, visited a re-opened Mancunian cotton…
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#544 – Review of the decade – 2013
2013 was a very demanding year – my grandparents traumatic struggle with dementia and illness which resulted in my grandfather’s death in December, a change of role at work which saw me traveling overseas regularly and moving house (just up the road) – meant photography got shunted further down the list of priorities. I did…
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#538 – The Industrial Tourist exhibition – now open at Astley Hall, Chorley.
Further to my previous post, the Industrial Tourist opened at Astley Hall on Saturday and all the hard work has paid off! Rory from the Astley Hall staff and myself (but mainly Rory) put all the frames up on Friday and I had a small opening for family and friends on Saturday. Well, I call…
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#537- My next exhibition – The Industrial Tourist at Astley Hall, Chorley
I am pleased to announce that my next photographic exhibition will open on 16th November in Astley Hall in my adopted home town of Chorley. As usual this will be my usual Monochrome photographs of mongy old mills, derelict mines, beached ships and various other industrial artefacts that litter the northern landscape. It opens at…
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#532 – Drone Photography – Vernon Carus 2
I’m still figuring out how to compose photographs from above – while the options are theoretically unlimited, in reality, with a fixed wide angle lens and limitations on where you can fly (distance to buildings, overflying issues, etc) then in reality, interesting compostions aren’t as easy as you might think. But photographs from directly above…
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#531 – Drone Photography – Vernon Carus 1
Vernon Carus’ Penwortham Mills were one of my earliest explores back in 2007. The mill had only recently closed after the company relocated to a brand new factory a few miles up the road. The local vandals had been visiting so security had been reinstalled on site in the old security office and after a…
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#529 – Old Negative Scans Part 9 Belmont Bleachworks
Taken on a snowy Christmas Day in the early 2000’s when the bleachworks was still active, this was sadly the only photograph I got of the place before it closed. While it fundamentally still exists as a small business park, the chimney has gone, the units have been clad in some awful metal cladding and…
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#528 – Old Negative Scans Part 8 – Huncoat Power Station
I made a few trips to Huncoat Power Station, as it was dead easy to explore and only about 30 minutes drive away. The first trip I primarily shot colour film (which I’ve not re-scanned yet, but my original scans from 10 or so years ago are here) and just a few black and white…
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#517 – Slater’s Terrace and Sandygate Mill, 2006
I’ve recently been digging through my archive for forgotten or undiscovered images and I took a look through an album of photographs I took in 2006 around the Weavers Triangle area of Burnley. It was a bright Saturday morning and unfortunately I was shooting into the sun, a fairly elementary error in my planning which…
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#503 – 500 Post Retrospective No.3 – Mills
The mills of the north of England have held a lifelong fascination for me. Growing up in Bolton in the 1980’s meant that the towns industrial heyday had long passed and while there were still plenty of mills around, hardly any were still spinning cotton and with every passing year, more and more mills were…
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#473 – Derelict Ship at Glasson Dock 2
In the past, Glasson Dock has been used for ship breaking (and building) occasionally, so it may well be that Merger meets her end where she now lies. I visited primarily to try out an ND filter, but found that the tide didn’t rise high enough for me to get the pictures I’d envisioned, but…
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#472 – Derelict Ship at Glasson Dock 1
I know nothing of this little ship, other than it used to be a dredger based at Glasson Dock. Named ‘Merger’, internet pictures show it with an excavator positioned near the bow, presumably for clearing the channels of the Lune for the coastal shipping that uses this small Lancashire Port. It looks like its service…
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#470 – Best of 2016 part 3
So a (belated) third part to my 2016 retrospective continues with a quick look at Mutual Mills in Heywood – not an explore, more a drive by as I was in the area. I’ve a few more from the Manchester area that I’ve not yet got round to posting up – I’ll put these up some…
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#468 – Best of 2016 part 1
So, it’s a few years since I did this, but as 2016 has been a productive year photographically, I think it’s time for a retrospective. I guess it’s down to the fact that over the past few years I’ve been busy with my career and family has meant that taking photographs has not been a…
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#464 – Shipbreaking in Morecambe
Quite how I came across the fact that Morecambe was once a major shipbreaking port is unclear. I think it was through researching something vaguely related but several steps later I stumbled across it somewhere en route. Either way, there’s not a whole lot of information on the net, but I found out that a book…
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#454 – Lambert Howarth Mill Demolition
I’d read that this mill was being demolished, but hadn’t been able to get over to see it, until demolition was pretty much complete. This is probably the last bit of the Weavers Triangle to be redeveloped, and had been empty since Lambert Howarth closed in 2005 after the owners Lambert Howarth lost a contract with M&S.…
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#453 – Colne Mills
North Valley Road through Colne used to be lined with several sister mills to the Smith & Nephew Brierfield Mills, but all have been demolished and replaced with shiny new supermarkets and car dealerships which gives a veneer of modernity to impress people passing through. But away from this facade is another typical East Lancashire…
Mechanical Landscapes 