The Urban Spaceman: October 2012

Tuesday 30 October 2012

The Asylum

A bit of a sacred cow this one. We had wanted to crack it for a while, but the place is well fenced off and has security guards on patrol. A couple of early attempts came to nothing. Most memorably one time where Fragglehunter spent the afternoon playing can and mouse with a local farmer in the fields of Lancashire. As it turns out, access was a simply matter of spending long enough strolling around. The clues eventually appear and from there it was just a case of climbing through some bushes, over a fence, through a field, over another fence, waiting for security to move on, then a third fence and we were in the compound. From there is was a case of remaining out of sight and looking for a way in. We know of two. There will undoubtedly be more. Most importantly, we gained access without breaking in or doing any damage. We take it seriously. We aren't pikeys!

Lots has been written about this place, but a few interesting facts might be that at its full capacity the asylum housed 3500 patients and had a staff of 600. Within the boundaries were a 500 acre working farm, its own water tower, a cinema / theatre, its own brewery and butchers. It also had its own railway station. It was the largest hospital in the UK and the second largest in Europe.

Fenced off and overgrown. It is absolutely jumping with wildlife.

Not in such good shape once inside. I went through the floor at one point. Theives have been at the lead and slates so the buildings are crumpling and rotten.

The sort of ward one might expect to meet Kenneth Williams or Hattie Jacques in.


One of the inter linked corridors, seen from above.

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The theatre. Note the two projector windows at the back.

One of dozens of day rooms.

Another inevitable chair shot.

Fragglehunter doing his thing.

The main entrance.

We probably only saw 10% of the site. It really is huge. As usual I have hundreds of photos. I will post more when time allows. Thanks for looking.

Pigment Factory, Derbyshire

Where to begin with this one? This shoot was all about colours, it was after all an old pigment factory. Fragglehunter and I visited the site last summer. At the time the place was wide open. A huge old factory with labs and its own row of cottages. I gather the place is boarded up and locked down these days. It had been attracting too much attention from the Urbex crowd and local youths were doing a pretty god job of smashing the place up.

All the cottages were wide open. Many of the upstairs floors were lifted by theives to steal the copper. Astonishingly the roofs still had their lead work, so the buildings hadn't rotted. Apart from all the broken windows and thievery, these places would easily be made habitable. They must we worth a small fortune!

And here is the mill.Again, very sound and at the time it was also wide open. It would be rude not to take a look inside...

The postman still delivers every day. And the mail piles up behind the cottage doors. Electoral voting cards, TV License reminders. All very strange.

A rather splendid boiler remains.

The inevitable old chair shot.

See what I mean about the colours in here. My pics look boosted, I assure you they are not!

The place just glows. It was as spooky as hell in there I might add. The building creaks and groans, doors suddenly slam. The whole time it felt as though we were being watched.

Fragglehunter. On the hunt.

Meanwhile, in the labs. More colours, complete with test tubes and beakers, fume cabinet and dials and gauges. And more creaking and banging of doors.

The more we looked, the more there was. We must have been in there for four hours.

Abandoned Brickworks Around Halifax

Another Sunday scope with The Fragglehunter. This time headed for White Rose turf with a trip to Cleckuddersfax. As is often the case, we set off with our sights on one thing, and wound up shooting something else altogether. In this instance, we looked for a Mink farm, and found two brick factories instead...

As is sometimes the case on these trips, the buildings we found weren't all that photogenic in themselves. Some buildings fall apart beautifully, others do not. These two sites fall squarely in the latter group. So focus instead on the graf' and look for anything with good form or some colour.

Wilkinsons of Elland, visible from the M62.

On to Hipperholme...

The glazed brick manufacturers was established by Henry Victor Allen when he took over the Halifax Glazed Brick Works in the Walterclough valley.
He converted the works to manufacture refractory bricks.
They were taken over by G.R.Stein of Scotland in 1936 who were the largest brick works of their time.
There Selfrac refactory bricks were world famous.
Today the site is ruined and fire damaged after a series of suspicious fires after the factory was used to make stiff plastic bricks.

Saturday 27 October 2012

Hartshead Power Station

Hiding in the woods, east of Manchester

Hartshead Power Station lies to the east of Manchester and to the North West of Stalybridge.

Preparations for a power station at Heyrod began in 1916 when 26 acres (110,000 m²) of land were purchased. The station was opened in 1926 by the Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Transport and Electricity Board.^[1] The cooling towers were constructed in the 1940s. Coal was delivered to the plant at Millbrook railway sidings on the Micklehurst Line, situated on the opposite side of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. The sidings were built in 1932 and had space to hold up to 130 12-ton wagons. Coal was fed into a hopper underneath the sidings before being transported on an enclosed conveyor belt which emerged high above the valley to cross the River Tame and canal before entering the station at a high level.^[2] The station was closed on 29 October 1979 with a generating capacity of 64 megawatts.^[3] It was demolished during the 1980s, although part of the site is still used as an electrical substation.