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.