tarboat's photos

Boiler house at the UPM paper mill, Shotton, Deeside which produces about 22% of the UK newsprint requirement. The boilers are partly fuelled with the ink that has been reclaimed from recycled paper that is being put into the production of newsprint. There is currently little/no rail traffic to/from the site.

The Swan Lane Spinning Co Ltd. made sure that its mill was recognisable with a number of architectural details. The use of coloured brick in the chimney left us this superb piece of advertising.

This is one of four(!) of these fine ridge dragons that adorn a former pub/hotel adjacent to the harbour at Brightlingsea. The building is now apartments and hopefully these fine specimens will survive for many years to come.

In pouring rain a long train of permanent way maintenance stock approaches the big curve before Rhyd Ddu on the Welsh Highland Railway.

SY1583 with the morning empties to the Kuangsan Copper Mine on the Baiyin Mining Railway. The yellow areas encroaching onto the hills are the spoil tipping from the now closed adjacent opencast mine.

Junction Mine at Broken Hill was developed from 1884 and from 1886 to closure in 1923 the Broken Hill Junction Silver Mining Co. produced ore to the value of £1.2 million. The mine was reworked by North Broken Hill Ltd between 1946 and 1962, and again by South Broken Hill Ltd. until 1972. The wooden headframe is the oldest on the line of lode and was erected at Browne Shaft in the 1890s athough it has been modified several times. The winding enginehouse and ore bins here date from the 1946 reworking.

Auto-Masters Ltd is a family firm that was founded in 1947. It specialises in producing special purpose machinery for a wide range of industries along with manufacturing and designing Harnden plastic bag making machinery and the Rowland range of friction material and foundry equipment. This is their premises at Hyde shortly before it was all demolished and now housing stands on this site. The company is now based at Hadfield, Glossop.

In the dark days of 1940/41 there was a real fear of invasion after the German forces overran the nearby European countries, and desperate efforts were made to develop defences within Britain to help stop or at least slow down an invading force. One method was the use of roadblocks incorporating concrete cylinders that were supposed to be able to obstruct mechanised traffic. The remains in this image are part of a factory that was set up to manufacture these cylinders and was abandoned after the invasion scares were over. Since then it has lain derelict and quietly disappearing into the woodland that has developed on teh site. The pulley wheel is attached to one of three pan mills used for preparing materials and the corrugated iron sheets are what little is left of the building that once protected the machinery. There is also a batch concrete mixer and dozens of unused cylinders around the area.

Snow is dusting the mountain tops around Snowdon as a pair of SAR Garratts heads towards Pont Croesor with a long PW train on the Welsh Highland line. The end of a long frustrating day where the sun eluded us most of the time whilst the driving rain did not.

Description from the Cinema Treasures website. The Regent Theatre was built as a cine-variety house and opened in 1913 having being designed by Francis Burdett Ward. In August 1916 it became a full-time cinema. It has an elaborately decorated auditorium containing a large stalls seating area, single balcony and two bulbous boxes on each side. The whole auditorium is richly embellished with fibrous plasterwork . The proscenium arch is marble flanked and the stage was relatively deep for such a dual-purpose building. The ornate decoration extends through into the foyer areas which were altered in 1935. In 1943 when, in the ownership of Eastern Counties Cinemas Ltd, it seated 1,000. It was operated by Shipman & King from around 1959. Despite the generous stage, the Regent Theatre was mostly operated as a cinema until closure on 6th September 1975 when it became a bingo hall. This too has closed and the Regent is now a large bar, now known as the Chicago Rock Cafe, it thankfully retains the auditorium decorations intact. The foyer has been extensively altered and also functions as a bar. It is a Grade II Listed building.

The Technical Institute and Library was designed to accommodate the two functions of a public, free library and a technical institute to train the many apprentices in the local glass industry. Andrew Carnegie gave £2,000 towards the library building in 1901 and the rest of the cost was borne by Brierley Hill Urban District Council. The foundation stone was laid in April 1903, and the building opened in 1904. The design was by Lewis Harper, who was borough surveyor, and the builder was CA Horton. The brick and terracotta used were locally produced by the Ketley Brick Company, and the sculptures of Learning and Art were modelled by Arthur Gibbons and Albert Oakden who were, respectively, headmaster and assistant of the School of Art. The teaching in the school encompassed fine art and the skills of glass cutting and cameo etching. The library moved out of the building in the mid-20th century but it remained as a technical institute for the glass industry until recently. It is now a business centre (whatever that is). The entrances for the two original uses are both ornately decorated and lettered in the Ketley terracotta, but the slope of the site has meant that they do not match and the technical institute doors and fanlight are significantly taller than those for the library.

When I first visited Chatterley Whitfield in 1975 the Hesketh shaft was no longer being used to wind coal although the steam winding engine was still being used to raise men. Since the closure of the museum here in the 1990s the decay has been extensive and the structures are now in poor condition.

Jinty and Bagnall meet in the yard at Foxfield Colliery on a very wet morning, just like it used to be. Pity there are no ropes on the sheaves.

Palmerston & Prince with vintage coaches crossing the stone embankment above Rhiw Goch on the Ffestiniog Railway.

Bolton's Swan Lane No.3 Mill on the left was built in 1914 to the design of Stott & Sons of Oldham. The Swan Lane Spinning Co Ltd. finally closed the mill in 1963 and it is now partly occupied by a range of businesses. It is listed Grade II* but is on the register of buildings at risk. To the right are the No.1 and No.2 Mills which were completed in 1903 and 1906.

More corporate nonsense splurged on the side of a van. Surely it should be 'dispensing' rather than 'dispense'? The company appears to supply beer pumps and refrigeration to the licensed trade.

The Grangemouth refinery is currently in the news having been closed down (temporarily?) by owners Ineos in a dispute with the workforce. It is the largest industrial plant in Scotland and supplies much of the oil based fuels used in Scotland and the North of England.

Still brewing fine ales and now with new brewing plant which allows smaller batches than previously. Robinson's brewery is an iconic part of the Stockport landscape.