tarboat's photos

Mrs Tarboat and I pass the hours whilst on long car journeys watching out for the slogans on the goods vehicles that we pass. Some can be mildly amusing whilst others are just factual, and then there are the pretentious nonsense types such as this.

A gorgeous small town cinema seating 897 in stalls and balcony, The Regal Cinema opened in 1933 to the design of a Mr Riley. Bought by Zetters Bingo in 1979, the stalls area became a bingo club, with a 226-seat cinema operating in the circle. The bingo has now gone and the stalls area is a bar, whilst the cinema has recently seen a major refurbishment under new owners and reopened in March 2013 seating about 120.

Florence No.2 is digging in behind a rake of wagons on the climb out of Foxfield Colliery yard.

The early morning line-up for servicing was always worth a visit at the Xibolizhan end of the pit at Sandaoling opencast mine. The sun is just about to rise as a JS class locomotive crosses the many tracks leading to the spoil tips.

RENFE class 599 regional diesel train departing Antequera on a service from Algeciras to Granada.

Base of an air shaft in a disused tramroad tunnel. The pile of rubble on the floor may have come from a stone arched 'beehive' capping that has collapsed.

The Hollin Busk Colliery, Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire, appears to have worked coal and fireclay (or possibly ganister). It is supposed to have reached Coal at 108ft and Pot Clay at 261ft. Until recently there were remains of a hand winch adjacent to the headgear. The winding shaft for the colliery was a short distance to the north west of this one which appears to have been sunk c1900 for ventilation. The whole mine had closed before 1930.

This building contains a double single cylinder beam geared haulage engine that was built in 1829 by the Butterley Company to wind wagons on the 708 yard Middleton Incline on a gradient of 1 in 8.25. The incline was closed in summer 1963 and the engine is now in the care of Derbyshire County Council. On some open days it is run using compressed air.

The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is performed around the village on the monday following the first sunday after the fourth of September! :-o This is the oldest dance tradition in England, and the reindeer antlers that the dancers carry have been carbon dated to around 1065. At the end of the day's entertainment the horns are returned to the parish church where they remain until the next year.

Action deep in the In the pit of the opencast coal mine at Sandaoling.

As soon as the sun came out this afternoon there was a Common Darter ( Sympetrum striolatum ) basking on the fence. This male was in good condition and soon chose my bald head as an even warmer place to sit for a while!

Took the dogs racing at Askern track at the weekend. A great day out was had by all and my two made some finals and even came back with a rosette for second place in one race. Amidst the barking and excitement trackside, I spotted this chap just chilling in the most comfortable corner he could find. :-)

The Rockley blast furnace which stands in the woods near Rockley Abbey Farm, was built between 1698 and 1704 to smelt the local iron ore. It was worked until the 1740s by the Spencer syndicate of ironmasters of Cannon Hall, Cawthorne.

The empty coal wagons for the Sandaoling mines are nearly at their destination after being banked across the desert from the exchange with China Rail at Liushuguan.

Viterra owned grain silos at Port Pirie on the Spencer Gulf in South Australia. The maximum loading capacity under the spouts is 800 tonnes per hour.

The Greengate Brick and Tile Co., also owned Greengate Colliery at St Helens. Later the brickworks passed to Pilkington's. It was situated close to the railway on land at the rear of the current Pilkington's Greengate factory. The works in 1923: www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw009301

Clearly manufactured somewhere in or around Buxton in Derbyshire. I have been unable to conclusively locate the brickworks that made this brick.

Genessee & Wyoming 700 class locomotive heads an Adelaide bound freight across the B56 Main North Rd crossing at Winninowie south of Port Augusta.