tarboat's photos

A look from the booking office across the wet and windswept platform to the train awaiting departure from Moyasta Junction on the West Clare Railway.

Shunting the coal washery at Banovici in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

John Slater, Berry Hill Collieries, used the Jayess mark for some of the bricks produced at the Berry Hill brickworks.

A brick from the Manchester area that was lying in a great pile of unmarked bricks next to a house that was being extended using old materials. I know nothing of the manufacturer.

Nathan Barlow was operating from Portland Street in Hanley between 1884 and 1887 but does not appear in trade directories for 1879 or 1896. In 1889 he is listed as Nathan Barlow, Boothen Brick and Marl Company, Cobridge.

Plant & Hammersley only appear in Kelly's directory for 1876, listed as being at Dresden Mills, Hanley.

A very long extablished brickyard which first appears in the trade directory for 1828-29 under Thomas Peake & Co, Tunstall. In 1889 it is the executors of the late Thomas Peake and in 1940 it was T. Peake, the Tileries, Tunstall.

Sanquhar and Kirkconnel Coal Company brickworks in Dumfriesshire, closed by the NCB in 1958.

Having finally located the lost negatives from my adventures in the early 1980s I can begin scanning some of the images hiding amongst them. At that time I would spend a few days holiday with a friend visiting old disused industrial sites, and occasionally working sites where we were often made welcome by the management and allowed to wander through the buildings and yards photographing whatever we wanted. A far cry from today when we would be instantly killed in a terrible disaster if the current excessive safety culture is anything to go by. One location we called at was R.E. Knowles, Furness Vale Colliery and Fireclay Works. The colliery side of the business had finished some years earlier, but the firebrick business was booming and the old coal-fired kilns were hard at work. At the time a significant portion of the business was supplying fire-backs to Saudi Arabia! This is one of the clamp type kilns on the site and another can be seen in the left background. To the right is one of the beehive downdraught kilns also operated here. Today the business continues, but making concrete based refractory items. The kilns are long gone and the yard is a small trading estate.

According to the old maps this lonely house is called Sniddles. As far as I can tell it is associated with the coal mining industry in this remote upland area of Staffordshire. The raised area in front of the building is an old coal shaft, and there is another one behind the photographer. Almost certainly eighteenth century workings in this case.

A spirited departure from Gernrode on the Selketalbahn.

Today I decided to have a peek at the small synclinal coalfield at Goldsitch Moss, just over the Cheshire border and into Staffordshire - in the shadow of the Roaches. At least three seams from the lower coal measures have been worked here since at least the beginning of the fifteenth century until the last workings closed in the nineteenth century. The whole area is just a mass of old shafts and spoil heaps interspersed with gin circles and trackways. I doubt that there is much coal left after this intensity of working. This is one of the larger shaft remains which has run in at some time. My guess is that this one dates from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.

The light falling snow is already beginning to accumulate on the dunes as QJ 7036 heaves a long train of empties across this viaduct on the extension of the Daba-Guyaozi Coal Railway to the new mine at Yangchangwan. View On Black

Abandoned dredger lurking amongst the mudflats along the Shannon estuary.

On a grey day with snow pending XK2 No.51 (Davenport 2482 of 1943) shunts a coach from the internal works service at the electric locomotive depot of the Anshan steelworks. This is one of five of these US built locomotives that saw service at Anshan. Today it is plinthed near Heping Bridge, Anshan. A close relation to this locomotive can be seen in this image .

On a grey day with snow pending XK2 No.51 (Davenport 2482 of 1943) shunts a coach from the internal works service at the electric locomotive depot of the Anshan steelworks. This is one of five of these US built locomotives that saw service at Anshan. Today it is plinthed near Heping Bridge, Anshan. A close relation to this locomotive can be seen in this image .

Photographers set up for a view of the city centre landscape from the roof of the Park Hill flats in Sheffield.

The crew of the Yugoslavian built locomotive take a keen interest in the photographer during a pause in shunting at the Vreoci coal washery. A close relation to this locomotive , and another view .