#261 – Cheadle Bleachworks

For reasons that are, at best unclear, and at worse, downright weird, I have this thing about industrial ruins. Not so ruined that you can’t tell what it was, but ruined enough to be beyond repair. Proper mongy old crap – roofs caved in, doors hanging off and such like. They’re usually quick to explore as there’s not much to see, and quite often mostly inaccessible, but from an aesthetic perspective, they can throw up some interesting photographs.

Cheadle Bleachworks was one of the most ruinous places I’ve stumbled through. The history of it is pretty vague as quite understandably, no-one has been bothered to spend that much time researching it, and it’s a pretty insignificant place anyway.

Not being burdened with much in the way of roofing, the strong directional sunlight shining through the remains of the decrepit structures made for some interesting shadows, and if anything, these are best displayed on the monochrome images. These are true monochrome inasmuch as they were taken on proper black and white film (Ilford XP2) using a Nikon FM. If anything, I think I prefer these to the ones I took of the same scenes in colour, but the colour images were better out of the direct sunlight. I also experimented for the first time with selective colour (see the first image), which at the time in 2007 was quite a popular technique. It’s fallen out of favour since somewhat, primarily in my opinion, because like HDR, people either overdid it or used blatantly unsuitable images. I’ve done very few other selective colour images, but I like to think that this one has stood the test of time and still works. It’s certainly done well in competitions.

‘PLEASE KEEP THIS DOOR CLOSED’

The site was a fairly unremarkable explore that doesn’t stand out in my memory, other than the crunching of broken glass and roofing material underfoot (which is why I always wear boots or safety shoes on explores), and the drums of unidentified chemicals that had been left / dumped in one of the rooms.

Company records still on site, although slightly singed after someone indulged in a spot of arson.

Boilers

Despite the apocalyptic devastation, it’s somewhat ironic that this site was bought by a developer who intended to convert some of the buildings to housing.  Mystifying to me as none of the buildings, in my opinion had any architectural merit whatsoever, but kudos to the developer for tackling this site and making a silk purse out of a real sow’s ear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheadle_Lower_Mill

Hard to imagine, but this is now a rather nice property, complete with a 100 foot tall red brick chimenea in the back yard, a talking point if nothing else.

# 260 – Staffordshire Collieries Part 2 – Apedale

Now this was more like it. Someone at Chatterley Whitfield had told us that there was another colliery, Apedale, that we could visit in Stoke, but it was at the other end of town. As I didn’t have a satnav, I had to follow Bungle at breakneck speed across town to find the place. It appeared to be just closing for the day, but the proprietor was a fantastic bloke and he agreed to stay open for a bit longer and to take us underground as well. Apedale is a drift mine, which means that the shaft was dug diagonally into the ground rather than vertically, and there was little of the vast array of surface infrastructure that there was at Chatterley Whitfield. However, there was a newly built museum, and of course the mine you could go down, which is always good. There were big plans for Apedale, and it sounds like they’re coming to fruition, with the Moseley Railway Trust moving their stock there in 2010 to become the Apedale Valley Railway. At the time it was still at the planning stage, but there was still enough to keep us amused.

Well worth a visit! The place is officially the Apedale Heritage Centre, find more about them on their website http://www.apedale.co.uk/

Manic Miner – Gibbo gets stuck in.

Our host -  a smashing chap who showed us round and let us do our light painting in the mine.

 Bungle, DCG, Me, R1 and Gibbo. I’ve explored with them all on ‘proper’ explores, a top bunch of lads.

# 259 – Staffordshire Collieries Part 1 – Chatterley Whitfield

Another one from the archives here, this was an ‘official’ visit to this crumbling edifice on a so-called open day. Actually, that’s being harsh and doing a disservice to our guides from the Ffriends of Chatterley Whitfield, who are probably more disappointed about the condition of this place than anyone else, and I’m sure have the best interests of the place at heart.

The colliery was one of the last in the Staffordshire coalfield, and upon closure, became a museum. however, this closed in 1993 due to drainage problems, but I’ve also heard that there were some other financial issues. However given the amount of infrastructure on site, the upkeep of the site must have been massive. That’s a great shame, because compared with other preserved collieries such as the National Coalmining museum in Yorkshire, it’s almost completely intact. Well, sort of. The majority of the site is out of bounds due to it being in such poor condition, indeed, I was speaking to a former NCB surveyor, who is now a consulting surveyor, and although he’d been asked to do a survey on the site, some bits they wouldn’t let him into due to it’s condition. THat it’s been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent is scandalous, and English Heritage have already listed it as being ‘At Risk’ and requiring at least £25million to repair (although given that you have to use a cartel of suppliers named by English Heritage to repair listed buildings, that might be somewhat inflated?).

 Platt Shaft

The worry is that the place will either just collapse, or end up having to be demolished. Given the lack of money around at the moment, especially amongst the public sector, I really cannot see how this place can be restored, at least not in its entirety. It would be a huge shame if it ended up as a watered down, stripped out museum like the National Coal Mining Museum (enjoyable though it is to visit).

Industrial landscape

So as we walked through the miles of Herras fencing with our hard hats and an unusually high number of escorts / guides, we had to contend with looking at the buildings and headstocks from something of a distance. Yes, yes, I know all about H&S considerations, insurance, etc, but it would have been nice to have been allowed a bit closer or even in some of the buildings.  The saving grace were our main guides, both former colliery workers, whose stories helped put a lot of the site into context, and it was worth the visit just for this alone.

Decay

The only buildings we actually entered were the lamp house and the semi-restored bath house, where I was fortunate to be able to capture one of my favourite photos, ‘Colliers Boot’.

Colliers Boot

Sinke – this being Stoke, I’d presume they were locally made

If you do get the chance to visit this place in one of the increasingly rare open days, do so, but don’t expect to see a great deal.

Former glory – probably taken some time in the 60′s or 70′s. Pretty much everything you see in this picture is still there.

#258 – Blog Recommendations

They’re nearly all listed in my blogroll, but here’s an overview of some blogs that I subscribe to:

Münchow’s Creative Photo Blog some really interesting posts on here on photography related creativity, a difficult topic to write about as I’ve found out!

alanclogwyn.wordpress.com Quarryscapes – Alan Clogwyn / Richard Alan Jones photoblog of the North Wales Quarries, a subject I find fascinating and one I’ve photographed myself. He’s also very enthusiastic about film, something I’m getting back into.

andybeelfrps.co.uk - monochrome photography of a very high standard. Instructive and inspirational, especially if, like me, you’re into your black and white.

therailwaymuddler.blogspot.com - some interesting posts and photographs on transport, history, industry and other stuff

geotopoi.wordpress.com - Graham Stephens photographs of his wanderings around, North Wales, Scotland and beyond. Some great photographs of some fascinating locations and interesting finds. Plenty of quarries, but lots of other stuff as well.

stevemccurry.wordpress.com - one of my all time favourite photographers, and he doesn’t even take pictures of the things I do. I’ve spent hours just looking at images on here, it’s superb.

martincreese.blogspot.com- well known railway photographer and charter organiser posts some excellent write ups of his charters and other railway photography.

http://artprofilesworld.wordpress.com - the work of some brilliant creative minds showcased here – not just photography, but art of all kinds. Several posts a day, and some of the stuff is mind boggling!

#257 – Riverdance

I posted this photograph of the MS Riverdance a couple of years back, but seeing the recent posts on Geotopoi of the wreck of the MV Carrier brought back a few memories.

The story is well documented - storm force winds hit Britain at the end of January 2008, and overnight, the cargo ferry Riverdance was hit by a huge wave while trying to make it to the Lancashire port of Heysham. This cause the cargo to shift and the ship started to list at 60 degrees. Mayday was called, and the crew and passengers were airlifted off, before the ship ran aground on the beach at Cleveleys.

The next day, residents awoke to see this huge ship lying on the beach, just off the prom, and pictures of it were all over the news channels. The weather the following day remained wet and very windy, but overnight, it had become something of a tourist attraction.

I’d just returned from a holiday in sunny Australia, but despite being severely jetlagged, I decided that this wasn’t the kind of thing that happens everyday round these parts, so I made the short trip up to Cleveleys to see what was going on. The town centre somewhat overrun with cars, but I’d already got a photo in mind looking back down the coast towards neighbouring Blackpool, so I headed north for some easier parking and set off down the beach in the face of a strong, bitterly cold wind throwing rain and hail at me off the Irish Sea.

This being the first day of February, the light was very low in the sky and somewhat weak, and as I headed southwards down the beach into the sun, the light seemed to be constantly changing as the strong winds continued to blow dark clouds across the sky.

Seeing the ship lying on the beach at a jaunty angle was a strange sight. It’s hard to articulate why – maybe it’s because your typical image of a shipwreck is one you’d see on TV news of a ship at the bottom of a steep cliff being smashed apart by the waves, or of a ship taking in water at sea. But to see a completely intact ship on a flat beach, a few hundred yards from houses and shops, with lean so severe that it’s cargo of articulated lorries were falling into the sea, was somewhat surreal.

Part of the reason I’d headed north from the wreck was because the photo I had in mind was inspired by a great photo on the BBC news websites ‘Big Picture’ feature., and I wanted to capture something similar. Using the telephoto, I was able to achieve exactly the composition I had in mind, although I had to get the positioning just right so that I could get a recognisable Blackpool Tower in to give the picture some context. Without it, well it could have been anywhere really couldn’t it? But I suppose that’s the art of the photojournalist, to tell a story in one picture.

Having a picture in mind was one thing, but the execution of it was another matter, thankfully, I was using a 70-300 VR lens that I’d just picked up in Hong Kong, en route to Australia, and the stabilisation was a real boon when using the lens at 300mm in a strong wind with what felt like frostbite eating my gloved hands.

With my main planned shot in the can, I started to see what other opportunities presented themselves. Getting close to the ship wasn’t going to happen as the Coast Guard were actively enforcing a 400 metre exclusion zone, so I was forced to look from afar. Just then, a yellow Sea King clattered into view and made it’s way to the ship. Hovering above the superstructure, the winch descended and lowered a man onto the precariously angled deck. On board must have been like a 1960’s Adam West era episode of Batman, and he didn’t appear to hang around for very long, before ascending back into the Sea King.

As I got closer I began to realise just hoe many people had turned out to gawp at the spectacle. Like a giant steel beached whale, the ship became a magnet for thousands of people. And not just from the shore. Ignoring the exclusion zone, the local kite surfers took advantage of the strong winds to get some spectacular height on their jumps, much to the frustration of the Coast Guard who couldn’t do much about them as they had no access to boats.

Walking back along the beach close to the sea wall, I noticed something that I’d missed on the way down the beach – millions of chocolate biscuits! I neglected to get a photo unfortunately, but amongst the shingle and flotsam and jetsam washed ashore in the storm were piles of soggy chocolate digestives that had previously been in one of the storm damaged artics on the deck of the ship. I didn’t salvage any as I’m not a fan of pre-dunked biscuits with my brew!

What became of the ship? After several attempts to refloat it failed, it was declared a total loss. I suspect this was partially due to its age, as it looked substantially intact, however, I’ve also read somewhere that a ships structure will weaken after a prolonged period of time aground at an angle. This is because the forces acting on it are different to what it was designed for, and so stresses are caused which could be terminal. So the decision was taken to break up the ship where she laid. This was no small task as clearly the beach is subject to the tides and whatever weather the Irish sea could throw at it. And with gravity eventually kicking in, the ship toppled onto its side which I would imagine isn’t the optimum position for shipbreaking. Demolition was eventually completed in October 2010, and I’ll try to dig out a few images I took on later visits.

Since 2008 there have been no more shipwrecks on the Fylde, indeed, there were only actually three in the 20th century. Whether this is due to advances in navigation technology, improvements in the seaworthiness of ships, or a decline in coastal traffic I don’t know, but that wild night in January will stick in local memories for years to come.

#256 – Great North Steam Fair – 3

The thing I like about Beamish is that despite it being a museum, it all feels real. Unlike Disney, who manage to suck the life out of everything in their sterile make-believe theme parks, everything at Beamish is real, and not only that, most of the buildings existed elsewhere before being taken apart and re-sited at the museum. Sure it’s all a lot cleaner than it was in 1913 (the approximate year that the museum has pitched itself as being representative of), and there’s not much horseshit in the streets, but the look and feel is bang on.

Adding to this at the Great North Steam Fair was the large numbers of visiting steam engines, buses, steam rollers, vintage cars and trucks, motorbikes, trams and even bicycles, all driven by people in period dress. The excellent main street with its shops and businesses, houses, Bank, Masonic Hall, Garage, etc, felt like a set from a period drama as we got off the old bus that had brought us round from the entrance.

From a photographic perspective, it’s target rich, but as I was with my 2 year old,  my wife and my parents, trying to take some nice photos while keeping track of the family whilst pushing a push chair round and avoiding passing vehicles was somewhat challenging. After bumping into my friend, the railway photographer Nigel Valentine, who was busy taking shot after shot of the trams, bikes and goodness knows what else, I got slightly envious!

Not something you see every day in 2012, but probably a common site in 1913.

Steam powered line up. The owners of the visiting engines seemed to have the freedom to drive round the site as much as they liked, which was good.

Foden and tram – I’d forgotten how nice trams are. Modern ones like the Metrolink in Manchester are a bit bus-like, but being able to move quickly and quietly through town streets is ace. There were various old ones in use at Beamish and my trip on this one was most agreeable.

#255 – Great North Steam Fair 2 – Coffee Pots and a Colliery

I think this is a de Winton engine, similar to the ones photographed on the Geotopoi blog

The colliery at Beamish is a real one,  well sort of, it’s made up of bits of other collieries that have been rebuilt to form one new one. The steam engine works as well, and the entire setup makes a wonderful backdrop for some railway photography. Unfortunately, none of the larger standard gauge  engines were in steam on the colliery line, although some narrow gauge line had been set up for some visiting narrow gauge vertical boilered engines, known colloquially as ‘coffee pots’. I’d only ever seen photographs of these before, so it was interesting to see just how small they are in real life.

A recent arrival at Beamish is standard gauge 0-6-0 ‘Newcastle’. This was named after Newcastle-under-Lyme in its native Staffordshire, not the nearby Newcastle-on-Tyne. It’s not been steamed since the 80′s but seems to be in reasonably good condition, and is due for restoration at Beamish.

A somehwat larger standard gauge vertical boilered engine. This was as close as I could get and couldn’t speak to anyone about it, so I know nothing about it.

#254 – Great North Steam Fair 1 – The Steam Elephant

Last year I went to the wonderful Beamish Open Air Museum, and loved it! Only thing was, we went a tad early in the season and not everything was open. Vowing to return, we opted to visit during the Great North Steam Fair, which pretty much opens the season.

As we’d already seen a lot of the pit village and town already, we spent more time looking at the transport that was running. This was many and varied, but the resident attractions are predominantly railways and trams. This intriguing device is known as the Steam Elephant, an exact replica (built in 2002) of a loco originally built in 1815. Predating Stephensons ‘Rocket’ by 14 years, it is atypical of the early locomotives with it’s single tube boiler and vertical pistons and motion.

This was the first time I’d seen an engine like this in actions and an intriguing (and slow) thing it is to. It’s ironic that the North East was the cradle of steam railway technology thanks to the needs of the massive local coal mining industry, but this engine is actually fuelled by Welsh coal!

# 253 – Return To Dinorwic – Film Shots

I’d promised myself that I’d shoot more film in 2012, so the first proper opportunity I had was Dinorwic. As described in previous posts, I took along a digital compact, and two film cameras. Not ideal, but at least the X10 is small enough to slip into a waist bag and is out of the way.  I hate neckstraps on cameras, so I have wrist straps on my SLR’s which is fine when you’re using one, but when you’ve got two, it become a pain in the arse. Still, you make your bed and you’ve got to sleep in it.

In the two cameras I used two different types of film – Kodak Ektar 100 in the F80 with a 28-105 lens, and Kodak BW400CN in the F100 with a 20mm lens. Ektar I’ve used before on my last visit and was quite pleased with the results, while I’ve been using chromogenic black and white films such as BW400CN, XP2 and the like for years, if nothing else for convenience as they are C41 process.

I’d originally though about using the colour film to bring out the colours in the scenes I shot, but the colour pallete of Dinorwic is so limited, that I wouldn’t have taken many shots if I’d have stuck to that plan. So, I ended up using them both side by side. In retrospect, Ektar was probably too slow a film for the conditions as it’s speed is 100 ISO, and at times I was struggling for light as I was not using a tripod. No such problems with the BW400, especially with the short focal length lens.

Would be nice to have had two F100′s, it’s just a nicer camera to handle than the F80, which arguably is a bit small for me. Not that I’ve got excessively large hands, just that the F100 fits better.

I do like the Colour shots, and was surprised at how well it managed to cope with how well it handled the light, although, colour negative film does have very good dynamic range.

Interestingly, the feedback I’ve had seems to favour the black and white ones.

# 252 – Return To Dinorwic – Details

Something I try to do when exploring somewhere is to go close in and pick out the smaller details. Not only does it give some variety to the wider landscapes and architectural shots, it allows for a bit more creativity and to look closer at textures, shapes, etc. If you read the Geotopoi blog, some of these may look familiar!