mr_bones
Gormless Moderator
The Maltings in Sleaford is a fascinating place, having seen a handful of writeups and photosets I was intrigued enough to plan my own trip. It had also been over a year since I had met up with Simon and he was eager to get a good explore in, so with a weeks planning which included some very useful sketches, we were off.
No thanks to the demented Sat-Nav we arrived early afternoon in glorious sunshine. The first set of buildings we came across looked in much better condition than I had envisaged. We concentrated on seeing as much of the first building as possible before progressing gradually towards the centre of the site through buildings in varying states of repair. Many of the buildings were burnt out, but still looked interesting in places where you could see remains of wheels and conveyors that would have run wall to wall. One building in particular led us to the top floor, and across an aerial walkway that looked really solid until the very last few feet where I mentioned to Simon that I could see through the floor to the ground that was 4 or 5 storeys below!
Eventually we headed for the water tower, which was far more grand than it looked from the outside. The spiral staircase leading upto the first floor was probably the biggest and best i've ever seen, although climbing up is a bit dizzying! We eventually made our way up to the top floor where we realised the sheer scale of the maltings, and how much we were going to have to save for another day!
After the tower we made our way out of the site, satisfied with what we had seen!
A timeline of the sites operation and much more can be found here: http://www.sleafordmaltings.com/chronology.htm
Photos(please excuse the glare):
No thanks to the demented Sat-Nav we arrived early afternoon in glorious sunshine. The first set of buildings we came across looked in much better condition than I had envisaged. We concentrated on seeing as much of the first building as possible before progressing gradually towards the centre of the site through buildings in varying states of repair. Many of the buildings were burnt out, but still looked interesting in places where you could see remains of wheels and conveyors that would have run wall to wall. One building in particular led us to the top floor, and across an aerial walkway that looked really solid until the very last few feet where I mentioned to Simon that I could see through the floor to the ground that was 4 or 5 storeys below!
Eventually we headed for the water tower, which was far more grand than it looked from the outside. The spiral staircase leading upto the first floor was probably the biggest and best i've ever seen, although climbing up is a bit dizzying! We eventually made our way up to the top floor where we realised the sheer scale of the maltings, and how much we were going to have to save for another day!
After the tower we made our way out of the site, satisfied with what we had seen!
A timeline of the sites operation and much more can be found here: http://www.sleafordmaltings.com/chronology.htm
Photos(please excuse the glare):