Albright & Wilson, marchon chemical plant, whitehaven, june 2008

Well I lie, less *uber massive chemical plant the likes of which would have dwarfed pyestock*, more *the offices and admin and science/chemlabs left behind after 3yrs worth of demo work no seriously, its taken around 3yrs of work to remove all the plant and equipment from site!

Visited over a year ago on three occasions, back then there was some plant, some soap packaging lines, and a twin gas turbine power plant, and the opening to two large mineral mines. but still the vast mass of plant and process equipment had been packed up and shipped abroad (I presume).

Now all that remains is the admin block, the company headquarters office complex & science labs. and the security bungalow at the far end of site (nearly a mile away!!!).

Visited with dempsey following a whole spate of failed attempts at some new sites, inc one extremly close run in with some police LOL *oh noes, hide in the bushs, THERE AREN'T ANY, oh, well just duck down and hope they don't see us* :freak worked though

apologies for dodgy whitebalance, left it on auto so they are all over the shop, even though tried to correct by post process but still a bit off.


NE side of science block, hadn't done this bit until now, according to dempsey it was mint and sealed until last june, chavs have had a field day inside.


showing the levels of the block. down to the left is the company headquarters, large cafeteria, wharehouse space, library and board rooms., and the 3rd building to the extreme far left is the site office, including IT and admin.


front pavillion on the science labs, really 80's with that copper style tinted glass, there used to be well groomed gardens and pathways leading along the front of all three building, now WELL overgrown.


straight to the lowest level, looks like a forklift drivers playground in this partially sublevel.


awesome finds, bags of big rubber handling gloves, little blue ones and then all these extractor cabinets, just like in school all them years ago :thumb


chavs were here looks like some kind of torture rack!


still loads of stuff left, last year all of this would have been neatly packaged and in their respective drawers.


uhoh, macro stuff


dempsey with his fav gloves, prob fav shot of day.


tried for some hdr on this, but it came out purple& radioactive colours again :freak

into the 2nd building now, the head office/cafe/wharehouse building.


excutive radiators.


crazy decorations in the corridoor, some depict industrial looking landscapes and mining and the rest is just some fresh crazy'ness, mushrooms, crazy plants.


oldschool projector in the cafe/meeting type place, theres a mini bar, some more excutive radiators,and lots of mirrors and plastic plants! nice


mint old cooker! immaculate, not a bit of dust or grease anywhere! don't build em like that any more (easy to clean LOL).


'uncontrolled' not really sure what was out of control, but somebody ATE my cacti that I found here a year ago


mmmmm, telephone shots, FTW


telephone telephone shots, with added people shots.


front door of the HQ building, extra humid in here, used to be real plants in teh pavillion on the front, must have got a bit overgrown, then died right down. This area could have been derelict anywhere between 2001-2004.


a little office me and demps rigged up with equipment found in neighbouring offices.


and finally, back of the s6 (?) wharehouse, seems to have been a storage warehouse for final product maybe? used to stink of soap, the whole area did, but now just smells like pigeons!!!


ah forgot this one! another fav

Cool, some lovely shots in there. I remember seeing your posts on this place last year, it looked immense. 3 years to clear a site gives an idea of the size I suppose!

flashearth linkage to what it used to look like when in full swing (80-2001), then on an off demo ever since, months at a time, over 6yrs, so guessing 3yrs.

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=54.527048&lon=-3.599653&z=15.7&r=0&src=msl

from top to bottom of screen, ALL of it! well not the houses, but the carparks that side of the road too.

shame we missed the boat on this one, in 2006 there would have still been the two big chimneys (visible from most of the west of the country!! ) as its on a cliff aswell), and 50% of the process stuff still there.

the buildings in teh photos are the three to the far north of site. one little, one large wharehouse looking, and one smaller office again, EVERYTHING else is gone, just wasteland now. the employees turnstyle gates are still there, and the security bungalow at far south are still there. but now even the two shabby wooden cooling houses (on west side of site) have gone, last year they were still there, but extremly shabby looking.

also the power stn, yes it had its OWN power stn like most really huge industry sites. was only built in 1993 and only really used when demand was high, so was still worth a fair bit, must have been shipped offshores somewhere (likely), although horkgakkxx is the man to ask about what went where and when

Wow, seeing the flashearth map, that must have been a really impressive site. Still good to see the remaining buildings though. Love those last two photos. Good stuff!

BrickMan said:

crazy decorations in the corridoor, some depict industrial looking landscapes and mining and the rest is just some fresh crazy'ness, mushrooms, crazy plants... ...somebody ATE my cacti that I found here a year ago

Click to expand...

The person who ate the cacti was probably the same guy who made the acid-influenced decorations!