Imber Village - Wiltshire

i Not my usual sort of thing but fancied a look over Christmas of the little remains of the village of Imber which is used by the MOD for training on Salisbury Plain...It is open for short periods over Easter and Christmas.

The village was abandoned through forced eviction in November 1943 and while a lot has been demolished a few buildings remain.

During our visit the 13C, grade 1 listed St Giles Church was open and was also abandoned at the same time, only in the last year or two restoration work has been done to stop it collapsing....so we could have a look around.

A news pressing from the time which gives a better idea of what went on...

Abbey Mills Pumping Station

This was a quick visit after heading over to see Killing Joke gigging in London the night before. The place was just so amazing i had to see it with my own eyes, so Lou and me headed off, skipped the fence and found a way in, a friend waiting in the car (non explorer) meant we didn't have forever ....
Some  Brief history ...
 The original Abbey Mills Pumping Station, in Abbey Lane, London E15, is a sewerage pumping station, designed by engineer Joseph Bazalgette, Edmund Cooper, and architect Charles Driver. It was built between 1865 and 1868. It was designed in a cruciform plan, with an elaborate Byzantine style, described as The Cathedral of Sewage

The pumps raised the sewage in the London sewerage system between the two Low Level Sewers and the Northern Outfall Sewer, which was built in the 1860s to carry the increasing amount of sewage produced in London away from the centre of the city.
Two Moorish styled chimneys – unused since steam power had been replaced by electric motors in 1933 – were demolished during the Second World War, as they were a landmark for German bombers on raids over the London docks.
The building still houses electric pumps – to be used in reserve for the new facility next door.


This place is for real, the worlds most beutifull shit pumping station?

Greenham Common Airbase

Good day out, met up with some friends and we all headed down to Berkshire with the aim of seeing the old Grenham common airbase which was headline news through alot of the 80's with the Women's Peace camps due to the storage of cruise missiles.
There is not a great deal left apart from the huge GAMA silo's where the war heads were kept, although these are impressive enough. Most of the runway has been cleared althought the control tower remains with plans to convert it into a visitor centre. The whole site is marked as a Sheduled Ancient Monument

Security is still tight, well that said there are still 3 perimiter  fences which are well maintained and one of which is around 15 foot tall and then scrub land containing Adders to get through, one of which we spotted which makes gaining access a little fun.. but worth it

Some of the GAMA silo's history is here..

Once more a massive new construction was undertaken as the GAMA (GLCM Alert and Maintenance Area) site was built in the southwest corner of the base. GAMA was a maximum security QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) area with 6 large above ground shelters in which fully operational cruise missiles were stored.

Each shelter contained 2 LCC Launch Control Centers and 4 TEL transporter erector launchers. Each unit was mobile and supposed to leave the base in convoys to their secret preset dispersal sites. This would happen within minutes after the alert and the movement was via the local roads through the surrounding villages.These shelters were specially designed and constructed to protect the GLCMs and crews against nuclear and conventional strikes. They were about 10 m high, with a reinforced 2 m thick concrete ceiling. Below was a massive titanium plate, 3 m of sand and a reinforced concrete plate. The shelters were completely covered with tons of clay. Each shelter was equipped with three hydraulic nuclear blast proof doors at both ends to assure a quick entry or exit. They were designed to withstand the blast of an air-bursting nuclear explosion above the base or a direct hit from a 2,500 lb (1,100 kg) conventional bomb.

Wiki page here ....

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

Cheltenham CSO - Visit 2

For some strange reason we felt the need to head back to Cheltenham towns own little Cathedral of shit with a few friends... just a few shots from that day...for some weird reason the lights were on but were off when we went before...

CSO - combined Sewer overflow. Basically a place where it can back up if the storm water and sewage gets too much, unfortuanatly this then flows into the river Chelt when this gets too much

Full Set here

http://s692.photobucket.com/albums/vv289/fearsofthedark/CSO%20-%20Cheltenham%20-%2010th%20April%202010/1280x1024/?albumview=slideshow

Clipstone Colliery

This was a crack, first of two visits to see the head stocks and lower buildings . No underground action left as it has been backfilled but more than enough to keep you busy for the day. We didn't get time to head up them so the plan was to go back and do it again. We did go back one night but Pikeys on site smashing stuff up put us off so another visit is still on the cards for the view from the top.

Its a bit of a contrast the site, most of the generator room is utterly destroyed but the winding gear hall was still very intact and al the control rooms still fairly complete. Their is a long running battle, some people want them torn down as they are a symbol of past times and others want to keep them as a tourist attraction... 

Some History from Wiki...

Clipstone Colliery is a coal mine situated near the village of the same name on the edge of an area of Nottinghamshire known as “The Dukeries” because of the number of stately homes in the area. The colliery was owned by the Bolsover Colliery Company and passed to the National Coal Board in 1947.
The colliery was sunk to exploit the Barnsley seam or “Tophard”, as it known locally. In the 1950’s the shafts were deepened to over 1000 yards (920 m) to exploit other seams.

The colliery was closed by British Coal, as the National Coal Board had become, in 1993 and reopened by RJB Mining (now UK Coal) in April 1994, the licence to dig for coal being limited to the Yard seam which is located at a depth of 957 yards (870 m). The colliery was finally closed in April 2003.

The headstocks of the colliery are regarded as the tallest in Europe and the third tallest in the world. They are Grade 2 Listed structures and can be seen all over the district. They are expensive to keep in good repair and there have been a number of appeals, as yet to no avail, to demolish them. But however the clipstone headstocks are nearly demolished now and no one knows what will happen in the future.

Few Pictures..

Axiom - Cheltenham Town Centre

This was another good fortune for being able to get in, having been closed for 8 years before hand we actually found the door was open and we decided to on this rare occasion to secure the building once we photographed it to prevent it getting torched ... This was a haunt from when i was younger, i was often in here on Drum and Bass nights... usually very drunk but unfortunaltly the place closed down in 2000 and then again in 2002 under a financial cloud. It has sat empty ever since. It has a very long history and was once a mill.... this document gives a good read on it history
http://www.gsia.org.uk/reprints/2002/gi200255.pdf

Few Pictures...

Many a night in here, on night i was so drunk i fell asleep in the middle of the dance floor during a DJ set surround by a few hundred people ...

Small parts of the original Line shaft are still intact in this floor

Bowyers Pie Factory - Trowbridge

As it seems the way, Hpipe and me had headed off on a totally different day but as we travelled across country the old chimneys of the factory caught our eye and we went to have a look..Well Blow me , if it wasnt a Pie factory - this was right up my street!!
No bother from security that day, trip went with out a problem although the old bill use it for police training and had managed to leave a door open for us and the security on sight seemed reluctant to leave his nice warm house to bother us... Best part about the site was having to use the old insulated conveyor tubes that go between the buildings to get from one to the other, being steep and about 20to 30ft in the air, they creaked like hell when you walked through them. They more resembled the inside of a space craft corridor due to the insulation.

Bit of history ....Bowyers had been connected with Trowbridge since 1805/8 when Abraham Bowyers set up a grocers Store which eventually became Bowyers that’s around today.
In March 2008 the bowyers factory now owned by pork farms was shut ending 200 years being based in Trowbridge.
Under investment in the Factory and economic reasons finally shut the place and around 400 people lost there jobs with the bulk of production moving to Nottingham

The Site consists of one (I think) grade 2 listed building which will be restored but the rest is due to be demolished to become part of the new Wiltshire College – well it was but now those plans have been dropped in December 2009 and its future is uncertain.
few Pictures...

The Main ovens

Lam1 and Lam2

Some of the millions of refrigerated rooms that made up half the site

Formulation labs full of recipies

 The cool slide in one of the walk ways (smaller one), the top edge of that must be 20ft off the ground outside with a slide to the first floor

 from the outside

one of the stripped frying room

Complete set here..

http://s692.photobucket.com/albums/vv289/fearsofthedark/Bowyers%20Pie%20Factory%20-%20Trowbridge%207th%20Feb%2010/?albumview=slideshow