Dan Cattermole
Dan Down - The Steampunk Womble
I took a visit to the sugar silos last night till the early hour of this morning.
Okay, MEGA right up
This site was once the site of British Sugar and closed it's doors in Feb 2002. The rest of the site has been demolished and all that stands is these two HUGE silos standing at approx 250ft tall.
From the main road (stourport road) these sugar beet silos look massive.... up close and right under it they look HUGEFRICKMIGHTY!!!!
At first I didn't think we could get into the staircase/loading tower (to the right of the shot). but on closer inspection, there was a small squeeze with a few tonne of rubble above around and everywhere, at this point I'd like to say I wouldn't never of attempted this on my own so I went with another keen 'urbexer' called Sean... or Sheepy.
I decided to downsize my kit and only take what I needed for night photog.... Sheepy however decided to bring ALL of his kit, and ALL of his lights and gizmos totaling his luggage load to 2 fair sized bags!!
Oh yeah, entrance was tight, so we got inside and the place is TRASHED!! So much rubble and unimaginable things lurking around. First thing we done was head towards the silo's that rests on these supportive columns which was the only way to get into these things.
The next thing you know we're walking through 2 inch thick sticky horrible syrupy oily sticking resedue thats had 10 years to flement. DISGUSTING!!!!! the stench was not the best but tollerable. And we made a wise decision to wear boots!
We had a look at an access hatch above our heads which... had no access, so we mooched our way to the second silo (to the left of the picture) and there so happened to be a ladder!!
This was good news... so up we went and .......... WOW WOW WOW and more ****ing WOW!!!!!!
the sheer size of this place was absolutely breath takingly ...... uh..... [speechless]
I've worked in MANY MANY confined spaces in my time, but this was another meaning, and the acoustics were the trippiest and the most surreal thing I have ever heard.
I decided to shout and time the echo untill a point were we could not hear it anymore...... 38 SECONDS.... 38 SECONDS that sound resonated around that silo!! incredibly astonishing!!
Now I do sound very excited about all this, (then again do you expect anything different from me) but on a very serious note.... you have to be there to appreciate it and really understand where I'm coming from.
Everywhere was sticky and horrible, everything you touched was horrible.
I was NO WAY getting any of my kit out of my bag inside this place...... but Sheepy however was plonking his bag down anywhere, and all his lights everywhere without a thought other than to light up the show. fair play to him, but he did regret it after he had more stick to him and his contents amongst his 'suitcase' of stuff, than a glue factory.... He was covered! lol
We had spent about an hour and a half inside the silo tanks sniffing up the sweet smell of old sugar. Sheepy was busy doing what was intended i.e taking photos, where as me on the other hand, I was too busy playing 'how much can I trip myself' singing all sorts of tunes inside these tanks.
At this point I really was getting bored now and I wanted to see if we could get to the top.
So we took the route upwards and onwards. The very first steel ladder had an obstruction across it and involved a bit of dodgy climbing, but easy enough for the likes of us....
Then.... and then it got risky, we had a couple of platforms missing with drops that would make you more than sick, and what we did at that point I will not say.... :/
It was a long drag to the top, not recommended for the faint hearted, just when we hoped that was the last pigeon **** infested ladder... there was another one... with more ****ing pigeon **** on it... and syrup....
and the great thing about it is.... these pigeons are fearless! you'll have this random one just sit there looking at you it's 3 legs, 2 beaks, and it's 4 wings whilst s***ing syrup... UUURRRGGHHHHH!!!!
Eventually, we got to the top and....... [sigh].... (here's another speechless bit. lol)
I'm a sucker for heights, I really don't care about them at all...... but let me tell you this was HIGH (the attachment to the right of the silos)
We've been on top of the Ronkswood hospital boiler tower and that was great..... but this had took it to another level.... or 6. lol
I was that naffed from the climbing that I really wasn't fussed about grabbing a few shots, the personal experience was good enough for me....
As for Sheepy... he was in a mess with syrup anyway, so pooing his knickers didn't make a difference anyway
So, the long trek down. This was hell of alot easier as physics may suggest.
I was a breath of fresh air and a good ending to the visit.
At this point I'd realised I've been hauling my kit around and didn't get a single shot.......
So...... this is one of the few shots I did get... I really didn't think about the composition as I was b****xed from the long day I had even before this visit.
The perspective of this shot is so wrong, and I think the distortion doesn't do it any favours... but I had to document my visit some way or another.
Taken at 14mm, f/8, ISO 100, 60secs.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you very much for reading and I feel it's my pleasure to share my experience with a great bunch of folk.
Okay, MEGA right up
This site was once the site of British Sugar and closed it's doors in Feb 2002. The rest of the site has been demolished and all that stands is these two HUGE silos standing at approx 250ft tall.
From the main road (stourport road) these sugar beet silos look massive.... up close and right under it they look HUGEFRICKMIGHTY!!!!
At first I didn't think we could get into the staircase/loading tower (to the right of the shot). but on closer inspection, there was a small squeeze with a few tonne of rubble above around and everywhere, at this point I'd like to say I wouldn't never of attempted this on my own so I went with another keen 'urbexer' called Sean... or Sheepy.
I decided to downsize my kit and only take what I needed for night photog.... Sheepy however decided to bring ALL of his kit, and ALL of his lights and gizmos totaling his luggage load to 2 fair sized bags!!
Oh yeah, entrance was tight, so we got inside and the place is TRASHED!! So much rubble and unimaginable things lurking around. First thing we done was head towards the silo's that rests on these supportive columns which was the only way to get into these things.
The next thing you know we're walking through 2 inch thick sticky horrible syrupy oily sticking resedue thats had 10 years to flement. DISGUSTING!!!!! the stench was not the best but tollerable. And we made a wise decision to wear boots!
We had a look at an access hatch above our heads which... had no access, so we mooched our way to the second silo (to the left of the picture) and there so happened to be a ladder!!
This was good news... so up we went and .......... WOW WOW WOW and more ****ing WOW!!!!!!
the sheer size of this place was absolutely breath takingly ...... uh..... [speechless]
I've worked in MANY MANY confined spaces in my time, but this was another meaning, and the acoustics were the trippiest and the most surreal thing I have ever heard.
I decided to shout and time the echo untill a point were we could not hear it anymore...... 38 SECONDS.... 38 SECONDS that sound resonated around that silo!! incredibly astonishing!!
Now I do sound very excited about all this, (then again do you expect anything different from me) but on a very serious note.... you have to be there to appreciate it and really understand where I'm coming from.
Everywhere was sticky and horrible, everything you touched was horrible.
I was NO WAY getting any of my kit out of my bag inside this place...... but Sheepy however was plonking his bag down anywhere, and all his lights everywhere without a thought other than to light up the show. fair play to him, but he did regret it after he had more stick to him and his contents amongst his 'suitcase' of stuff, than a glue factory.... He was covered! lol
We had spent about an hour and a half inside the silo tanks sniffing up the sweet smell of old sugar. Sheepy was busy doing what was intended i.e taking photos, where as me on the other hand, I was too busy playing 'how much can I trip myself' singing all sorts of tunes inside these tanks.
At this point I really was getting bored now and I wanted to see if we could get to the top.
So we took the route upwards and onwards. The very first steel ladder had an obstruction across it and involved a bit of dodgy climbing, but easy enough for the likes of us....
Then.... and then it got risky, we had a couple of platforms missing with drops that would make you more than sick, and what we did at that point I will not say.... :/
It was a long drag to the top, not recommended for the faint hearted, just when we hoped that was the last pigeon **** infested ladder... there was another one... with more ****ing pigeon **** on it... and syrup....
and the great thing about it is.... these pigeons are fearless! you'll have this random one just sit there looking at you it's 3 legs, 2 beaks, and it's 4 wings whilst s***ing syrup... UUURRRGGHHHHH!!!!
Eventually, we got to the top and....... [sigh].... (here's another speechless bit. lol)
I'm a sucker for heights, I really don't care about them at all...... but let me tell you this was HIGH (the attachment to the right of the silos)
We've been on top of the Ronkswood hospital boiler tower and that was great..... but this had took it to another level.... or 6. lol
I was that naffed from the climbing that I really wasn't fussed about grabbing a few shots, the personal experience was good enough for me....
As for Sheepy... he was in a mess with syrup anyway, so pooing his knickers didn't make a difference anyway
So, the long trek down. This was hell of alot easier as physics may suggest.
I was a breath of fresh air and a good ending to the visit.
At this point I'd realised I've been hauling my kit around and didn't get a single shot.......
So...... this is one of the few shots I did get... I really didn't think about the composition as I was b****xed from the long day I had even before this visit.
The perspective of this shot is so wrong, and I think the distortion doesn't do it any favours... but I had to document my visit some way or another.
Taken at 14mm, f/8, ISO 100, 60secs.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you very much for reading and I feel it's my pleasure to share my experience with a great bunch of folk.
