Industrial Britain

prelude91 · Post by **prelude91** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 11:17 pm

Corsham caves? Wiltshire?

Post by **Lude-dude** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 10:01 am

yeah probably not the correct name, we used to get in at "sally in the woods" near bath

through a small entrance, not sure its still accessible

YouTube · Post by **Sailor** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 6:47 pm

prelude91 wrote:early radar system to fend off the Luftwaffe

Not so much radar as sound collectors (acoustic mirrors).
They didn't work very well and were obsolete by the time WWII came along - incoming planes were too fast by then. Radar was already better at early detection by 1940.

lxstuart · Post by **lxstuart** » Thu Jan 09, 2014 7:39 pm

My work takes me to some interesting locations, I'll have a dig around as I'm sure I've got loads of photos.

lxstuart · Post by **lxstuart** » Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:04 pm

These are from ~10 years ago, when I was working at St Pancras station uprade.
I definitely wasn't meant to be in there, photos are rather grainy due to being taken on a nokia.

Fistly, the view from the roof.

Looking East towards Kings Cross

A view of the nice new roof on the train shed (or the Barlow shed if we're to give full credit to the architect)
At the time it was the largest span single arch roof in the world, not sure if it still is.

Climbing up further, using the flimsiest iron ladder I've ever seen, the back of the large clock face. There is no old mechanism behind this anymore, it has a new motor which probably works better than the original.

Further along, in the middle "tower" of the building there is a massive loft, with some huge water tanks. There are also some wonderful wooden beams and trusses, unfortunately the lighting was so poor the only photo showing any detail is this one.

One thing that struck me at the time was how obvious the class divide was. The rooms on the first floor were very spacious, some more like suites, the next floor the rooms were noticeably smaller but still reasonable by todays standards, the next floor they where small with enough room for the bed the fireplace and not much more.

The rooms on the top floor were tiny, there was room for a bed and enough space to walk down the side. Above each room door was a small cupboard which I presume was for people to store their luggage in.

This was in one of the large rooms on the first floor, which had been used to store various items by English Heritage

I really liked that dresser, if I could have stolen it I probably would

These ones are the main staircase, beautiful workmanship.

The area in front of the staircase has a recess with this lovely painting in it.

Near the main entrance was a huge room, which looked as though it had been cleared for some kind of display, I'm guessing it was a dining hall originally.

This is a video of the main staircase area, I don't know if it'll work properly, hence why I've left it until last

YouTube · Post by **Sailor** » Thu Jan 09, 2014 10:45 pm

Brilliant.

andypont · Post by **andypont** » Thu Jan 09, 2014 11:09 pm

There's some very interesting photos there.
I do find it quite sad though as so many of the industrial ones are of empty, almost derelict buldings.
Its like walking around a graveyard of Britain's manufacturing industry.

Post by **Thebusofwoe** » Fri Jan 10, 2014 1:35 pm

Wow. Interesting stuff there. Particularly those old rooms.

89 UKDM BA4 4WS (resto job!) · Post by **wurlycorner** » Fri Jan 10, 2014 9:48 pm

andypont wrote:Its like walking around a graveyard of Britain's manufacturing industry.

That's what I find so fascinating.
I went for a visit round a factory I used to work in, a couple of years after it was 'mothballed' and we were all laid off (has been for 14 years now

). Very strange walking round places you remember as a hive of high tech, cutting edge, bustling activity.

I have though also had the real pleasure of refurbishing, re-opening and then running an industrial facility, putting it back to the use it was originally built for after it had been closed for 15 years.