At the back end of last year I spent an elongated birthday weekend in Scotland exploring many things including a few sites that had been on my to do list for years, this being one of them. It's trashed and graffitied but I had never explored a slaughterhouse before, it's not like a different one crops up every week!
Anglo Beef Processors, or ABP, is one of Europe's leading food processing companies. Their facility in Bathgate in Scotland shut down in 2005, which was a major blow for the farm industry as it handled roughly half a million lambs per year - more than a third of all the lambs produced by Scottish farmers annually. The closure had been on the cards for some time, as it specialised in lambs in a seasonal Scottish market so the money simply wasn't there to keep it running. A few years later, ABP was the main company intimated in the 'horse meat' scandal.
Since the closure it has sat derelict and deteriorating, there was a fire on the upper floor a few years back which caused a bit of damage but didn't touch the main body of the plant. I have to say I expected to get a bit weirded out by this place but on a lovely sunny weekday morning I was fine. It's been trashed and bashed but a lot of the old mechanics are still present inside, and it's certainly one of the more unique locations I have shot.
Thanks for looking
Anglo Beef Processors, or ABP, is one of Europe's leading food processing companies. Their facility in Bathgate in Scotland shut down in 2005, which was a major blow for the farm industry as it handled roughly half a million lambs per year - more than a third of all the lambs produced by Scottish farmers annually. The closure had been on the cards for some time, as it specialised in lambs in a seasonal Scottish market so the money simply wasn't there to keep it running. A few years later, ABP was the main company intimated in the 'horse meat' scandal.
Since the closure it has sat derelict and deteriorating, there was a fire on the upper floor a few years back which caused a bit of damage but didn't touch the main body of the plant. I have to say I expected to get a bit weirded out by this place but on a lovely sunny weekday morning I was fine. It's been trashed and bashed but a lot of the old mechanics are still present inside, and it's certainly one of the more unique locations I have shot.
Thanks for looking
