Chatterley Whitfield:
I've wanted to explore this place for a very long time, but never really looked into it until recently when @UrbandonedTeam suggested we check it out.
So one thursday morning all plans changed and we headed out to Stoke once again.
The Explore:
The first day we tried this place we ended up short of time after a disastrous experience with a wasps nest...
Despite this unexpected attack on ourselves, we completed 2 buildings and the Institute Headgear before returning back a week later to cover the rest of the site.
So this building had pretty tricky access but was definitely worth it for the views of this incredible machinery. The large green wheel/cog is part of a steam engine, which is interesting, as below the floor is room for horses to be and presumably turn wheels of the machinery from below.
A shot of the same power station-esk room from the other side.
This small building is the Institute Winding House which used an electric drum winder.
Unfortunately this once-grand piece of machinery now sits covered in a rather ill-favoured asbestos removal box. Never the less, the turbine-looking tubes and pipes give off even more of a power station feel with the Hesketh Winding House.
Our final view of THIS day from the Institute Headgear which gave an incredible view of all the decaying structures in this huge campus.
A week later and @UrbandonedTeam and I returned again to complete the site. Starting off with this Walker Fan House - a fan which moved air throughout the mines. Again, this looks like a power station turbine, but it's a phony, simply a glorified fan! We can across this while trying to find the access to the mine, which it turns out was neither in this building, nor even accessible when we went anyway.
The holes in the ground next to it weren't more than 3ft deep and just gave a view of some minor workings of the fan.
These gauges had some really nice rust on them in the Locomotive shed & Workshop. Unfortunately, like with most of the buildings on this site, it wasn't a very symmetrical block at all.
Still in the locomotive block, this is clearly a big warehouse area where carts could be fixed and set back on the rails.
The saws were still left in the tables, albeit with a tad more rust than when they were actually being used.
So this was probably my favourite part of the whole site *bar maybe the lockers (pics later)* - The Minecart Testing Facility.
Completely overgrown with vegetation, this place sits rotting in its own damp concrete floors, which in some places has simply broken off, leaving holes in the floor.
A straight track going from one end of the building to another. This entire minecart area is lifted off the ground by 20-30ft and so getting up was quite difficult, combined with the fact we were on full view from two security cameras.
In this even more overgrown section, we discovered this control room for the minecarts which had some really nice colours, despite the lack of proper controls.
On to our final building: The Workers HQ
This colourful corridor was pitch black and riddled with pigeons unable to escape the multiple realms of glass everywhere. We thought bangs were people at first, but it turns out the pigeons repeatedly fly into the windows on a regular basis.
I love abandoned lockers, and when mixed with the mossy floor it made for a really photogenic shot.
These were the pit showers right next to the lockers. The peeling paint was everywhere which was amazing to see, and when I left the site, I actually came out half pink/yellow/blue from all the chips that came off the wall.
There are many more lockers and showers than shown, but they're all very similar. Locker numbers even went up to the 3000s.
And the last part of the building: The Canteen.
Note the pictures all across the top of the serving hatch that all relate to this place, as well as the massive model miners helmet in the middle of the room!
That's all from me and this place. Hope you like this place as much as I do!
- Thanks to @AndyK for researching so much of this previously that I used partially in notes
I've wanted to explore this place for a very long time, but never really looked into it until recently when @UrbandonedTeam suggested we check it out.
So one thursday morning all plans changed and we headed out to Stoke once again.
The Explore:
The first day we tried this place we ended up short of time after a disastrous experience with a wasps nest...
Despite this unexpected attack on ourselves, we completed 2 buildings and the Institute Headgear before returning back a week later to cover the rest of the site.
So this building had pretty tricky access but was definitely worth it for the views of this incredible machinery. The large green wheel/cog is part of a steam engine, which is interesting, as below the floor is room for horses to be and presumably turn wheels of the machinery from below.
A shot of the same power station-esk room from the other side.
This small building is the Institute Winding House which used an electric drum winder.
Unfortunately this once-grand piece of machinery now sits covered in a rather ill-favoured asbestos removal box. Never the less, the turbine-looking tubes and pipes give off even more of a power station feel with the Hesketh Winding House.
Our final view of THIS day from the Institute Headgear which gave an incredible view of all the decaying structures in this huge campus.
A week later and @UrbandonedTeam and I returned again to complete the site. Starting off with this Walker Fan House - a fan which moved air throughout the mines. Again, this looks like a power station turbine, but it's a phony, simply a glorified fan! We can across this while trying to find the access to the mine, which it turns out was neither in this building, nor even accessible when we went anyway.
The holes in the ground next to it weren't more than 3ft deep and just gave a view of some minor workings of the fan.
These gauges had some really nice rust on them in the Locomotive shed & Workshop. Unfortunately, like with most of the buildings on this site, it wasn't a very symmetrical block at all.
Still in the locomotive block, this is clearly a big warehouse area where carts could be fixed and set back on the rails.
The saws were still left in the tables, albeit with a tad more rust than when they were actually being used.
So this was probably my favourite part of the whole site *bar maybe the lockers (pics later)* - The Minecart Testing Facility.
Completely overgrown with vegetation, this place sits rotting in its own damp concrete floors, which in some places has simply broken off, leaving holes in the floor.
A straight track going from one end of the building to another. This entire minecart area is lifted off the ground by 20-30ft and so getting up was quite difficult, combined with the fact we were on full view from two security cameras.
In this even more overgrown section, we discovered this control room for the minecarts which had some really nice colours, despite the lack of proper controls.
On to our final building: The Workers HQ
This colourful corridor was pitch black and riddled with pigeons unable to escape the multiple realms of glass everywhere. We thought bangs were people at first, but it turns out the pigeons repeatedly fly into the windows on a regular basis.
I love abandoned lockers, and when mixed with the mossy floor it made for a really photogenic shot.
These were the pit showers right next to the lockers. The peeling paint was everywhere which was amazing to see, and when I left the site, I actually came out half pink/yellow/blue from all the chips that came off the wall.
There are many more lockers and showers than shown, but they're all very similar. Locker numbers even went up to the 3000s.
And the last part of the building: The Canteen.
Note the pictures all across the top of the serving hatch that all relate to this place, as well as the massive model miners helmet in the middle of the room!
That's all from me and this place. Hope you like this place as much as I do!
- Thanks to @AndyK for researching so much of this previously that I used partially in notes
