Sugar Factory
Located on what is now seemingly wasteland surrounded by vegetation lies an industrial artefact in this Italian town which caught our attention. Like a lot of European locations they are often given a nickname which makes any sort of research initially difficult with this one being known as "Pac Man" which wasn't any help. The real name and any history of the place was hard to work out from what I initially saw inside lead me to think it was a former power station or cement plant which ultimately took me to multiple dead ends when trying to research it. Eventually ramming enough words into google revealed that it was indeed a sugar factory although not anything detailed it was enough to continue spamming search engines with random terms in hope of some history. So, here's what I could gather.
The factory's origin can be traced back to agreements between the Etruria company and the bank of Tirrena with the aim to supply sugar beet with production starting in 1899. The sugar beet was supplied from around the area with the road network allowing for multiple trucks full of beet to arrive in order for production into sugar at the works. The factory was one of the main employers in the area as well as the most noticeable with a large chimney stack producing a thick amount of smoke with the air in the nearby areas being noted as "sweet and sticky" as a result.
By 1920 the plant was seeing the highest success in production and from then the work slowly started to drop with multiple periods of ups and downs after. 1967 saw the works' ownership taken over by the Sermide sugar factory, a plant which today lays dormant, remaining in operation until closure in 1987 following changes in demand within the sugar industry.
Since then it has sat dormant until around 2005 when plans were submitted for the structure become part of a new development involving the construction of three residential blocks and the main sugar refinery to become a multipurpose structure. Obviously these plans haven't gone ahead, at least not that quickly mostly due to issues in the construction industry, and the plant still stands there with no obvious usage in sight. Inside it is clear to see that over 30 years of neglect has lead to the structure becoming obviously unstable even from the outside with sections of orange roof missing, windows missing due mostly to vandalism, cracks in the walls and iron work and cables torn up for their scrap value.
The Visit
Travelling back from the previous explore in the day we were confident for this next building which had been given to us with only a single image to go off there was very little we knew about the place. Eventually after inadvertently driving straight onto a building site and having a few builders shout at us, in Italian, we were yet again being shredded by thorns on the way towards the building. Once inside it was ideal to keep clear from certain areas as there was indeed ongoing construction work onsite and a load of hornets in certain rooms. Due to the weather being what extremely sunny getting any of the photos in here was a challenge so I'm going to have to apologise for some with rather obvious HDR in a bid to make thing look less like a thermonuclear bomb has been set off.
Starting off in what appears to be a very small turbine hall.
The turbines them selves are constructed by a scientific company Tecnomasio in the early 1900's, noted by the addition of Brown Boveri who purchased the company in the names, meaning these were installed sometime after the plant began. The control panel behind was a rather nice addition to the room although I didn't venture too close for too long due to a hornet's nest.
Next up was was appeared at the time to be a rotary dryer perhaps,, which at the time lead me to believe it was a cement works.
Along some iron beams which would have once formed a walkway another room came into light.
A trio of machines.
Turning around revealed why this place got the nickname of "Pac Man"
Located on what is now seemingly wasteland surrounded by vegetation lies an industrial artefact in this Italian town which caught our attention. Like a lot of European locations they are often given a nickname which makes any sort of research initially difficult with this one being known as "Pac Man" which wasn't any help. The real name and any history of the place was hard to work out from what I initially saw inside lead me to think it was a former power station or cement plant which ultimately took me to multiple dead ends when trying to research it. Eventually ramming enough words into google revealed that it was indeed a sugar factory although not anything detailed it was enough to continue spamming search engines with random terms in hope of some history. So, here's what I could gather.
The factory's origin can be traced back to agreements between the Etruria company and the bank of Tirrena with the aim to supply sugar beet with production starting in 1899. The sugar beet was supplied from around the area with the road network allowing for multiple trucks full of beet to arrive in order for production into sugar at the works. The factory was one of the main employers in the area as well as the most noticeable with a large chimney stack producing a thick amount of smoke with the air in the nearby areas being noted as "sweet and sticky" as a result.
By 1920 the plant was seeing the highest success in production and from then the work slowly started to drop with multiple periods of ups and downs after. 1967 saw the works' ownership taken over by the Sermide sugar factory, a plant which today lays dormant, remaining in operation until closure in 1987 following changes in demand within the sugar industry.
Since then it has sat dormant until around 2005 when plans were submitted for the structure become part of a new development involving the construction of three residential blocks and the main sugar refinery to become a multipurpose structure. Obviously these plans haven't gone ahead, at least not that quickly mostly due to issues in the construction industry, and the plant still stands there with no obvious usage in sight. Inside it is clear to see that over 30 years of neglect has lead to the structure becoming obviously unstable even from the outside with sections of orange roof missing, windows missing due mostly to vandalism, cracks in the walls and iron work and cables torn up for their scrap value.
The Visit
Travelling back from the previous explore in the day we were confident for this next building which had been given to us with only a single image to go off there was very little we knew about the place. Eventually after inadvertently driving straight onto a building site and having a few builders shout at us, in Italian, we were yet again being shredded by thorns on the way towards the building. Once inside it was ideal to keep clear from certain areas as there was indeed ongoing construction work onsite and a load of hornets in certain rooms. Due to the weather being what extremely sunny getting any of the photos in here was a challenge so I'm going to have to apologise for some with rather obvious HDR in a bid to make thing look less like a thermonuclear bomb has been set off.
Starting off in what appears to be a very small turbine hall.
The turbines them selves are constructed by a scientific company Tecnomasio in the early 1900's, noted by the addition of Brown Boveri who purchased the company in the names, meaning these were installed sometime after the plant began. The control panel behind was a rather nice addition to the room although I didn't venture too close for too long due to a hornet's nest.
Next up was was appeared at the time to be a rotary dryer perhaps,, which at the time lead me to believe it was a cement works.
Along some iron beams which would have once formed a walkway another room came into light.
A trio of machines.
Turning around revealed why this place got the nickname of "Pac Man"
