As it was only a short cycle ride away, and I had had a lazy weekend doing nothing but watching Friends and eating chocolate fingers, me and da-mop decided we would once again visit this still little-documented site - the NCB Coal Research Establishment at Stoke Orchard.
As I have already given the history in my earliest report from November (http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=34722&), I shall make this brief...
The NCB Coal Research Establishment was opened in 1950 by British Coal's Jacob Bronowski, to test and research methods of extracting crude oil from coal. The CRE's scientists succeeded,, however, the proess was very expensive and complicated, and was therefore not deemed economically viable. When the British coal industry was privatised in 1994, funding was no longer available and it closed its doors a few years afterwards.
We managed to see a large portion of the site - reaching the test laboratories and the main extraction plant. Anyway, on with the pictures...
One of the many chimneys that make up the extraction facilities - the part of the site most visible from the surrounding area...
Inside, most machinery was left in-situ. The ground floor was by far the largest and by the looks of it the loading bay. These giant pieces of machinery were left behind...
This gives an idea of the vast size of the room...
The loading bay had its own control room. The weighing scales in the background of this shot went up to 5 tonnes!
Off to the side of the loading bay was a room that was full of control panels - no doubt for the enormous machines upstairs...
The first floor was more like a balcony over the ground floor, but it had some shelves crammed full of valves, taps, screws, bolts, old tools, g-cramps and everything imaginable relating to to a factory.
Pipes and taps ran around the building - I can only assume they were used to transport water and coolant.
The second floor was an enormous room, mostly taken up by some colossal hoppers. The hoppers led straight down to the ground floor loading bay, as the first floor was off to the side. This, I can only assume, was where the finished product was loaded onto trucks.
Also present were some bizzare spherical-shaped structures, higher than a man, which were made of wire and had two electrodes. A current was obviously passed through, though I cannot imagine why.
This was where the current was passed in, via some electrodes...
The third floor was a lot lower, and was taken up by the tops of the hoppers, where whatever went through them was fed into the the main hopper. There were also a lot more pipes up here...
Access to the roof and the bases of the chimneys was from this room. The roof was flooded but had now frozen, so the way across it was via a rotten, rickety wooden walkway. At the other end of the roof was a large metal furnace-like structure. One of the rooms contained hoist machinery, but the other contained a bizarre furnace that was painted red and had lots of porcelain dips in the floor. This place was full of suprises.
After we left, we proceeded to the proper research facilities, and a quick peep through the windows revealed what we were looking for - labs.
Access was interesting, to say the least, but once inside the labs were incredible.
There were 3 different gas taps for 3 different gases...
The fume cupboards were equally as impressive - containing dials and guages one would not expect to find...
Off to the right of the labs was another machine room; this time very tall and crammed to bursting point with equipment.
These included a large engine that powered a drive belt, which in turn powered some huge cogs.
There were also some side rooms that also appeared to be labs, only this time much more industrial.
There was also an office that was packed full of various coal related paperwork, some of it unopened.
As I have already given the history in my earliest report from November (http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=34722&), I shall make this brief...
The NCB Coal Research Establishment was opened in 1950 by British Coal's Jacob Bronowski, to test and research methods of extracting crude oil from coal. The CRE's scientists succeeded,, however, the proess was very expensive and complicated, and was therefore not deemed economically viable. When the British coal industry was privatised in 1994, funding was no longer available and it closed its doors a few years afterwards.
We managed to see a large portion of the site - reaching the test laboratories and the main extraction plant. Anyway, on with the pictures...
One of the many chimneys that make up the extraction facilities - the part of the site most visible from the surrounding area...
Inside, most machinery was left in-situ. The ground floor was by far the largest and by the looks of it the loading bay. These giant pieces of machinery were left behind...
This gives an idea of the vast size of the room...
The loading bay had its own control room. The weighing scales in the background of this shot went up to 5 tonnes!
Off to the side of the loading bay was a room that was full of control panels - no doubt for the enormous machines upstairs...
The first floor was more like a balcony over the ground floor, but it had some shelves crammed full of valves, taps, screws, bolts, old tools, g-cramps and everything imaginable relating to to a factory.
Pipes and taps ran around the building - I can only assume they were used to transport water and coolant.
The second floor was an enormous room, mostly taken up by some colossal hoppers. The hoppers led straight down to the ground floor loading bay, as the first floor was off to the side. This, I can only assume, was where the finished product was loaded onto trucks.
Also present were some bizzare spherical-shaped structures, higher than a man, which were made of wire and had two electrodes. A current was obviously passed through, though I cannot imagine why.
This was where the current was passed in, via some electrodes...
The third floor was a lot lower, and was taken up by the tops of the hoppers, where whatever went through them was fed into the the main hopper. There were also a lot more pipes up here...
Access to the roof and the bases of the chimneys was from this room. The roof was flooded but had now frozen, so the way across it was via a rotten, rickety wooden walkway. At the other end of the roof was a large metal furnace-like structure. One of the rooms contained hoist machinery, but the other contained a bizarre furnace that was painted red and had lots of porcelain dips in the floor. This place was full of suprises.
After we left, we proceeded to the proper research facilities, and a quick peep through the windows revealed what we were looking for - labs.
Access was interesting, to say the least, but once inside the labs were incredible.
There were 3 different gas taps for 3 different gases...
The fume cupboards were equally as impressive - containing dials and guages one would not expect to find...
Off to the right of the labs was another machine room; this time very tall and crammed to bursting point with equipment.
These included a large engine that powered a drive belt, which in turn powered some huge cogs.
There were also some side rooms that also appeared to be labs, only this time much more industrial.
There was also an office that was packed full of various coal related paperwork, some of it unopened.
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