The Rowntree Chocolate factory was a five storey building constructed in the 1930s that produced a variety of chocolate products including Smarties, Aero and Dairy Boxes. Rowntree was taken over by Nestlé in 1988, and in 2006 it was announced that production would shut down at the site, partly due to the buildings “not [being] conducive to modern production methods” resulting in 645 job losses. In 2009, planning permission was put in for a residential redevelopment, with demolition of most of the site commencing shortly afterwards, however to date no construction has begun.
The disused site sits next to an in-use Nestlé site, which means you are not free from watchful eyes or security by any measure. Whilst I was not disturbed on a visit last year, the place was ironclad, with metres high metal sheeting on the walls that were previously connected to other buildings, and every possible entry point where this was not in place sealed tight.
However, after seeing @monk's report from July this week, @ShutterBug, @JXM3ST and I were determined to see if we could crack it. Getting onto the site is not a problem, however we thought it was almost over before it started when we were looking straight on at someone as soon as we got past the outer fence. Following them along the fence line between the used and disused site (albeit ~300m away from each other) we thought we were going to be shortly led out by security, but after a few minutes of standing around we presumed were safe. A quick walk around the building showed up nothing, but I had one more idea of how we might get in, and after a little bit of climbing and scraped arms we were in.
The first door we tried was bolted shut, and paranoid that the doors might be alarmed (we had seen a fair few IR sensors outside) I thought we might have been stuck in a corner of the building with no stairs. Thankfully, with a little walking around we found a set of stairs and were on our way up. We managed to get a few photos however by this point it was getting dark and so we just decided to have a mooch around; I think this is probably the biggest building we’ve been in and we didn’t really appreciate it until then.
After a while we decided to call it a day and vowed to return later in the week when it was earlier/lighter, however making our way to the staircase we saw a torch lighting up the side of the building. Carefully poking our heads out of the window we spotted a hi vis walking around, who appeared to be taking photos and checking all of the entry points. We were expecting security to come round at some point, so after following him around for a while we quietly headed back down and got back to our entry point. It took a bit of doing but we did all get out without being disturbed and in no time at all we were out and back to the car, undetected by security. The revisit was much the same, although with no disturbance by security at all that time around. Hope you enjoy the photos!
[url=https://flic.kr/p/29yrHrh]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/29yrH5A]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/29yrGJf]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/NyLTX6]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/NyLREv]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/Qc8KtN]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/Qc8KnL]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bdUwBW]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bdUBTC]
Apologies if it's a bit photo heavy, although I quite liked all of the ones I took and was going to put more on! Think @ShutterBug will be posting a report with the ones he took, so keep a watch out for that too![/url][/url][/url][/url][/url][/url][/url][/url][/url]
The disused site sits next to an in-use Nestlé site, which means you are not free from watchful eyes or security by any measure. Whilst I was not disturbed on a visit last year, the place was ironclad, with metres high metal sheeting on the walls that were previously connected to other buildings, and every possible entry point where this was not in place sealed tight.
However, after seeing @monk's report from July this week, @ShutterBug, @JXM3ST and I were determined to see if we could crack it. Getting onto the site is not a problem, however we thought it was almost over before it started when we were looking straight on at someone as soon as we got past the outer fence. Following them along the fence line between the used and disused site (albeit ~300m away from each other) we thought we were going to be shortly led out by security, but after a few minutes of standing around we presumed were safe. A quick walk around the building showed up nothing, but I had one more idea of how we might get in, and after a little bit of climbing and scraped arms we were in.
The first door we tried was bolted shut, and paranoid that the doors might be alarmed (we had seen a fair few IR sensors outside) I thought we might have been stuck in a corner of the building with no stairs. Thankfully, with a little walking around we found a set of stairs and were on our way up. We managed to get a few photos however by this point it was getting dark and so we just decided to have a mooch around; I think this is probably the biggest building we’ve been in and we didn’t really appreciate it until then.
After a while we decided to call it a day and vowed to return later in the week when it was earlier/lighter, however making our way to the staircase we saw a torch lighting up the side of the building. Carefully poking our heads out of the window we spotted a hi vis walking around, who appeared to be taking photos and checking all of the entry points. We were expecting security to come round at some point, so after following him around for a while we quietly headed back down and got back to our entry point. It took a bit of doing but we did all get out without being disturbed and in no time at all we were out and back to the car, undetected by security. The revisit was much the same, although with no disturbance by security at all that time around. Hope you enjoy the photos!
[url=https://flic.kr/p/29yrHrh]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/29yrH5A]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/29yrGJf]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/NyLTX6]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/NyLREv]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/Qc8KtN]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/Qc8KnL]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bdUwBW]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bdUBTC]
Apologies if it's a bit photo heavy, although I quite liked all of the ones I took and was going to put more on! Think @ShutterBug will be posting a report with the ones he took, so keep a watch out for that too![/url][/url][/url][/url][/url][/url][/url][/url][/url]
