This was probably my favourite location from the whole long weekend trip I did recently - I had been to LVMC before so I sort of don't count that one, this was definitely the most pleasantly surprising for me, as I went in assuming it to be a ruined graffed wreck but actually really enjoyed it as it's very photogenic with lots of decent graffiti as well, there was a lot more left inside than I had thought, and it is also extremely large, so made for a very nice couple of hours wandering around.
There isn't really a great amount of readily available history for this huge place, which is surprising. Promat operated from the former Germiston Works locomotive factory which was built in 1892 on the eastern side of Glasgow. It was later sold on to Cape Asbestos Company, who used it to manufacture fireproof insulation materials. Cape Asbestos Company was founded in 1893 for the purpose of mining asbestos in the 'Orange Free State', a Boer-ruled sovereign republic in southern Africa which ceased to exist after the second Boer war in 1902. By 1913 the company had four factories in the London area, and it opened another plant in Hebden Bridge in 1939 for the purposes of manufacturing gas mask filters from blue asbestos during the war. I haven't been able to find a date for them starting operations at the Germiston Works but I'd imagine it was post-Second World War. Cape is now a large multi-disciplined support services company offering things as varied as passive fire protection, oil and gas storage tank refurbishment, project management services and other things to major energy companies. The German company Promat acquired the Germiston Works site from Cape in 2002, and used it to manufacture fire resistant boards for the construction industry using calcium silicate rather than asbestos. The factory closed in two phases, first in December 2014 and second during 2015, and the factory has sat decaying and falling to bits ever since.
It looked as if after the closure a lot of the equipment was removed, but equally a lot was left in situ, and some was dismantled or cut up and left inside, there are numerous vats and mixing vessels cut into pieces scattered across the floor, including an enormous red mixing vessel which was cut clean in half and simply pushed to the ground which is an impressive feat. Whilst inside there, much to our surprise, we spotted a fox, and then a hawk sat in the rafters, and then later on I spotted a large deer running around the grounds by the wrecked office building - for a second I kind of forgot I was in the middle of a city.
I didn't get any notable externals as it's really not very inspiring at all.
Thanks for looking
There isn't really a great amount of readily available history for this huge place, which is surprising. Promat operated from the former Germiston Works locomotive factory which was built in 1892 on the eastern side of Glasgow. It was later sold on to Cape Asbestos Company, who used it to manufacture fireproof insulation materials. Cape Asbestos Company was founded in 1893 for the purpose of mining asbestos in the 'Orange Free State', a Boer-ruled sovereign republic in southern Africa which ceased to exist after the second Boer war in 1902. By 1913 the company had four factories in the London area, and it opened another plant in Hebden Bridge in 1939 for the purposes of manufacturing gas mask filters from blue asbestos during the war. I haven't been able to find a date for them starting operations at the Germiston Works but I'd imagine it was post-Second World War. Cape is now a large multi-disciplined support services company offering things as varied as passive fire protection, oil and gas storage tank refurbishment, project management services and other things to major energy companies. The German company Promat acquired the Germiston Works site from Cape in 2002, and used it to manufacture fire resistant boards for the construction industry using calcium silicate rather than asbestos. The factory closed in two phases, first in December 2014 and second during 2015, and the factory has sat decaying and falling to bits ever since.
It looked as if after the closure a lot of the equipment was removed, but equally a lot was left in situ, and some was dismantled or cut up and left inside, there are numerous vats and mixing vessels cut into pieces scattered across the floor, including an enormous red mixing vessel which was cut clean in half and simply pushed to the ground which is an impressive feat. Whilst inside there, much to our surprise, we spotted a fox, and then a hawk sat in the rafters, and then later on I spotted a large deer running around the grounds by the wrecked office building - for a second I kind of forgot I was in the middle of a city.
I didn't get any notable externals as it's really not very inspiring at all.
Thanks for looking
