Unfortunately the original version of this thread was lost in the great 28days forum crash a few years ago.. Being the only half decently comprehensive set of photos from the SK buildings to be posted anywhere i thought I should make an effort to get it back up however. Nowadays the site is half demolished and home to some quite dodgy sounding vagrants. I wouldn't recommend travelling to see it but if you are in the area and fancy a look then it is an easy walk in. Id just recommend not going alone!
No doubt a familiar building to anyone who's ever looked for possible explores around Birmingham, the SK buildings stick out like a sore thumb to any explorer with an eye for epic. The imposing early 1900s brick frontage adorned by giant decaying Gents time piece runs a whole city block down Digbeth's Bradford street. Its impossible for one of 'our kind' to walk by and not wonder what might be hidden inside the ever decaying hulk. Although much of the building has been disused for decades the ground floor was, until recently, very much in use as warehouse for cash and carry firm Sandhar and Kang. SK had occupied the site for many years but originally it was built as the head quarters for local grocers George J. Mason Ltd. Masons started out his business in Wednesbury but the head office came to Bradford Street in 1922. Most of the buildings on site fit this kind of era although some seem to be older and i have seen claims the oldest are from the 1850s. In many ways the whole place reminds me of Typhoo just a few 100 yards up the road. Both a similar age, style, and use, and also both long time 'conquests' that we eventually overhauled.
External
Spot the access
Our escape window from attempt 1!
No doubt a familiar building to anyone who's ever looked for possible explores around Birmingham, the SK buildings stick out like a sore thumb to any explorer with an eye for epic. The imposing early 1900s brick frontage adorned by giant decaying Gents time piece runs a whole city block down Digbeth's Bradford street. Its impossible for one of 'our kind' to walk by and not wonder what might be hidden inside the ever decaying hulk. Although much of the building has been disused for decades the ground floor was, until recently, very much in use as warehouse for cash and carry firm Sandhar and Kang. SK had occupied the site for many years but originally it was built as the head quarters for local grocers George J. Mason Ltd. Masons started out his business in Wednesbury but the head office came to Bradford Street in 1922. Most of the buildings on site fit this kind of era although some seem to be older and i have seen claims the oldest are from the 1850s. In many ways the whole place reminds me of Typhoo just a few 100 yards up the road. Both a similar age, style, and use, and also both long time 'conquests' that we eventually overhauled.
External
Spot the access
Our escape window from attempt 1!
The story for me i guess started when i first moved over to Birmingham and started mooching around the city looking for possible explores. The courtyard gates would be open during the day so if you were careful you could sneak in and have a quick look at the original weighbridge office and workers entrance which were both wonderfully dated and very intact with their Avery scales and Gents time clocks still in situe. For many years that's all i knew of the place. There was always plenty of the local population bothering around in there getting in the way of anything further and any kind of enquires made about what was going on with the place were politely but firmly rebuffed. Things started to change around 2018 however. The Sandhar and Kang signage disappeared and a new set of gates were fitted, still that was about it for a few years, the place still remained in use for something or other, open during the day, closed at night.
At some point we realised the site had been sold off to a developer in 2017 so we started to pay a bit more attention to the comings and goings. Over the initial 2020 lockdown the place was all closed up and graffiti started to appear on some of the 1st floor windows and some even seemed to be left flapping in the wind. Emboldened by this myself and Dweeb had our first proper go at accessing the main block in summer 2020. By this point the gates were back open during the day so we planned to sneak into the courtyard before they went home, climb to a 1st floor window then sit it out until after hours where we imagined we would have free run of the place for the evening. At first this worked well, we snuck in, got in the building and started to explore. It was all we had hoped for in there really, proper dated! but it didn't last too long. We watched the owners lock up and leave and started to press on deeper into the building.. We didn't get far however before alarms started whaling. Makes sense i guess but we hadn't imagined it would have been alarmed in the derelict parts. We headed for the exit only to come across our second problem... It had sprouted a ''security guard''.. when i say security guard i mean a massive middle aged pikey looking dude with no shirt on living in a camper van in the yard.. He was between us and our escape route so we had no choice but to sit it out until the bells stopped. Luckily no one came inside. The owner returned, switched the alarm off and then left again. We gave it 30 mins for the shirtless dude to return to his camper before heading to our exit, a door Dweeb had explicitly told me was 'locked on a Yale lock and we could get out of from the inside'.. Well we got down to the door and it was a mortice lock!... great! It seemed we were trapped with shirtless dude for the night! With nothing else for it we headed back inside and with a little bit of luck managed to make it round to an openable 1st floor window where i could rig my 'emergency slings' and with much difficulty i managed to coax Dweeb out and down to ground level in full view of a bunch of onlookers and randoms. At least they all had their shirts on tho!
Some items found on our first trip
The Canteen, about the only room we saw before setting off the alarm
Fridges in the back of the canteen
After that kind of fail we gave it a wide birth for a little bit but what we had seen was so tantalising it was always at the back of our minds about how to get back in again. Really we should have tried the same tactic again but during the day, when the alarm might not have been set.. In hindsight tho im kind of glad we didn't! You will see why in a bit! Not long after our escape all the first floor windows facing the street were boarded up anyway making escape next to impossible too. We just bided our time and eventually towards the middle of last year we noticed the gates were no longer open during the day and shirtless mateys campervan had gone. It seemed as if the time had come for another go but try as we might we couldn't see a suitable way in. It looked like people had been climbing in from the river next door but not only did it look pretty fearsome it didn't seem like it was getting you anywhere too useful. A stroke of luck came during the storms earlier this year when a couple of the boards had blown off the first floor windows. This gave us a slim chance with the extending ladder but with the street pretty busy most of the day i didn't really fancy using a ladder and having to leave it behind while we potentially spent hours exploring. In the end i persuaded Dweeb to come up with a compromise. I would go in with the ladder and dweeb could remove it after me. Id then take some rope and rope up an abseil down into the river which would give us slightly more discreet access. Only problem is Dweeb cant do ropes... He agreed to the plan none the less, we figured it was worth it to just have a look what was going on.
D day came and we parked up on Bradford street at 5am and dodging the last dribs and drabs of the previous nights clubbers and drunks. All went to plan with the ladder and I found myself inside the end block and looking for a way out onto the roof at the back. It was more than slightly iffy here as the whole roof had had a sheet of EDPM roof membrane stretched over the whole thing and it both completely obscured any potentially dodgy bits of roof or glass skylights and acted very much like a trampoline as you tried to cross. It was very unnerving not knowing if all that was holding you up from a 30ft fall was a 2mm thick sheet of rubber! Eventually i made it across the roof a few times and rigged the escape rope down into the river next door. At least i stood a chance of getting out now!
Time to focus on what else i could access. I took the stairs down into the main courtyard, although the guys camper van had gone i wasn't 100% sure i would be alone in there and there was also modern looking CCTV dotted about. First thing I checked was the substation and thankfully it seemed to now be completely dead giving me a bit of confidence the CCTV wouldn't bring anyone and that it was unlikely anyone was still living on site. I was just about to call Dweeb and give him an update when i noticed something intriguing. The lock on the min gate was actually unlocked! The only thing stopping it from opening was a large IBC full of what i assumed was water.. Easy i thought, il just open the valve, drain it then i can pull it out the way and let stu in the gate. The clear liquid started to gush out onto the ground but fuck! that's not water! The sweet smell gave it away but it turned out it was some kind of detergent. At least that bit of floor will be clean i guess but i decided to look for another way! Luckily after a quick poke around i found a working pallet truck, completely on the other side of the yard of course, cue me making a stupid amount of noise at 6am and probably waking up everyone in the overlooking flats dragging it across the yard.. I just tried to look official! The IBC was moved and i made the call to dweeb.. you're in luck brother!
The main courtyard
The weed grow buildingAt some point we realised the site had been sold off to a developer in 2017 so we started to pay a bit more attention to the comings and goings. Over the initial 2020 lockdown the place was all closed up and graffiti started to appear on some of the 1st floor windows and some even seemed to be left flapping in the wind. Emboldened by this myself and Dweeb had our first proper go at accessing the main block in summer 2020. By this point the gates were back open during the day so we planned to sneak into the courtyard before they went home, climb to a 1st floor window then sit it out until after hours where we imagined we would have free run of the place for the evening. At first this worked well, we snuck in, got in the building and started to explore. It was all we had hoped for in there really, proper dated! but it didn't last too long. We watched the owners lock up and leave and started to press on deeper into the building.. We didn't get far however before alarms started whaling. Makes sense i guess but we hadn't imagined it would have been alarmed in the derelict parts. We headed for the exit only to come across our second problem... It had sprouted a ''security guard''.. when i say security guard i mean a massive middle aged pikey looking dude with no shirt on living in a camper van in the yard.. He was between us and our escape route so we had no choice but to sit it out until the bells stopped. Luckily no one came inside. The owner returned, switched the alarm off and then left again. We gave it 30 mins for the shirtless dude to return to his camper before heading to our exit, a door Dweeb had explicitly told me was 'locked on a Yale lock and we could get out of from the inside'.. Well we got down to the door and it was a mortice lock!... great! It seemed we were trapped with shirtless dude for the night! With nothing else for it we headed back inside and with a little bit of luck managed to make it round to an openable 1st floor window where i could rig my 'emergency slings' and with much difficulty i managed to coax Dweeb out and down to ground level in full view of a bunch of onlookers and randoms. At least they all had their shirts on tho!
Some items found on our first trip
The Canteen, about the only room we saw before setting off the alarm
Fridges in the back of the canteen
After that kind of fail we gave it a wide birth for a little bit but what we had seen was so tantalising it was always at the back of our minds about how to get back in again. Really we should have tried the same tactic again but during the day, when the alarm might not have been set.. In hindsight tho im kind of glad we didn't! You will see why in a bit! Not long after our escape all the first floor windows facing the street were boarded up anyway making escape next to impossible too. We just bided our time and eventually towards the middle of last year we noticed the gates were no longer open during the day and shirtless mateys campervan had gone. It seemed as if the time had come for another go but try as we might we couldn't see a suitable way in. It looked like people had been climbing in from the river next door but not only did it look pretty fearsome it didn't seem like it was getting you anywhere too useful. A stroke of luck came during the storms earlier this year when a couple of the boards had blown off the first floor windows. This gave us a slim chance with the extending ladder but with the street pretty busy most of the day i didn't really fancy using a ladder and having to leave it behind while we potentially spent hours exploring. In the end i persuaded Dweeb to come up with a compromise. I would go in with the ladder and dweeb could remove it after me. Id then take some rope and rope up an abseil down into the river which would give us slightly more discreet access. Only problem is Dweeb cant do ropes... He agreed to the plan none the less, we figured it was worth it to just have a look what was going on.
D day came and we parked up on Bradford street at 5am and dodging the last dribs and drabs of the previous nights clubbers and drunks. All went to plan with the ladder and I found myself inside the end block and looking for a way out onto the roof at the back. It was more than slightly iffy here as the whole roof had had a sheet of EDPM roof membrane stretched over the whole thing and it both completely obscured any potentially dodgy bits of roof or glass skylights and acted very much like a trampoline as you tried to cross. It was very unnerving not knowing if all that was holding you up from a 30ft fall was a 2mm thick sheet of rubber! Eventually i made it across the roof a few times and rigged the escape rope down into the river next door. At least i stood a chance of getting out now!
Time to focus on what else i could access. I took the stairs down into the main courtyard, although the guys camper van had gone i wasn't 100% sure i would be alone in there and there was also modern looking CCTV dotted about. First thing I checked was the substation and thankfully it seemed to now be completely dead giving me a bit of confidence the CCTV wouldn't bring anyone and that it was unlikely anyone was still living on site. I was just about to call Dweeb and give him an update when i noticed something intriguing. The lock on the min gate was actually unlocked! The only thing stopping it from opening was a large IBC full of what i assumed was water.. Easy i thought, il just open the valve, drain it then i can pull it out the way and let stu in the gate. The clear liquid started to gush out onto the ground but fuck! that's not water! The sweet smell gave it away but it turned out it was some kind of detergent. At least that bit of floor will be clean i guess but i decided to look for another way! Luckily after a quick poke around i found a working pallet truck, completely on the other side of the yard of course, cue me making a stupid amount of noise at 6am and probably waking up everyone in the overlooking flats dragging it across the yard.. I just tried to look official! The IBC was moved and i made the call to dweeb.. you're in luck brother!
The main courtyard
Complete with cast Gents
Once my accomplice had joined me we started to look where we could go next. One door intrigued me the most. A loose board was leaning up against a big steel security door that had seen lots of crowbar action. After prising the door open we found ourselves at the bottom of a very dated stairwell but also started seeing the first signs of what was to come. As we ascended the stairs it became clear. We had stumbled across easily the largest and one of the freshest weed grows I've ever seen. It was crazy, extending over pretty much every square inch of that section of the buildings it was a proper rabbit warren. Massive grow areas, big living area, the top floor appeared to be the the waste disposal area and absolutely STANK! and the lower floor felt like a garden centres warehouse with literally pallets upon pallets full of horticultural supplies! It started to become more clear why the place had been so secure all these years!
We must have spent several hours exploring this weed grow building alone. It was interesting but at the same time kind of sad as underneath the weed tat the original building was so amazingly dated and intact it would have been great to have found it in an unmolested state! By this point time was getting on and we decided seeing as we now had easy access to leave and come back a bit later after a nap and some refreshments. I clearly wasn't going to be a quick explore so i recovered the rope and took that back home.
Later in the day i returned alone and proceeded to start exploring the main buildings on the other side of the courtyard that we had been in a couple of years previously. These turned up yet another weed grow area, much smaller than the main one but only meters away from where we had been when we set off the alarm and ended up dodging the shirtless pikey 18 months prior. It did make me wonder what would have happened if we had gone a bit further in!! I proceeded to scout most of the upper floors before eventually dweeb showed his face again and i ended up retracing my steps. The site was such a rabbit warren it was really impossible to get photographs or even mention every little area of interest we found here but i will try and cover the main ones. One floor appeared to have been used as some kind of 'club' or rave venue with fairly elaborate bars and toilet areas constructed out of blue pallets. Other floors appeared to have been little touched in years and were full of various out of date cash and carry junk! One of the most interesting things we saw in the main building was the remains of a 'smoker' used to smoke meat and fish. Each floor had a room with mesh floor and ceiling accessed by a set of ancient looking doors. Im guessing there would have been some kind of furnace on the bottom floor at one time but this had been cleared away at some point and the holes just boarded over. Following down the main entrance stairwell we found access to a vault very much similar to the 'secret vault' at Typhoo just with slightly easier access.
From here on I think I will just let the photos do the talking. We proceeded to explore as much as we could that day and the gates were sealed up again not long after. Apparently the police did regular checks on the site and probably noticed the gate swinging in the breeze fairly soonish. Demolition commenced in 2023 and the site again became accessible easily and we were able to tick off some of the small areas we had missed. Overall you couldn't really rate the place too highly in terms of epic. theres no turbines here, but at the same time it was such a cracking explore with loads of twists and turns, comedy and quite frankly slightly scary moments it will be remembered for a long time!
