Wenford Dries
Wenford dries were built in the early 20th century by the Stannon China Clay Company (but were acquired by English China Clays in 1919). To the east of the buildings is a levelled terrace which originally supported the railway tracks used to transport the finished clay from the dries. Liquid china clay slurry from Stannon Moor (over four miles away) was carried in a pipeline to the settling tanks behind the dries
where it was dried and stored prior to removal. The dries are the have gone through constant changes in the processes used to dry china clay, and as such there is evidence of alterations and additions to the original building.
The dries operated until 2002 apart from a brief closure during the Second World War. Traffic to the dries was coal inward and china clay outward, with high quality bagged clay in vans and lower quality in sheeted open wagons called clay hoods. After the closure of Wenfordbridge in 1971 the line ended just beyond the clay dries, 11 miles and 71 chains from Wadebridge. The line closed completely on 3 October 1983.
On our visit we saw the chimneys
Going from the kilns
Which were used to dry the clay. I think it was amazing to see the condition of the wooden parts of the roof after all these years despite the asbestos roof not doing so well, the wood looks like it was put there yesterday
Where the roof was damaged it had allowed nature to come and reclaim what once belonged to it. There was a lot of evidence of nature reclamation at wenford
It is a shame to see so much graffiti, though some of it was quite good or funny
I took literally hundreds of photos on my visit, and most likely will again for my next visit, but theres only so much you can put on a report before it gets too much so I'll leave it at that. There are more pics on my Instagram which can be found on my account info.
Wenford dries were built in the early 20th century by the Stannon China Clay Company (but were acquired by English China Clays in 1919). To the east of the buildings is a levelled terrace which originally supported the railway tracks used to transport the finished clay from the dries. Liquid china clay slurry from Stannon Moor (over four miles away) was carried in a pipeline to the settling tanks behind the dries
where it was dried and stored prior to removal. The dries are the have gone through constant changes in the processes used to dry china clay, and as such there is evidence of alterations and additions to the original building.
The dries operated until 2002 apart from a brief closure during the Second World War. Traffic to the dries was coal inward and china clay outward, with high quality bagged clay in vans and lower quality in sheeted open wagons called clay hoods. After the closure of Wenfordbridge in 1971 the line ended just beyond the clay dries, 11 miles and 71 chains from Wadebridge. The line closed completely on 3 October 1983.
On our visit we saw the chimneys
Going from the kilns
Which were used to dry the clay. I think it was amazing to see the condition of the wooden parts of the roof after all these years despite the asbestos roof not doing so well, the wood looks like it was put there yesterday
Where the roof was damaged it had allowed nature to come and reclaim what once belonged to it. There was a lot of evidence of nature reclamation at wenford
It is a shame to see so much graffiti, though some of it was quite good or funny
I took literally hundreds of photos on my visit, and most likely will again for my next visit, but theres only so much you can put on a report before it gets too much so I'll leave it at that. There are more pics on my Instagram which can be found on my account info.
