Posts tagged Urbex
Urbex: Inverurie Loco Works
Feb 17th
The Inverurie locomotive works opened in 1903 after being built by Great North of Scotland Railyway as a replacement for their site at Kittybrewster, which was bursting at the seams and running over capacity. The decision was made to relocate the entire operation to a new purpose built site at Inverurie, which boasted 5 separate blocks of buildings which were: Office Building, Locomotive Works Building, Carriage and Wagon Building, Paint Building and finally Smithy and Forge Building.
The site, and many of its supporting houses which were built to accommodate the workers, was powered by electricity generated within the works itself and employed 580 people, which at the time was over 10% of Inveruirie’s population. The site was originally intended to be the production site of new locomotives, though only 10 locomotives of the LNER Class D40 were built at the site between 1909 and 1921, the rest of the work at the site being carried out in repairs on existing locomotives and carriages, and later diesel engines. The site was refurbished with all new equipment in 1964, and it was expected to become the premier site for repairs in Northern Scotland for British Railways.
Despite the lower costs at Inverurie for repairing rolling stock, reluctance to take that rolling stock up to Aberdeen caused ongoing problems for the site, this work instead being carried out at more expensive but closer workshops to avoid the use of the congested railway network to get the rolling stock to the site.
The works was capable of producing any British Railways components at low cost. It could take on virtually anything in engineering—machining, smithy work, cyanide hardening, welding, plate work and general fitting, not to mention carpentry, upholstery and electrical work of all types, including battery charging and repair.
The black cloud of closure that hung over the site for so long it even shelved the development of a £250,000 housing scheme in the late sixties due to fears that the town would not have the population to fill the scheme were the site to close.
In 1969 the site closed after many of the lines in the area operated by Great North of Scotland Railways. The site was sold to the local council for a paltry £25,000 and remained mostly intact until 1982 when the stores were demolished, followed by several other buildings in 1995, leaving only the larger Carriage & Wagon shop and the Electricians shop. The site operated for various other companies until 2003 when complete closure and dereliction came, but thankfully a listed building status was given to the remaining buildings so they should be around for a while yet.
The complete album can be found in my gallery by clicking here.
~Shepy
Urbex: Paton’s Mill
Feb 16th
The historic Paton’s Mill is an A-listed building. The six-storey mill, with its white facade, is currently empty, but there have been suggestions on it being converted into a industrial museum or 79 flats. The Old Mill section of the huge factory dates back to 1782 and is thought to be the first machine factory in the world. The mill in High Street was opened originally as a cotton-spinning factory but was later used for lace manufacture. Built by the Corse and Burns Company, it predates by four years the New Lanark cotton-mill which was founded by David Dale, the Stewarton-born industrialist who was apprenticed to a weaver in Paisley. Paton’s took over the mill in 1896 when their first factory in Clark Street was destroyed by fire and primarily used the site for the manufacture of laces till its closeure in 2003.
The complete album can be found in my gallery by clicking here.
~Shepy
Urbex: Ushaw College
Feb 16th
Ushaw College (St. Cuthbert’s College, Ushaw) is a Roman Catholic seminary, founded at Douai in France in 1568, which moved to Ushaw Moor, four miles west of Durham in the United Kingdom in 1808 and became a Licensed Hall of the University of Durham in 1968. It is independent of the University but offers courses validated by the University. Both Church and lay students study at the college.
Some of the college’s buildings are no longer used, but some have been converted into a conference centre. The main college buildings are grade II listed, however the College Chapel is grade II* and the Chapel of St Michael is grade I. The College Chapel and Refectory were designed and built by Pugin. The original college buildings (1804-1808) were designed by James Taylor.
The complete album can be found in my gallery by clicking here
~Shepy
BBC Article About Me
Aug 20th
I was interviewed about two weeks ago by the BBC for an article about my photography and Urbex in general, but due to the interviewer being seconded to radio for a short while the article has only just gone up on the site now. The reporter found my pics through a photography site which I post on, and contacted me to ask if I would be interested in doing a short piece about the pictures and Urbex, to which I agreed on the proviso that I got final say on the article text before it was published.
Unlike some people I was careful not to compromise the integrity or access information of any sites just to further my own photographs. Just by being careful with what you say in the interview and making sure you have final read of the article text before it goes live, you can avoid so many problems.
Anyway, if you want a look at the article it can be found here
~Shepy
Nürburgring 2008 Round Up
Jul 30th
Well, I have finally gotten round to sorting out all the pictures from the Nürburgring and uploaded them to my gallery.
Thankfully this year all of the cars that went out came back in the same condition as they went out in which we were all happy about, especially Martyn. He has had the misfortune of crashing on the ring in the last two years we have been out there. The hotel where we stayed is the Ringhaus, which has the hotel rooms named after corners on the circuit rather than being numbered. In 2006 Martyn was in the Hohe-Acht room and managed to crash on Hohe-Acht on his second lap out around the ring. Last year he was staying in Brünnchen and managed to crash on that corner as well. It had become a bit of a running joke that we were either going to make him stay in a tent, or ask Frank the hotelier to make sure his room was an easy corner or a straight. Thankfully there was no crash at all this year from our group, though there were plenty on the ring during the time we were there, partially because of the number of cars on the track for the BF Goodrich race on the Saturday and partially because of the wet conditions on some of the other days the general public were out on the track.
There were still a few strange goings on while we were out there, such as the decision not to go back to the Ringhaus again next year after a meal we ordered one night took nearly an hour to arrive and wasn’t even what we asked for. Also finding that the linen closet was wide open with a board with all the room keys hanging on it unattended means we will be looking for new accommodation for next year’s trip.
Also in the hotel at the same time as us was a bunch of other U.K. guys who were Audi fanatics, and as Glenn and I rounded one of the corners we spotted one of their cars pulled over at the side of the track with a guy projectile vomiting over the barrier. Thankfully I had camera in hand and managed to grab a quick snap or two of it for mockery purposes back in the hotel later on.
More >
Urbex n00b may have cost us a site.
Jul 11th
No doubt if you are into Urbex you have already come across the story in the news at the moment about the X-Rays etc found at Law hospital in Carluke, near Edinburgh. Whilst I can appreciate that the X-Rays being there is not a good thing, talking to the press about it and making a national story of it is most definitely not the way to handle it. If he was genuinely concerned for the confidentiality of the information then he should have simply notified the NHS and not discussed it at all with the press.
Some guy who is seemingly new to Urbex (I’m basing this assumption on him only having two sets on his flickr, both of the same site) wanted himself a little bit of fame and glory by having a picture published by the BBC, and then managed to royally stick his size 9′s in his big mouth and get the local NHS in uproar about the site, have them searching it and will probably lead to a tightening of the security at this location.
To quote him directly: “Ring Ring, it’s the BBC on the phone. They tell me they want to do a photo gallery of the hospital using my pics, and it will feature info on urbex, a little about me and the camera, etc etc. I was naturally chuffed, absolutely ecstatic in fact.“ If you are into Urbex for the fame and glory, then you should quite frankly fuck right off and go audition for X-Factor or something if you cant keep your mouth shut and must have your little bit of fame. That majority of us are into it for the love of the buildings, their history, their architecture and the pleasure of being there and photographing it ourselves, not if we can get 5 minutes of fame by having one of our pics on a site.
More quote from this guy:
Throughout the course of the convo, he asks various questions. What type of camera do you use, how long you been into this, have I plans for any other urbex stuff, and finally, the question which resulted in my foot being jammed halfway down my throat, how many photos do I have.
I excitably tell him, ‘I have loads of photos. Some of them are totally unreal too, peoples X-Rays and stuff’. At that point his tone changed, and he put me on hold. About a minute later, he explains to me that he wants to “extend” the feature, but needs to get permission from his editor. I say cool, and we end the call.
Ring Ring, it’s the BBC on the phone, again. This time, a girl, a journalist, and she wants to interview me on the telephone. I agree, and after a few photography related questions, I get the security issues thrown at me.
Do you think security was sufficient?
Nope.
Did you ever see security inside the building?
Nope.
Do you think it would be easy for kids to access?
I guess so.
How surprised were you to find X rays and other personal files.
Surprised I guess? I would have thought it would have all been shipped to the new hospital, or destroyed.
Anyhoo! After several other phonecalls from the original chap who called (who apparently still wants to run the photo feature), and from some of his colleagues, I agreed to be interviewed on site…and whilst I think I have probably ruined this place for photographers in the short term, I hope maybe something good comes out of this.
I really hope for my own sake, the original caller does see some merit in the photos I took. It would suck to have been duped into what is simply a page filler due to slow news. The fact that my photos had nothing personal in them leads me to believe he was originally genuine, and it was my admission to the x rays etc which led to their story.
I am both excited that a wider audience MAY get to see my photos for what they are, and very nervous about any comeback from all this. I dunno if i have done the right thing or not, time will tell.
The amount of self involvement, excite at possibly seeing his name on the BBC with a photo and disregard for other photographers and Urbexers absolutely disgusts me, this is the kind of selfish retard that the hobby definitely does not need. Its thanks to selfish actions like this that sites are continually getting locked down, harder to access and in some extreme cases even bulldozed to prevent further access.
To realise the interview is now taking a completely different angle, and yet still continue to give information that will compromise the site is just idiotic, and then to compound this by going to do an on site interview tells me in no uncertain terms that this guy is more interested in his 15 minutes of fame than he ever was about the patients who’s records are laying at site.
I have previously been to Law myself on two occasions, took plenty of photographs there and thoroughly enjoyed the explore, but you don’t see me blabbing info to the BBC that could lead to the Urbex community losing the site. I have done interviews in the past with journalists about Urbex, and will no doubt do them in the future, but I’m quite certain that at no time would I be stupid and self involved enough to give any information that could compromise a site simply so that i can get my name in lights.
His Flickr page can be found here if you wan’t to go and leave him some comments.
~Shepy
UPDATE: Aww, it seems that poor Gary isn’t too keen on the attention he is getting from the urbex community on this, as he is actively censoring comments left on his flickr page about it.
~Shepy
Hunted by police helicopter
Jul 4th
A couple of friends and I were out exploring last night, a magnificent old building constructed in 1808 as a college and seminary in County Durham. After having explored the site for a little over two hours we headed towards our exit and heard a helicopter flying above.
Quickly we ducked back into the building and decided to wait it out and have a cigarette while we waited for the thing to pass overhead so we were not seen exiting the place. After a bit of discussion we agreed that it was unlikely they would send out a helicopter for us, a couple of trespassers and after waiting for 15 minutes and still no signs of the helicopter moving on any, we decided to just exit anyway. One set of ninja manoeuvres to get out quickly and we walked clear of the building and started taking our external shots of the place. The helicopter was hovering close to the place, but not quite over it so we assumed it was perhaps there for something going on over at the road nearby.
After we had our external shots we walked over to exit the fence surrounding the place to find two police officers waiting, and it hit home rather quickly that indeed the helicopter was there for us.
Luckily it was just a case of us explaining to them that we were just there taking photographs, and to back this up i always carry a little printed 12 page booklet with some examples of my previous urbex pictures, and showed the officers the pictures in our cameras to show we had just been doing the same. They took our details and carried out a couple of quick PNC checks whilst having a chat with us about the dangers inherent to the hobby etc and then sent us on our merry way, at which point we saw two police vans sitting over at the end of the building around the corner.
Now I’m used to police attention whilst exploring, often security or a busy body in the area will call them out and we will be questioned, which has lead to me being arrested on a couple of occasions and then being released after questioning. I can understand this entirely, and in a way am quite thankful for it as it helps to prevent the pikies from stealing the lead from the roofs, the copper from the floors and generally just trashing these places that we like to visit.
I do however think that the helicopter was a bit excessive, especially as we had parked our car about a quarter mile from the site, and it was the farmer near to where we had parked who had called in the incident to the police. They knew where our vehicle was, they had the name and address of the owner from a vehicle check no doubt, so why then would they need to send out a helicopter to look for us as well as the two vehicle sand four officers? Whilst I appreciate that they will not have been able to find or see us due to the fact we were in the building, they knew exactly where we would head once we left the building, so they could have simply caught us at that point.
A quick search of google turned up the following information for the cost of a police helicopter for one year; £1,216,542 for 1294 flights, but unfortunately due to the varying nature of the duration of these flights these figures can not be used to calculate the cost per hour of a helicopter to the force. I did manage to find however that if a helicopter is called in by a neighbouring county’s police force then it would be charged at £1,500 per hour. These figures are also based on 05-06 data, so presumably due to increasing fuel charges this figure is now much greater. Working on that figure though, and the half hour stated by one of the officers that they were at the site, they have spent at least £750 to keep a helicopter in the air to look for us at a site no bigger than a football field, and could have easily stopped us for questioning or whatever else they pleased when we returned to the car. It all just seems a little wasteful and keen to use the helicopter to me.
Anyway, we were let go without arrest or charge, and the explore was really quite enjoyable and turned out some nice pictures, so ultimately it was quite a good explore for us. Pictures to come soon.
~Shepy
New lens
Jul 2nd
At the weekend i went out and bought myself a nice new lens for
my Canon. The lens i went for was the Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM, a bargain at less than £300.
Whilst it may not be the fastest lens available at F4 this really doesnt make that much difference to me as 95% of my photography is done using a tripod with derelict buildings and still life as the subjects, so speed isn’t an issue.
Having previously used the kit 18-55mm Canon lens as my main lens for Urbex up until now, it is astounding how wide and impressive this lens is in comparison. Some of the shots i was able to take at the weekend simply would not have been possible if i had been using the 18-55mm still.
As well as the wide angle aspect of the lens i am also seriously impressed with the sharpness of the images and the speed at which the lens focuses.
It is quite a heavy lens (470g) so people using the Manfrotto Modo 785B tripod may want to be careful if their lock is quite loose, as can be the case with the Modo sometimes. Whilst im on the Modo, for those of you who are not aware of it, it is pretty much the de facto choice of tripod for Urbex due to its exceptionally compact size when collapsed (43cm), whilst still managing an impressive height when fully extended (150cm) and the icing on the cake is its ball head which makes it excellent for getting in the right position for a shot in the shortest time possible. If you’re looking for an easily transportable tripod that still gives you an impressive range of positions to shoot from, you should definitely check out the Modo. There can be an issue with some of them which prevents the head from locking fully when laden with a heavy camera and lens, so i would suggest that you buy it in store and check how tightly it locks before purchase, ideally the lock button should depress no further than about half way before it has a firm grip of the head.
Back to the Sigma lens… I’d be surprised if the new lens spends much time off the camera as my main photography subject is Urbex and so suits this lens perfectly, the only times i could see me using anything else would be portrait work and sports shoots such as my upcoming trip to the Nurburgring.
A few quick samples of images taken with this lens during my explores this weekend:
Swimming pool in an abandoned hotel
Sink in an abandoned railway works
I’ll be making more updates soon with some more info about the sites I was at this weekend and another couple I have done recently but have yet to process the pictures from.
~Shepy