Hi Ho Hive creators. Beginning to see more signs of spring over here on the South Coast of the UK, with the weather starting to warm-up and the early spring flowers are showing themselves which always brightens up my day.
Still digging through my Flickr archives finding groups of memorable images trying to make an interesting post.
Bourton Mill - Gillingham, Dorset
Sadly now gone to make way for much needed housing in the area, Bourton Mill was one of the best explores I have ever done. It was almost paranoia free, solo, daytime visit from April 2015. I think that's the beauty of doing a mid-week explore and not during a school break, I had the place to myself for the entire visit.
Dehydrator
Many of the windows had been broken in some way or another and graffiti covered almost every inch of the place but some of it was obviously created by some good artists. I could have taken so many more pictures of this place as it was a huge site with many different aged buildings built over a long period, the mill was actually mentioned in the Doomsday Book. The site had been used to produce milk powder since 1933 until its' closure in 1998.
Looking east towards the oldest stone built building
I spent about 2 hours there walking round just taking all the decay and trying to understand how the place might have operated. Following the pipework leading off to different areas and seeing traces of the transition from what was a hydro powered water wheel which was converted into mechanical power to then the use of electricity.
Pipework Covers the Site & Stairs to the Dehydrator
Very few ares of the site were inaccessible with the worst ares of dereliction nearer to the watercourse parts of the site and and area of the oldest part of the site where there had been a fire.
The Green Room and Stairs to the Burnt-Out Building
The best spot on the site was right up the top on the 5th storey, where there was a huge mechanical spindle running over to ridge of the ceiling. there was a couple of plastic chairs and you could see the whole site from a balcony. I sat down with a flask of coffee for 10 minutes and went through my shots to see if I had enough to show my mate with the idea of a nocturnal visit to do some Light Painting, which will be in another post.
Off Switch
Recently looked at a few of the Urbex websites and there doesn't seem to be many new discoveries and many of the older sites have either been developed, are beyond exploring as so damaged or demolished.
