Cristallerie Val Saint Lambert - Belgium, February 2015

[The_Raw]

Val Saint Lambert is a Belgian crystal glassware manufacturer, founded in 1826. Val St Lambert is the official glassware supplier to H.M. King Albert II of Belgium.

We were a bit sick of the sight of razor wire on this trip and nearly turned back when we found it protecting this old factory. Thankfully it didn't take us long to figure out a way past it and it was worth the effort. Once inside it was a nice chilled wander and good to see something a bit different. Before we left we found a way into the live bit of the site which had far more stuff lying around in the dark, I didn't get many photos in there as we had didn't have time for light painting but easily could've spent another couple of hours in there.

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Plants taking over

Crystal glasses

Tongs and tools hanging up

Couple of random cool bits of graffiti dotted around

Inside the more active side, rooms full of machine parts....

With no tunnels in sight Wevsky was a bit bored until we found him a dead frog to play with :

Thanks for looking

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[hamtagger]

That place looks mega, especially like those windows

And "ribbitt"

 

[skeleton key]

A really cool location and well captured mate.

Love the shot with all the vines coming through the window

 

[Lenston]

Some cracking pics there bud

 

[Wevsky]

wet feet,cold and tired.but it was with good company so not a bad wander about

 

[shaddam]

Dude that is really nice

 

[Rolo]

Pretty weird but interesting location. I like the shot with the boxes. Probably going there in a few weeks.

 

[The_Raw]

Cheers for the comments

Pretty weird but interesting location. I like the shot with the boxes. Probably going there in a few weeks.

It's definitely worth a look, we went to fort de Flemalles afterwards and that was AMAZING, it's only a few miles away

 

[Andy]

You took some really nice shots there!

 

[Perjury Saint]

Nice!! With all that new fencing and wire, I thought maybe they were gonna start pulling it down...

 

[Andy]

A few historical information:

- Founded in 1826.

- Destructions in the First & Second World War.

- From 1971 repeated changes of ownership and repeated layoffs. Some buildings were no longer used.

- Bankruptcy and a fresh start in 2008 with 60 workers.

- Final closure of the company in 2013.

Today partially Museum, partially abandoned & decayed.

(Information compiled from various websites.)

 

[The_Raw]

Thanks Andy

 

[chambre]

Thanks, Andy!

I didn't know it's fully abandoned now!

I had a surprise when I went there and we left one of the buildings after a while and found a smoking container obviously used in production outside in the area we considered to be not in use.

 

[mookster]

This is one of those sites I really need a revisit to - I first went here back in 2012 and only saw a limited amount of it as my mate deemed it 'boring'!!! Didn't help we missed the best stuff though.