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I'm looking through some of my old photos hoping to get the spark back, which I've kind of lost lately.
Les Grands Moulins de Paris is a still-active Milling company in mainland Europe, but their mill in Lille, built in 1920, closed in 1989. This was our first glimpse of a European site, we'd been travelling since 4am but seeing this place floored us....it makes Millenium Mills look like a dolls house, maybe not in height but in sheer length and imposing presence. It was by far one of my favourite places from the trip.
It was fairly busy also as it was a Bank Holiday, whilst parking the car we saw two guys ride in on a scooter, and as we were picking our way through the undergrowth we saw a group of three French explorers entering so introduced ourselves using the small amount of English they knew, we went our separate ways after a while though. We then realised there was some commotion on the outside and saw the two guys who had ridden the scooter in joined by a large group of Airsoft players so they had the run of the outside, we ran into a few of them from time to time and they were fine, mutual nods and smiles go a long way to not being shot....
Two thirds of it is mostly wood floored which has mostly disappeared so is pretty much impassable after a few floors as what little wood hasn't vanished is totally rotten, the other third is mostly concrete but still has an enormous amount of holes in the floor from old equipment, vents, and wooden hatches that have disappeared so navigation was fun to say the least. The roof space was amazing, in terms of dereliction and being able to quite literally sit on the edge of the roof and take in the views.
Thanks for looking more here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/ ... 712848662/
Les Grands Moulins de Paris is a still-active Milling company in mainland Europe, but their mill in Lille, built in 1920, closed in 1989. This was our first glimpse of a European site, we'd been travelling since 4am but seeing this place floored us....it makes Millenium Mills look like a dolls house, maybe not in height but in sheer length and imposing presence. It was by far one of my favourite places from the trip.
It was fairly busy also as it was a Bank Holiday, whilst parking the car we saw two guys ride in on a scooter, and as we were picking our way through the undergrowth we saw a group of three French explorers entering so introduced ourselves using the small amount of English they knew, we went our separate ways after a while though. We then realised there was some commotion on the outside and saw the two guys who had ridden the scooter in joined by a large group of Airsoft players so they had the run of the outside, we ran into a few of them from time to time and they were fine, mutual nods and smiles go a long way to not being shot....
Two thirds of it is mostly wood floored which has mostly disappeared so is pretty much impassable after a few floors as what little wood hasn't vanished is totally rotten, the other third is mostly concrete but still has an enormous amount of holes in the floor from old equipment, vents, and wooden hatches that have disappeared so navigation was fun to say the least. The roof space was amazing, in terms of dereliction and being able to quite literally sit on the edge of the roof and take in the views.
Thanks for looking more here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/ ... 712848662/
