This was a surprisingly good explore. We set out origenally just for a recce, but ended up in a full explore.
St Mildreds Tannery stands along side the River Stour in Canterbury City Centre. There are just a few remaning buildings now, the rest have been demolished and are now rapidly becoming a housing estate. The remaining buildings which have been left because they are on the other side of the river from the main housing development, are themselves due to be demolished soon, so we had to get in there and have a look round.
Visted with Swamp_Donkey.
A little History
St. Mildred’s Tannery was established in 1860 preparing and tanning imported hides. From 1988 it concentrated on the dressing, softening and dying of hides. The tannery closed in the early 2000's and has now moved its centre of operations to an industrial estate in Thanet.
The site is rapidly becoming a housing estate, the main tannery site has been demolished for a long time, and is mostly flats now, but there are still these remaining buildings on the other side of the river.
Why is it called St. Mildred's Tannery? Well, it takes its name from St. Mildred's Church which is reputed to be one of the oldest in Canterbury and is practically next door to the tannery site.
There's lots of pigeon shit on the upper levels here and tons of dead pigeons as well, so it wasn't the most pleasent of places to explore. We only explored about half of what is left, as it was getting late and Swamp_Donkey needed to get his beauty sleep.
Apologies for some of these pics, I've had to enhance a lot of them to make them any use! Note to self - must get brighter torch for light painting!
Anyway, enough waffle - on with the pics.
Err, yeah right. . . .
Everything downstairs was a putrid shade of green. Why did they choose these colours!!
Spiral staircase of doom! Actually it was surprisngly stable.
:shock: :shock:
We then entered a massive washroom area which reminded me a bit of the baths in a coal mine. I suppose this was heavy industry and was pretty dirty work.
And this room was next door, all tiled in white.
Compulsory fire extinguisher and dead pigeon shot.
The next room along was a massive manufacturing floor, no machinery left unfortunitely. The space was so big it was impossible to photograph with my little LED torch for lighting, but there was some interesting stuff remaining.
We then had a little explore upstairs.
Middle floor
Top Floor
Hatchway in floor
Obligatory chair shot
Then we found ourselves in the top half of the bit we started in, which had by far the best bits in it, as well as half a ton of pigeon shit. Seriously, we were crunching over the stuff, it wasn't pleasent.
Old machinery
Crane and showing the size of this room.
Then a little room to one end of this space held the best bit of the night.
Thanks for looking!
Maniac.
St Mildreds Tannery stands along side the River Stour in Canterbury City Centre. There are just a few remaning buildings now, the rest have been demolished and are now rapidly becoming a housing estate. The remaining buildings which have been left because they are on the other side of the river from the main housing development, are themselves due to be demolished soon, so we had to get in there and have a look round.
Visted with Swamp_Donkey.
A little History
St. Mildred’s Tannery was established in 1860 preparing and tanning imported hides. From 1988 it concentrated on the dressing, softening and dying of hides. The tannery closed in the early 2000's and has now moved its centre of operations to an industrial estate in Thanet.
The site is rapidly becoming a housing estate, the main tannery site has been demolished for a long time, and is mostly flats now, but there are still these remaining buildings on the other side of the river.
Why is it called St. Mildred's Tannery? Well, it takes its name from St. Mildred's Church which is reputed to be one of the oldest in Canterbury and is practically next door to the tannery site.
There's lots of pigeon shit on the upper levels here and tons of dead pigeons as well, so it wasn't the most pleasent of places to explore. We only explored about half of what is left, as it was getting late and Swamp_Donkey needed to get his beauty sleep.
Apologies for some of these pics, I've had to enhance a lot of them to make them any use! Note to self - must get brighter torch for light painting!
Anyway, enough waffle - on with the pics.
Err, yeah right. . . .
Everything downstairs was a putrid shade of green. Why did they choose these colours!!
Spiral staircase of doom! Actually it was surprisngly stable.
:shock: :shock:
We then entered a massive washroom area which reminded me a bit of the baths in a coal mine. I suppose this was heavy industry and was pretty dirty work.
And this room was next door, all tiled in white.
Compulsory fire extinguisher and dead pigeon shot.
The next room along was a massive manufacturing floor, no machinery left unfortunitely. The space was so big it was impossible to photograph with my little LED torch for lighting, but there was some interesting stuff remaining.
We then had a little explore upstairs.
Middle floor
Top Floor
Hatchway in floor
Obligatory chair shot
Then we found ourselves in the top half of the bit we started in, which had by far the best bits in it, as well as half a ton of pigeon shit. Seriously, we were crunching over the stuff, it wasn't pleasent.
Old machinery
Crane and showing the size of this room.
Then a little room to one end of this space held the best bit of the night.
Thanks for looking!
Maniac.
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