It is good to know that behind the bitching of forums, the close-to-chest kept secret locations and access of sites, the elitist bullshit, attention seeking, press whoring front of the Urbex community, there are a solid group of ordinary people who live ordinary lives and do not allow themselves to be defined by a single aspect of the short time we spend on this sun warmed rock.
Rikke and her partner, Pete have my utmost gratitude and thanks for putting me up for the night, a complete stranger but for a name on a forum, cooking me a fab dinner (ZOOOMYYYGOD Home Made Burgers!!!!) and providing me somewhere warm to sleep that was not a floor. They make doubly great hosts in the sense that their beautiful home is in a converted shoe factory and as one walks up the steps to the front door, the stair well is lined with these awesome images of the factory prior to closing. Men and women at work, carefully crafting pieces of leather and cloth.
I lived in Milton Keynes for 13 years before I had really found photography and Urban Exploration so whilst I know the area around MK and Northampton in the sense of a long left resident, I was not aware of the wealth of things to climb over, into and through. Today we planned to just scratch the surface.
Brigstock POW Camp
Picking up Wee Chris, we made our way to Brigstock POW camp. A potted history (painstakingly researched by my host):
“Brigstock Camp built 1925 and over the years was used for an Emigration Camp, an Army Camp, ATS and Land Army Camp, US Army Training School, and in 1960 Stewarts & Lloyds Steelworks purchased Brigstock Camp for £23,000 at an auction. One hundred people moved from Scotland to work at the Steelworks and used Brigstock Camp for their living quarters and paid between £2.00 to £4.00 a week in rent and were allowed to stay up to nine months to allow them to find suitable accommodation. Many did so in the new expanding Corby.”
Today it is a dramatic shell of what is described about, hidden away behind tall hedges in a farmers field, rooms lay overgrown with knot weed, and shot gun cartridges are strewn everywhere. It has a lot of faded signs and peeling paint and we spend a few hours wondering across the entire site, poking heads through every door and testing out the sagging, rotten floor boards with our weight. Once certain we had done every building but for the pill box tucked away across a farmers field we popped back to the car.
We stopped into McDonalds for a swift filthy lunch and to collect a new explorer. Enter Michelle Stage Right
St. Crispin’s Asylum
This place is totally stripped and yet it still holds the feel of an asylum. We walked through the last few remaining blocks that were fenced within the large redevelopment of the site, in all sides new houses and flats and a select few converted blocks. I’m assured that the site has stood like this for some time and the more I look at whats left, it’s evident that they had started to convert the blocks that were left, installing new sash windows and taking the insides back to the brick and then suddenly stopped. Ran out of money? Probably.
We bumped into a small group of kids, we quizzed them as much as they did us and yet one of them (the only one who didn’t have a smouldering cancer stick in his hand) was desperately trying to convince us that he didn’t want to damage anything, he just liked the history (his favourite subject at school) and the feel of the place. They didn’t look much older than 12, too young to be smoking, but in a place where none of us should have been it was not time to be picky about or preachy about the poorly made choices of youth.
As we continued round the site, I spied adults and hid. How I suddenly felt as naughty as the child smoking a cheeky fag on the wrong side of the fence, and yet wasn’t this partly the reason I was here? They must have heard us as soon their heads popped round a door frame. The usual questions.
Why are you here?
Taking Pictures…
Who were they? We got an answer we hadn’t expected. Plain clothes pigs. A flash of a warrant card confirms it. As ever with the fuzz there seems to be an attitude imbalance but after brief and open discussion we agreed to continue to take our pictures and be swiftly on our way without taking ‘the piss’.
You do know you’re technically trespassing?
A pause on my part… how to best answer this one. Eventually, honestly, “Yes”.
Oh, fine then, just be careful incase the locals call Uniform.
We walked our way through the next block around a pit that had been dig for underground parking and then slowly filled with water. The kitchen was identifiable only by it’s tiled walls and the main hall had been gutted by fire. It’s inside scaffolded from floor to the rafters but the lower boards had been removed and recently been stacked outside, probably due to recent arson attempts on the place.
I danced across the lower poles to look through the projector holes. Inside the small room there were two full projectors but also light behind them. You must be able to get in? Surely? You could. We walked out round the hall to the front and there, the two tall blue doors that had kept the room sealed for long enough that the projectors were still there, were ajar. We quickly worked in the room and closed the doors firmly behind us. To see two old projectors sat there… i almost wanted to carry them away else they be destroyed by the chavs, but I didn’t. The past has to crumble and fade. Even the photos we take become lost and damaged over time. They are a vain attempt to preserve fleeting moments of dying worlds.
Exit Michelle Stage Left
Pianoforte Factory – Roade
Hisotry (lifted from www.contaminationzone.com):
“The sprawling industrial site of Pianoforte lies on the edge of the small rural village of Roade in the heartland of Northamptonshire.
In 1910 a London floor polishing paste firm known as J. Masters&Co began the manufacture of polishing paste on a site nearby the railway tracks along the small village train station.
J. Masters&Co closed after only 12 years in business and was purchased by a former employee, C.T Cripps. In 1923 Cripps founded ‘Pianoforte supplies Ltd’ which was dedicated to the production of castings and fixtures for Piano manufacturers and also successfully produced large quantities of fixture parts for automobiles.
In 1933 the factory suffered from severe fire damage and was rebuilt later that year.
During WWII the factory went into full time production creating spare vehicle and aircraft parts as part of a contribution to the war effort in Britain.
Later during the 1960’s employment peaked with the factory employing just over 1,800 workers, this success was however short lived and when the railway station of Roade was closed in 1964 Pianoforte began a slow journey into gradual decline.
In 1980 the factory ceased to production of piano parts altogether.
Areas of the site to date still remain active, employing an average of 400 workers on car-parts production lines which produce plastic and metal components for car brands such as Vauxhall.
Piles of ferrous metal adorn the walls in the old piano workshops and old workers aprons hang from the production walls in the long abandoned factory as if still waiting in hope for work here to resume.
A company that was once reputed for its excellent care of staff and spacious canteen now bears witness every day at noon to a single file of grim looking workers piled out before the factory’s seat-less front gated area, all huddled together savouring one last cigarette drag before returning to their shifts.”
This place was a gem and I am very grateful for Rikke for showing me the way in and out. Entire rooms lay scattered with the remnants of a huge industry. We crept about and photographed a little but Urbex fatigue was starting to set in and I had the long drive home ahead. We made it a short trip and headed back the Shoe Factory. Sweaty, dirty and tired I collected my things and said goodbye to my hosts.
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