Photos, videos and docs of tarboat, with the keywords: "disused"

Bloom Street

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:51:15 +0000

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In 1901 The Manchester Corporation Bloom Street power station opened with eleven Babcock and Wilcox coal-fired boilers and four 1,800 kW Musgrave vertical engines driving Westinghouse generators. It was built to supplement the nearby Dickinson Street Electric Light Station because demand for electric lighting and the new electric tramways had grown too high. From 1911 onward, surplus steam was piped underground to heat local city-centre landmarks like the Palace Theatre and the Refuge Assurance Building. In 1953, oil-fired boilers replaced the original coal plant. The station officially ceased power generation and closed in 1985. Parts of the building now house an electricity substation. It is listed Grade II.

When wagons go bad

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 08:03:58 +0000

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The bones of a wooden-framed coal wagon lie on a siding next to the running line at Chasewater Heaths on the Chasewater Railway. The chassis and drawbar arrangements are all laid bare.

Ventilation

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 10:10:14 +0000

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The fan house at Duke Pit in Whitehaven was built in a castellated style on the hillside above the harbour. It is a scheduled monument. The first installation in this building was an 8ft diameter 1836 fan wheel which moved 23,000 cubic feet of air per minute. This was the first attempt at mechanical ventyilation in the Whitehaven coalfield. In 1870 it was replaced by a 36ft diameter Guibal fan to move 70,000 cubic feet of air per minute.

Kadina Mine

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 06:21:31 +0000

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The pumping engine at Harvey's Shaft of the Kadina copper mine housed a 60 inch diameter Cornish beam engine manufactured by Harvey of Hayle. Electric pumps replaced this engine in 1904 and production ended in 1923 when the Wallaroo Mining Company went into voluntary liquidation. The enginehouse survives with the pump rods still sticking out of the flooded shaft.

Mystery industry

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 06:37:39 +0000

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Below Harboro Rocks in the High Peak of Derbyshire stand what some say are the remains of a mill for processing silica sands and iron oxides which were used in the production of paints and the former also for refractory bricks. Little is known about this particular plant and it has been suggested that it never went into production. Another suggestion is that this was an abortive wartime scheme for extracting magnesium from the local limestone.

Hot + Cold Food ask at bar

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 14:24:54 +0000

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The Bestwood Hotel was already closed and up for sale when I took this photograph. It was built in 1896 for the Bestwood Coal and Iron Company in the Italian Gothic style with plenty of terracotta detailing. It has since been converted to apartments.

Tower abandoned

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 05:19:03 +0000

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British Coal closed Tower Colliery on 22 April 1994 but the workforce refused to give up and after pledging £8,000 each from their redundancy money bought the pit On 3 January 1995 the Colliery re-opened under the ownership of the workforce buy out company Goitre Tower Anthracite. Having extracted the economically attainable reserves the colliery was last worked on 18 January 2008 and the official closure occurred on 25 January.British Coal closed Tower Colliery on 22 April 1994 but the workforce refused to give up and after pledging £8,000 each from their redundancy money bought the pit On 3 January 1995 the Colliery re-opened under the ownership of the workforce buy out company Goitre Tower Anthracite. Having extracted the economically attainable reserves the colliery was last worked on 18 January 2008 and the official closure occurred on 25 January. The company went on to be involved in a joint venture with Hargreaves to extract a further 6 million tons of anthracite from an opencast operation nearby.

Cornish enginehouse

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 05:44:49 +0000

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Collapsed

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 18:20:34 +0000

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Rusty and collapsed roofing over the foundry at the former Brymbo steelworks. The stone structure in the background is the 1796 blast furnace which was not blown out until 1894.

Pennine Tower

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 06:51:08 +0000

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Thanks to GRONK on 28dayslater for the history. See his report for lots of photos of what is inside.
www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/the-pennine-tower-lancaster-services-m6-november-2023.136454

The Pennine Tower was originally due to open in April 1965 but due to delays with construction it was eventually pushed back to November, as part of the newly constructed Forton services on the M6 motorway, it was actually the second service station to open on the motorway after Charnock Richard which opened a few years earlier in 1963. The services took its name from the nearby village of Forton and was designed by T. P. Bennett and Son, when the facility opened it was originally operated by The Rank Organisation. It was opened on the Preston-Lancaster section of the M6 with junction 33 is to the north and junction 32 is to the south; this section of the motorway opened in the same year as the services.

The tower boasted an up-market restaurant and a sun deck which had been designed to resemble an air traffic control tower which spans 22.5 m metres across. Initially the tower proved popular with motorists offering unrivalled views of the countryside. However, during the first quarter of 1967, the tower-restaurant recorded a loss of £700 (approximately £10,700 in 2023). While that's the only period for which precise figures are available, it confirms that even during the supposed peak of the motoring-dining era, the tower was struggling to cover its basic running costs. Rank complained that most visitors weren't buying anything, and that traffic levels were much lower than expected.

The tower had space to hold more than 120 diners. It is true that modern fire regulations wouldn't allow 120 people to congregate in the tower, so it wouldn't be able to operate at full capacity and staff would have to count how many people came up. However the reality is that for most of its life the tower would have struggled to attract 120 diners at any one time, and patronage was usually in the single figures.

Fast forward a few years and cost-cutting was having an additional impact, plus social changes and driving becoming less leisurely all meant that the tower's prospects were bleak. Most of Rank's restaurants were soon struggling to make any money, and the unique running costs and impracticality of the tower meant it was especially difficult to justify. The desperate cutbacks meant the food was soon described as "an insult".

What was left of the 'fine dining' restaurant was converted to a trucker's lounge, swapping with the facilities downstairs, before the tower closed completely to the public in 1989. It then soldiered on for another 15 years, partially re-fitted, as a head office, then as staff training and storage, but even this became too impractical, and the tower is now not used at all.

In 2012 the tower was listed Grade II for its modernist design.

Workington Brewery

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:04:44 +0000

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The Workington Brewery company was founded by John Curwen in 1792. Brewing ended here in 1988 at which time it was in the ownership of Scottish & Newcastle. The mid-19th century Workington Brewery (also known as the Ladies' Walk Brewery) has survived after conversion to apartments. It is listed Grade II.

Woodland kiln

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 06:43:33 +0000

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Hyning Lane limekiln at Warton. A well preserved draw kiln in the woods.

Abandoned

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 05:53:14 +0000

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The long disused stone handling plant at Crich quarry. Opened by The Clay Cross Company in the 19th century and supplying limekilns near Ambergate via a metre gauge railway, the quarry closed in 1958. Reopening for roadstone occurred in the 1960's and it was operated by RMC and Tarmac before passing to Aggregate Industries ownership in 2000. Final closure came in 2010.

Picturedrome

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 06:12:39 +0000

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Art deco cinema architecture. The Picturedrome cinema in Eastbourne first opened its doors on 21st December 1920 and almost made its centenary before closing as the Curzon in summer 2020.

Flint face

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 14:35:56 +0000

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Fulking limekiln, West Sussex. This medium-sized draw kiln has a face fronted with flints.

Bell kiln

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 17:07:57 +0000

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Bell limekiln was built in the 1860s and was used until 1918. It retains the lime shed in front of the kiln to keep the product dry. In recent years it has seen significant restoration and the top now houses an observatory. It is grade II listed.

Dungeness Power

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sun, 31 May 2026 06:04:53 +0000

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The two closed nuclear power stations at Dungeness, Kent.

To the left Dungeness A is a legacy Magnox power station consisting of two 250 MWe reactors which were connected to the National Grid in 1965 and reached its end of life in 2006. Its decommissioning is being managed by Nuclear Restoration Services.

At the right Dungeness B is an advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) power station consisting of two 520 MWe reactors, which began operation in 1983 and 1985. They were the first in a series of AGR reactors to be constructed across the UK. In March 2009, unexpected problems discovered during a maintenance shutdown on unit B21 resulted in the reactor remaining offline for nearly 18 months. In 2015, the plant received upgrades and was given a second ten-year life extension to 2028. In September 2018, as both units were shut down for a scheduled maintenance outage, operator EDF (Électricité de France) encountered "significant and ongoing technical challenges" which ultimately led to the announcement of its closure on 7 June 2021.

Debenhams

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Mon, 18 May 2026 16:54:28 +0000

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The former Debenhams shop in Eastbourne stands forlorn and unloved but it does have these two domes on a 1911 dated portion of the building.

Upcast

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 06:44:07 +0000

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Upcast shaft headgear at the preserved Pleasley Colliery, Derbyshire.

Gone

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 06:30:52 +0000

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The iconic Big Mill at Leek was part of the Wardle & Davenport Belle Vue Mills complex. It was built in 1857 and stood empty for over twenty years whilst plans to convert the building to apartments were discussed. On 27th March 2026 some idiot burned it down.