OneGuyFromBarlick

Link to Youtube Isle of Grain demolition.

LINK
Another view from a drone which shows that there were two explosions, one at the base and one half way up. Still a tidy job! Estimated to weigh 40,000 tons.

I like the way the column of smoke/soot remains standing while the chimney falls around it.

I noticed that as well Tiz. It didn't look like 800ft high.....

The 400 feet high cement works chimney in Westbury, Wiltshire, is due to come down at 07.00 on Sunday.
The BBC says: "The Westbury cement works were constructed in the early 1960s before finally being closed in 2009. Site owners Tarmac said the chimney will be "brought down by controlled explosion" at 07:00 BST. If you can't make it there on Sunday morning, BBC Wiltshire will be broadcasting the demolition live on their Facebook page."

It will be on Youtube almost in real time!

LINK to the demo. Quite a nice video too!

Good drone coverage of the stack in 2015. Interesting construction, it had a brick top..... LINK

Hi Stanley,
I sent a photo of a Steam Train passing Ellenroad and Garfield mills to you ogfb e mail. I hope it opens it shows both stacks clearly.

I never got it Robert, resend to my talktalk email below.....

Stanley,
The photo is in this web site. In the Gallery I think its the 3rd or 4th Photo.
http://www.stormrail.info/

Got it. Thanks to Stormrail site. Now then, what year?

I can't see any crests or lettering on the side of the tank engine but the tender of the second loco looks like it has a BR crest and probably the `Cycling Lion' version (1950-1956) rather than the `Ferret and Dartboard (1956-1965). However the early crests often survived later than 1956 and some engines even reached the end of steam with the early crest.

Its actually 1963.
It was taken from Ladyhouse Lane railway bridge. The building on the right was shared between Peter Tathams Grandfather and Ronnie Bamford to store ladders and Steeplejacking equipment. It was also partially used by Dennis (Piggy) Hughes to store Pig food. Denises pig stys are just out of shot to the right of the photo.

Ahh.... Piggy Hughes! His scrapyard at Newhey up Halifax Road was a treasure trove of old machinery. I once asked him why he had so much and he said it was his pension. Unfortunately new regs about keeping stocks of scrap came in and it had to be stored on concrete with proper systems to catch leachate. He had to empty the quarry and at the time it was a bad scrap price. Hard luck Piggy! (By the way, you never called him that to his face.....)

Yes it wasn't a good idea to call Dennis "Piggy" but if ever you met him you could understand why he was nicknamed Piggy, I don't think it had anything to do with him producing Pigs.
Back in the day Dennis used to drive a Vauxhall Viscount, that was a top of the range motor car then. Dennis wasn't short of a bob or two, but if you met him he looked like he hadn't got two halfpennys to rub together. Very shrewd man.
Back to the photo, it is interesting to see Garfield stack producing smoke, and it had its drum then. Ellenroad stack is missing its drum in the photo.

Invernahaille wrote:Ellenroad stack is missing its drum in the photo.

Is it the photo that has 'cropped' the top off Ellenroad stack?

There's a white margin round the pic and it has cropped the top of the stack, both stacks would be smoking that day. I am not sure when the drum was removed so I can't say whether it was there in 1963 with certainty. I suspect not.

Ronnie Bamford, or some other jacks, I cant remember now, removed the drum from Garfield not long after the photo was taken. Five years later the mill was demolished. The steam engines where literally torn apart and sent to the scrap yard. Garfield was still using mules when it closed.

It was seen as a cheap alternative to repair but it was always a mistake as the drum was the weight that stabilised the cantilever stones of the oversiller. That was why I got Peter to replace the Ellenroad drum. He agreed with me 100%. Apart from the fact it holds the head together the drum completes the stack, they look funny without them!



A lovely job!

1972ish the drum was taken off the Ellenroad,Apex from Littleborough did it,they put a flat roof on a tower there aswell,it blew away one windy day ,hehe.

Peter on Ellenroad stack in February 1985. Note the lousy job of parging the top surface of the stones to 'weatherproof' them. Bloody useless..... Only beeen on for ten years and you could lift it off in slabs.....

Not a steeple but brave men http://100photos.time.com/photos/lunch- ... w_facebook

Lewis Hine did some good ones on the Empire State Building at the same time. Interesting that none of those men look like Cherokee Indians, many of the steel fixers were from the Cherokee Nation. Nice to see that the clips on the crane rope are fitted correctly with the saddle on the live side......

John Burlison has sent me these pics of the stack at Alliance Mill, off Newhall Lane, Preston in Late May 2016. He tells me it is our old mate Swifty doing the business.







This was a low as he took it, the rest was taken out with a machine.