STEEPLEJACK'S CORNER 2012

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The Ellenroad site in February 1985.

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Ellenroad when it was still running. The white patch on the roof is cotton dust that blew up the vent from the 'fanny hole'.

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Demolition is major surgery, not vandalism. This was a knotty problem. The toilet block between the mill and the engine house and rope race which had to be saved was supported on cast iron pillars so to avoid damage to the engine house it had to be cut out piecemeal. Norman Sutcliffe is on the scaffolding overseeing operations.

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Not your heroic demolition picture but essential. In order to make sure that the structures we wanted to save were not damaged when balling the main structure down, all the connections to the rope race had to be severed. This bloke worked his way through every floor of the mill cutting out the concrete at the join. Then the girders were all cut except for about an inch of the lower web. The idea was that as the mill dropped the connection would break before the heritage elements were damaged. In the latter stages the main structure was only held up by these small bits of metal. As I said before, this was surgery not vandalism.

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Detached and ready for dropping.

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Once the rope race was detached Norman started balling down the mill. He knocked out the bottom cast iron pillar and collapsed the upper floors. Quick and very tidy, nothing fell more than 5 yards from the building.

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The strategy of detaching the main structure from the rope race worked. We got to this stage, the rope race stood on its own attached only to the engine house behind. However, there was a problem, it was never intended to be free-standing and was only two bricks thick. As I did this pic it was gently swaying in the breeze. Someone had to make a decision. I reckoned it would cost at least a million pounds to corset it and stabilise the structure. This would have killed the project so I told Norman to drop it and went for my lunch. terrible tragedy and we lost all the pulleys inside but before Norman dropped it I got him to extract the large alternator in the bottom and we replaced that afterwards in what was left of the race so at least that was saved.
Incidentally, the main flue ran on this side of the wall of the boiler house on the left. We knew it was dodgy so Norman put a mattress of old timber and rubble on top of it before we dropped the bak wall carefully by hand. It worked, no damage to the flue. Not vandalism but skilled work.

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It took about half an hour.....

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Norman smashing the cast iron pulleys from the rope race at Ellenroad in 1985. Sad.

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Once the main body of the rope race was down the top of the remaining structure had to be removed without damaging what was below. This was heavy duty surgery and I wonder what modern H&S inspectors would say about the way it was done. This was of course 1985. One hard hat and one cap......

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Norman stood on the rubble planning his strategy for reducing the remains of the rope race.

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The casual observer in 1985 might have wondered why the two access towers had been ignored during the demolition of the main building. I asked Norman about this and the answer was simple, not enough bunce in them, no heavy metal so he was leaving them while he concentrated on getting the weight of metal out of the mill as the price was holding up nicely.

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As we got into March 1985 I asked Norman if my eyes were deceiving me because the detached toilet and access tower seemed to be leaning outwards from the mill site. He told me that I was quite right and what was happening was that the ground under the mill was rising as the weight of the building came off it. Shepherd's from Leeds were the main contractors and were responsible for safety on the site and their H&S man noted the lean as well. He told Norman that nobody could approach nearer than 150 feet. Norman told him that he had a bit of a problem because the crane jib was only 130ft. The H&S man went away and I asked Norman what he was going to do. He said I'll drop it this afternoon and if anyone asks I'll say it fell over.. Here he is doing just that.
At this point the surveyors had done all their site measurements and I suggested they should check their spot heights. They did and found that almost all of them were raised, Norman was quite right!

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It took 20 minutes..... H&S man satisfied, problem gone away.

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When the rubble was cleared the way was open for Shepherd's to start the build. The first task was to insert the services and I alerted the surveyors to the presence of the pillar bases that were still there in the ground. A large block of mass concrete with a big stone on top (you can see one behind the hole). Not what you wanted to find when trench digging! I gave them a plan of the mill and they laid out the services so they passed between the bases which were only disturbed when they were in the way of the foundations.

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Into each life a little rain must fall. Demolition work is hard on the tackle. Norman's favourite bit of kit, his crane, had a terminal failure of the drive shaft. Expensive stuff!

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I like this pic, it gives a good impression of the scale of the 130ft jib on Norman's Priestman crane. I forget why he had it lowered, I have an idea it was something to do with the rope pulley.

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Norman doing a bit of tidying up on Coates land opposite the houses behind the mill.

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Norman on the left and Reuben on the right having a site conference with Gavin Bone from Coates. We were in the last stages of the clearance and as you can see I have a big problem coming up, a large hole in the back of the engine house complex!

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First job was a temporary barrier in the open end of the rope race to keep the vandals out of the engine house.

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The demolition is over. The contractors, Shepherd of Leeds were on site. March 1985. The build had to be completed by November to qualify for the government grant.

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The main surface water drain going in for the new Coates factory in 1985. Time for us to start on the engine house!

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By 1987 a lot of work had been done on the rest of the engine house but we had the problem of the whole of the back wall which had been affected by the demolition of the mill. The first job was to make the 60ft high opening reasonably weather-tight so we went round the scrap yards and got hold of all the sheets of tin and cladding we could find and erected a scaffolding frame covered with sheeting. At the same time motorway contractors were installing the climbing lane on the climb up Rocking Stones and we gave them space in fron to the engine house for a depot and storage area. This was to come in handy!

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The rope race opening wasn't the only problem with the back wall....