STEEPLEJACK'S CORNER 2012

[Stanley]

Nice straight laddering by Brooke Edgeley.

[Stanley]

I came across this pic the other day and it's worth posting because it's the best pic I have ever seen of a double walled chimney. Here's what Dean said:
Dean Greenwood felled this in 2006. "The West Vale chimney , what a crying shame. That was one of the best put together buildings I've ever come across....it defied logic , the top half was two bricks thick a row of backing stone then face stone with no cavity and then at half height a row of throughs revealed what you see in the photo (it looks so soft and easy to knock down but take my word it was one month of hard labour ....I lost a stone in weight..it was dam hot as well !! ) Under the row of throughs the construction changed to two course of brick a 1ft cavity then a row of backing tied into a row of face stone , to hold these two structures together there were 8 tying buttresses......jutting inward throughs came out of the stone."

[Stanley]

Remember me saying that Jack Brooke said that the complete refurb of Ellenroad stack would be the last one ever? Here is Brooke Edgeley on Masson Mill chimney at Matlock Bath doing exactly the same job. Could this be the last one? June 1995.

[Stanley]

When you look at pics like this it makes you wonder how large stacks stay upright but as we know, they are some of the most stable structures ever built. Ellenroad in 1985.

[Stanley]

The bent stack at Atkinsons in Bingley in 1987.

[Stanley]

The top courses on Swabs chimney in 1976.

[Stanley]

The state of Bancroft chimney head in 1981 when we gave Peter Tatham the contract to refurbish. The terracotta dovetail keys which were part of the Nori terracotta rim were all shattered.

[Tripps]

I have a distant memory of a bike ride when young - about 1950 ' ish I'd guess which involved riding to Heaton Park, then turning towards Middleton - a long way at that age. I recall having a rest next to a chimney which was very near to the road. I guess this was the chimney. I love the nickname The Colossus of Rhodes. I've looked it up, and found this really interesting link. Brings Titus Salt, and Friedrich Engels to mind
Schwabes chimney

Interesting - the extract below confirms my memory that it was very close to the main road.

Is there anything left today?
Not a lot. It took four years for workmen to bring down the Schwabe chimney finally getting to the bottom in 1982. Local demolition man Ben Lancaster bought it for £5 after it became a liability. The owners even failed even to give it away. Standing only 3 feet from the main road, it couldn't be blasted. Men had to scale ladders which took half an hour to climb and take it down brick by brick. Ben was critical of health and safety officials who forced him to take unnecessary precautions. He said, "Without the bureaucrats, the job would have taken 4 days,

[Stanley]

The reason I took an interest in Swabs was because my mate Robert wanted to add it to his collection of redundant chimneys. He asked Peter Tatham to ladder it and wanted ny opinion. The bait was that the owners would sell it for a tenner and include the small piece of land it stood on. It took me a while to convince him to forget it. Too close to the road and potentially too expensive to maintain. There were a lot of problems. The main one I identified was the poor internal condition of the flues under the road and it was unclear whose responsibility they were. You could hear the traffic going over the top and flakes of brickwork were falling! I was asked by Bernstein's to put a scheme up for safe demolition and I recommended putting a tramway in the main flue, dropping the bricks internally and packing them in the main flue back to the boiler house. I cubed the brickwork up and most of the stack would have fitted in there but nothing was ever done. I think it banked a couple of men before Ben took it on and his solution was to scaffold it internally and drop the bricks off the back of the stack onto the spare ground. I think H&S made him scaffold it more securely. Big problem was that to do it his way, all the bricks had to be carried round to the back, not a big problem at the head but the more you took off the further you had to carry them. Ben started in 1979 and I think it was 1982 before he finished.

[Stanley]

David, you'll recognise this spot then. Here's a pic I took to illustrate how close the stack was to the pavement in 1976, twenty years after you stopped there for a breather. I'll bet you never thought anyone would have recorded it!

[Stanley]

The start of a long job. The demolition of Swabs in 1979.

[Stanley]

Salford destructor chimney at Strangeways being demolished in 1976. Peter Tatham contract.

[Stanley]

Peter starting laddering in 1976. Salford destructor chimney.

[Stanley]

Almost there, Peter just has the overhang to deal with in 1976.

[Tripps]

Being a curious sort - I looked up 'destructor' on Google and soon found this link
destructor
Wow! There is no excuse for ignorance these days is there?

I have only skimmed it at present but I particularly noticed -

"It is also often found that the refuse from different parts of the same town varies considerably - that from the poorest quarters frequently proving of greater calorific value than that from those parts occupied by the rich and middle classes."

"The "Nelson" furnace, patented in 1885 by Messrs Richmond and Birtwistle, was erected at Nelson-in-Marsden, Lancashire, but being very costly in working was abandoned."

[Stanley]

David, for years Burnley had a destructor furnace in the town centre close to the baths which used some of the waste heat for warming the water. Big problem was that if the furnace temperature wasn't high enough modern waste produces some very nasty by-products like dioxins. We don't hear much about them these days but burning waste solvent for cheap energy was another source. Castle Cement at Clitheroe did this and was very suspect. It was one of the reasons why my eldest daughter and her family moved to Oz.



A rare sight, four men on a ladder.

[Stanley]

Fan scaffold at Salford and the exit for the main demo material in the base.

[Stanley]

Peter Tatham's two men, Higgy (who had a broken arm at the time) and Andy having lunch in September 1976 while working on the incinerator chimney in Salford.

[Bodger]

I wonder if this anecdote is true re delivery of bricks during stack building ?
"Frank Wightman had a photographic memory. He took copious notes whilst on site, not just of the job he was tackling but the interesting aspects of the site or area he worked in. One tale he told me in the mid 80's was being responsible for the erection of a new mill chimney at (I think) the Ardwick Rubber Co. His main concern apart from setting the stack truly perpendicular (with an allowance for the prevailing wind) was to ensure that the glazed white bricks spelling out the company name were sent up in the precisely correct order so there were no typos for all to see throughout the life of the chimney ! "
from Practical Machinist, antique machinery & history, forum

[Stanley]

I know Frank's work and an old mate of his was a frequent visitor when I was doing Ellenroad. I shame to say I have forgotten his name. If Frank says that was how they did it I'd believe him. Mind you, I do know of one instance when his acute observation let him down. He missed out the raising blocks under the trunnion bearings on his drawing of the Whitelees engine. I found that out while I was using his drawing to rebuild the engine......



Daniel Meadows on left with Peter Tatham at Salford in 1976. Peter had just made Daniel sign a disclaimer before he made his first chimney climb.

[Stanley]

Sandy Mill Shaw, 1933.

[David Whipp]

I've not got much to contribute to this thread, but here's a couple of pictures from the felling of the Fernbank Mill Chimney in Barnoldswick on 10th September 2011.

The first shows mill owner John Clark lighting the final fire at the base of the chimney after a section of the base has been cut away and propped with wooden posts cut from telegraph poles.



The second picture shows steeplejack John Warburton seeing the first cracks appearing as the poles burn through.



Soon after this picture was taken, the topmost metal strap on the chimney crashed down to where John had been kneeling. From snapping to the strap hitting the ground took six seconds (we timed it on the film we did). John heard the metal snap, looked up and moved away with a couple of seconds to spare....

John mentioned at the time that he was going to be working on Bancroft Chimney; it may well be that he's still on that job.

[Stanley]

Young Tom works for him and yes, they seem to have the Bancroft work.

[Stanley]

If you want the snaps you've to go up the ladder. Stanley snapping Peter Tatham on Ellenroad stack in 1985. Guess what Peter was doing.....

[David Whipp]

Guess what Peter was doing.....

My legs turn to jelly just thinking about it!