ROF Featherstone - August 2013

Long overdue, a bit of mooching, a return to Urbex, urban exploration is very addictive and needs to be fed.
 
First off thanks to Judderman and Zer081 for the heads up on this one.

So I broke my first rule of mooching on this one, a solo visit - with a drive down the outskirts of Wolverhampton on an overcast, yet dry Sunday morning.

This is one monster of a site, an ex military munitions factory, sadly I didn't have as much time as I would have liked and I suspect a return visit will be on the cards at some point (or will it????).

Originally 64 hectares, part of the site has been sold off and is now the home to the local prison HM Featherstone, holding about 700 prisoners.





 

 

 

 

 

 

This place went on and on and on, derelict buildings large and small punctuated with various graffiti and street art, bunkers, shelters, blast walls, oh and the usual broken glass.











 

 

 This was clearly a place your not meant to be, but no one gives a stuff, the large imposing fences have holes as big as buses, the locals have made wooden bridges over the muddy bits from discarded doors from the derelict surroundings.

Legend goes if you park your car long enough on the surrounding country lanes the security guards from the local prison will come looking for you - to ensure you haven't committed suicide.  For the record I saw neither guards or corspes. I could hear the inmates of the local prison in the exercise yard in the distance, but other than that all was silent apart from the odd evil hiding pigeon.

 













A word of warning on this place, ROF Featherstone, is a Royal Ordnance Factory that made some nasty shit for killing people. Amongst the lovely materials used on site to make toys of war was depleted uranium. An interesting article from the Telegraph

And to quote from Hansard "My Lords, the 120 millimetre ammunition for the Challenger 2 main battle tank has a depleted uranium component, which is being manufactured at Royal Ordnance plc's specialist materials facility at Featherstone, near Wolverhampton"

So time to drive home, best not to linger...

- oh more on Flickr 

 

Phlegm - The Book

If you wander the streets of Sheffield wondrous things can be found, as I haven't been to Sheffield I wander the t'internet and look in amazement at the work of artist Phlegm

The often massive and always intricate work of Phlegm can be found in a number cities and towns, but also a very collectable book of the artists pen and ink drawings. 80 wonderful pages based on the artists wall paintings of the last few years.
 
 



The book is becoming highly prized and is being already sold at highly inflated prices on Ebay, I picked up my copy from Rare and Racy Books. Ordering mail order for the bargain price of £25. and £3.50 postage and packing (within the UK - they do post overseas).

If you buy one book this year, buy this book  - and then jump in the car to Sheffield and hunt the large scale art down.

I cannot stress how good this book is - you will not be disappointed (it is in black and white before anyone gurns).

My Friends Are Electric - Power from the sky

Whizzing round the sky, we see the towers of power, the wind turbines, the cooling towers which from the sky look bloody amazing.

Part of an ongoing obsession I afraid to say, so here is a few of my latest snaps - in no order from all around the United Kingdom


























More to follow in due course....



All photographs Copyright Fragglehunter/SleepyG Photography - please do not steal my photographs

SDV1B DV Camcorder - Mini Review

I took the plunge and bought one of these little babies on Ebay, described as the rather grand SDV1B HD H.264 1080P 12M Waterproof Mini Sport DV Camera Video Action Camcorder.

Lets have a play.

First off out the box, first thing that stands out is the waterproof housing that comes with the camera, solid and robust, the paperwork says waterproof to a depth of 30 metres (I won't be testing that).

 

All manner of clamps and straps are included, my main reason for purchase was for use in the plane, and so pre doing anything with the camera in the plane I gave the camera a dry run in the car with the sucker fixing. Thankfully the rather robust sucker sticks like shit to a blanket, so here's a few tests, no YouTube enhancements added other than rotation of the clips and addition of some YouTube stock music.

So here is the downside, my first supplied camera simply refused to accept the required micro SD card and simply shot the buggers thru the air. Thankfully the Ebay seller was truthfully shipping & handling out of London and exchanged the camera for an new one - but I still have to insert and eject the card on the replacement camera using the prong of a fork - not at bad as it sounds, but its a fiddle if your out and about.

The battery flap is a bit shit, failing to lock and is a bit flimsy. The camera itself does get a little hot when in use - or perhaps this is the battery ??

£64. including postage, I'm not disappointed (so far) - but you may be, watch this space.
 
Time for some Urbex with the my new toy.....

PS. you can and I have now turned the date/time stamp off

UPDATE - we destroyed the SDV1B DV Camcorder


 

Breaking Bad - Walter White Street Art - August 2013

French artist Akse P.19, talented chap, painted a rather good mural of Walter White, aka Heisenberg from the Breaking Bad television series up on Tib Street, Manchester.

A spray paint job, rather grand it was, until some rather jealous toad decided attack it with blue crayon.



More info in the Manchester Evening News

Urbex News Round Up - August 2013

Sadly many of these are taken from the Daily Mail, not my favorite newspaper - the Daily Fail as many call it now seems to have fallen in head over heels in love with urban exploration over the last few months.

So here we go with the shit and not so shit snippets you may have missed in the world of mooching and photography.

First off men go mad in a cave (sorry ladies may have joined in???) with the 28 Days Later mob going mad for spilling the beans on an exploration area and bat lovers go batty on the disturbance of bats - lots of angry voices and threats of animal protection prosecution stuff. Basically the Daily Mail loved it and got all excited, 28DL got all forum-ish and the bat lovers got all of a flutter, read for yourself but the pictures I think are most excellent.

Back to the Daily Mail again and this one hit all the right spots for the Mail, an abandoned railway station of the Nazis, with a top secret hidden research laboratory - the Mail seems to like a good anything that has any remote link to Nazis story.

For a bit of balance an nice little feature from the BBC on Severalls Hospital, the infamous Colchester Asylum.

Now here is one you don't come across everyday, Indian Urbex, a mooch round an old powerstation and its rather good.

Daily Mail hits the back of the net again with a article on Fordlandia

Over to Chicago, as WGN-TV run a feature on urban exploration and users of Instragram

The Telegraph takes a pictorial look at the subject of Dark Tourism sites from around the world, Fukushima anyone ? anyone ?

Finally the Daily Mail, again, with Lancaster Moor Asylum 

- That's your lot.


 

First Electric, Linthwaite - August 2013

What can we say, four walls with a roof, sat next to a mill on the main road.

With the door ajar and obviously abandoned looking at its semi derelict state we popped our head in, not much to say other than shit graffiti and obviously being used by someone to fly tip.

A few shots and we left.

Sybro Spinning, Slaithwaite - August 2013

A trip into Yorkshire, the day hadn't gone well so far and well to be honest it just nosedived at this point.

Looks like we had been a few days late and sadly this mill was no more, the local fire starters had been to work and torched the place - the smell of burning still lingering.

So long Colne Mill, Slaithwaite