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Saturday, 31 August 2013

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.

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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.

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 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.

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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 

 View my photos at bighugelabs.com

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