It turned out that the yard was full of wrecked, rusted and derelict trains, most (if not all) having been made in America in Philadelphia’s Baldwin Locomotive Works or the Vulcan Iron Works in Wilkes-Barre, PA.  After I spent a little while wandering around the yard the owner (or at least keeper) of the place turned up, a lovely old man who rents out the space not filled by trains for use as a car park.  The man (whose name I couldn’t quite understand) spoke no English but proceeded to show me around the yard pointing our the ages on the trains, most of them seemed to have been made around 1920 but one was as old as 1873.

Here are a handful of shots that I took in the yard…

As before, I have selected a top ten list based on the number of Flickr photos I found for each site in a single search, doubtlessly I will have missed important sites and got the ranking wrong but please feel free to point them out by leaving a comment. All of the photos used below were taken by other photographers and are used under a Creative Commons license (click through to Flickr for attribution), if you think you’ve got a better photo and it’s not CC – get your licensing sorted!

Annesley, Clipstone, Pleasley

Once on to the site I had a mooch around the silos, there’s not a great deal to see but they’re pretty impressive and very large structures which are quite a sight to behold if you’ve not seen that sort of thing before. There were a few bits of graffiti around and some wooden boards laid out as though some skaters had been around, though nothing looked overly vandalised which surprised me for a site in such a built up area. One cool and unexpected part of the site as what seemed to be a petrol station, complete with a petrol pump, I guess this must have been used to fuel the delivery trucks but I’ve never worked in a place like this so I can only make assumptions.

I had a little poke around the rest of the compound and saw a rat scampering into a warehouse, unfortunately I just missed getting a decent shot of the flighty little bugger but I managed to get his tail and some fur in frame. I didn’t really make it into any of the warehouse areas but got a quick look into what I presume must have been the offices which was utterly wrecked with collapsing ceilings and smashed up walls – the reasonably intact boiler and a set of drawers were the only things that gave a clue to its original purpose.

There’s quite a bit of exploring to be done at the site, though I’m not sure these days since this mini site-report is almost a year out of date, I may attempt to return at some point in the next few months and see what it’s like. In the end I abandoned the explore part through lack of time and also due to a mild suspicion that I wasn’t alone, in all likelihood it was probably just the wind or cat but my head was telling me that it could’ve been a chav or a crack addict so I decided not to venture into the huge dark warehouse and exited the site the same way I came in.  It might seem overly cautious to some but I’ve always been a fan of following my instinct, tens of thousands of years of evolution have made it what it is and I’m not one to argue with that!

Despite the fact that the whole area of Annesley has been designated a Conservation Area many of the buildings on the site have been demolished and there is a great fear among the locals (proud of their heritage) that the rest will go too, along with the iconic headstocks that still stand. Besides the headstocks only two other buildings have been spared the bulldozers, one I believe housed the canteen and the other seems to have some exterior winch-like equipment but I have not managed to determine it’s original usage.  An article in local newspaper The Chad says that demolition was given the green light in January 2009.

Surrounded by a mound of dirt and piles of extremely large tyres, the only building left easily accessible is the headstocks still white with the giant red “A” on the side (although it shares it’s space with some graffiti now). Once you’ve made your way past the completely ineffective (bent out of shape) fence you’re into the main chamber, there’s a few bits of hanging metal and cables around but it seems safe enough. The area inside is relatively small and you can’t see a great deal looking up to the roof but there is a ladder, for safety reasons I didn’t do the climb myself but others have in the past and have lived to tell the tale – take care whatever you decide. There’s a lot of metalwork inside, along with a giant rusted doorway and several rusted pieces of switchgear left over from the mine’s operational days.

The other buildings weren’t easily accessible and I was in a hurry so I didn’t try too hard to get in either of them, the winch building does have a window entrance that might be OK and the larger building with the clock seems to be fenced off but there may be a way in round the side or front (it is accessible from the main road).

I’m not quite sure if this causes a TimeCop-esque Urbex paradox but I did come across a few bricks on the site made by the London Brick Company, previously based at one of my recent explores at Stewartby Brickworks – I guess the world is full of coincidences!

Check out www.ngte.co.uk for examples of photos and some historical information on the site.

The more interesting part from my perspective was some of the switchgear and electronics to be found around the place, I love engineering related bits and bobs and they really give a place atmosphere. Lisk was full of switches, start/stop buttons, gauges, dials, signs, wiring, fuseboxes and all sorts of stuff like that so I was in my element. I didn’t touch too much of it very closely and I’m always wearing gloves so I don’t know whether there’s a risk that some of it is still live though I very much doubt it, the place has been empty for quite I while I expect although not too long since it doesn’t show many classic signs of decay and dereliction.

The back of the complex (probably the bit nearest the road) seemed to be a set of offices with much smaller rooms, carpeted floors and some leftover furniture and other debris. One of the more noteworthy bits of electronic debris was the chassis and main boards of their old Goldstar PBX / phone system, there were several cards laying around and none of them seemed to show signs of massive damage so they might even be usable if you know what you’re doing. Other noteworthy bits and pieces include some strange hexagonal tubs (or perhaps up-ended plinths) made out of MDF and painted green. I suspect that these were either some kind of packaging in which Lisk products were shipped (they seemed to have address labels on them) or some kind of trade stand as there was another giant wooden structure in the same room.

By the time I’d finished exploring the light had really faded outside, making the torch an essential and every shot required the sort of power provided only by an external flash unit (I have a Speedlite 580EXII) – so much so that had to change the batteries whilst on site. It’s well worth noting that after exploring there’s a Marstons pub almost exactly opposite the abandoned Lisk building, the pub does great food (the goat’s cheese ravioli was superb) and seems to have a perpetual 2-for-1 offer on main courses which is pretty sweet in this day and age.

Click the following link to Flickr for a few other pics taken on the day.

Once on the site I had a look around and started taking photos in one of the nearby sheds when I heard some noise, in the distance I saw a van moving and it eventually drove right past me on the other side of a wall. Other than that and the bulldozery in the distance I didn’t detect any other presence on the site but out of caution I didn’t explore some of the sheds in the direction the van came from.

Despite having not been abandoned for long the site is in a relatively good condition, there’s a lot of rubble around and dust in the air but not much evidence of mould, graffiti or vandalism – quite a refreshing change from most places! The structures seem to be intact and pretty sturdy (I wouldn’t try climbing though), there were some noticeboards that still had A4 paper pinned to it in fairly good condition (notes about the lay-offs) and dotted around the site were some interesting ‘motivational’ signs with slogans such as “QUALITY IS YOUR ONLY FUTURE” or “THINK QUALITY, IT TAKES JUST AS MUCH EFFORT TO MAKE A BAD BRICK”.

I’ve never worked in that sort of industrial assembly-line environment but I can’t imagine those signs really had much of an impact. Other paperwork and non-English language newspapers around the site seemed to point to a largely migrant workforce and there were even some photos taped on the walls showing what I assume were former employees stacking bricks.

Elsewhere around the site there was a good mix of giant sheds and nice close detail to photograph, overall a pretty cool site. If I hadn’t seen activity on the site I’d have been able to stay a little longer but as it happened I had other places to go but I imagine that I’ll return at some point.