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Report - - Langley Maltings, Oldbury, Aug 2011 | Industrial Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Langley Maltings, Oldbury, Aug 2011

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tawdry.piffle

28DL Member
28DL Member
Well this be my first result, hopefully I won't make a complete hash of it.

This was a complete spur of the moment explore, spotted it from the train and had my camera with me, so thought it'd be rude not to, absolutely loved it but ran out of battery, so went back the next day with my bro, but the raucous squawks of right rowdy, potential camera thieves meant we opted for another premature exit.

I've since discovered its been covered a fair few times on here, but I'll get another one up anyway.

A bit of history for anyone who has not already seen any of the other reports:


The maltings were erected by Walter Showell around 1880 on the side of the Titford Canal to supply malt to his new 'Crosswells Brewery' a hundred yards away across the railway line. This was one of the largest breweries in the area, and Showell's Ales were distributed throughout the Midlands. Local barley was used in the malting process, supplemented with grain brought in by barge and, later, by railway.

Malting ceased in 2006, and the building was sold by its owners,Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries, in 2007, since when it has been allowed to deteriorate. It was one of the last maltings to still use the traditional 'floor' malting process: the grains of barley were steeped in water and then spread over the floor of the maltings, the mass being frequently turned to permit even germination. At the end of the twentieth century, there were only five maltings in the country still using this process.

It is a striking building, rising from the side of the canal, the water at the base of its walls, and a feature of the canal walk from Oldbury locks to Titford Pool. This was not its first major fire. On 25th September 1925 the maltings caught fire and half of the building destroyed. Added hazards in 1925 were the location of the Shell-Mex petroleum tanks next to the maltings, and tar wagons in the railway yard opposite: both long since gone. On that occasion,the maltings were part of a commercially successful operation, and were quickly rebuilt. Their future now is much less certain, but it is to be hoped that they can be retained and a new use found for them.

On the evening of 8th September 2009 fire broke out in the derelict Maltings in Western Road, Langley. Half of the roof of the grade two listed building was destroyed before the fire was put out, and three of its characteristic outlet towere destroyed. So, another iconic building in the history of Oldbury is damaged or lost.

(taken from "The History of Oldbury" The History of Oldbury, Langley and Warley in the West Midlands)

I've tried to choose pictures that aren't too similat to those in other reports, but still found it tough getting it down to 6, sorry.

(in no particular order)

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Thanks for looking!

Also, bit of advice if you don't mind, I uploaded all my images to photobucket, and noticed their colours were all desaturated, googled and found its because i didnt convert them to sRGB... so I resaved all the photos with "save for web" as sRGB in photoshop, then found they were all grainy, because they had saved as GIF files...... find the save as JPEG dropdown in "save for web", resize all the original photos again, signature them again and "save for web" as sRGB, as JPEG, and photobucket has desaturated them all again :banghead I've given up for now and uploaded the desaturated shots, but if anyone can tell me how to fix this I would appreciate it massively!

Cheers.
 
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