"There's a camera up there, wonder if it's live?... oh yep! it just swivelled around towards us!" ... That soon sent us running.
The CEMEX Floor Cement Plant in Halling, Rochester, was once one of the largest concrete production firms in Kent, creating a variety of concrete floors, bricks, paving and various other construction materials daily. However, in 2000 the plant entered its decommissioning phase, and by 2009, all forms of production had officially ceased to operate, leaving it standing empty and derelict ready for demolition.
Although the majority of the site was torn down shortly after its closure, 2 of its concrete silos still remain, along with one of its main production houses, and so of course... we just had to get involved
So, after finally coming up with a convenient time and date, @Kidney and I thought we'd take a look at this industrial giant, and what a giant it was...
The initial plan was to make it inside whilst we still had daylight, as light painting our images would be far from ideal due to the proximity of the security hut to the main building.
[REMOVED}
Now, with the sun rapidly dipping, our plan to utilise the daylight for our images seemed somewhat unrealistic, so we resigned ourselves to the fact we'd have to take a chance on light painting...hey ho!
After cautiously wandering through the back of the site among the many piles of rubble and heaps of earth, we'd made it to the main building, and fortunately, site security hadn't yet discovered the destroyed door (thank God) and we were swiftly inside.
It came as a pleasant surprise to us just how much original equipment they'd left lying around, all the conveyors, box packaging machines, electricity panels etc, were all left intact and unvandalised, it was certainly something of a gold mine, to say the least.
Once @Kidney and I had just about managed to crawl through the pigeon shite covered conveyor, we were through to the 2nd floor, and began to light paint what we could, trying our best to avoid the broken windows to not make our presence known, should there be someone still left on site. We worked our way up all 4 floors, repeating the same photographic process, snapping shots of anything and everything that seemed worthwhile, all whilst treading as lightly as possible in order to not kick up the many layers of dust and cement powder.
After we'd reached the top floor, and stumbled our way through one of the many narrow, pipe filled corridors, I soon realised roof access was just 1 door away, and so we worked a bit of the old magic, and as if by miracle popped right open...
It was a bitterly cold night, and so after just half an hour or so of rattling off a few shots of the River Medway, we began to make our way downstairs and in the direction of our exit point. Unfortunately, as we tried leaving, the camera I'd spotted on the way in decided to suddenly spin around and look directly at us, and right there was our cue to start running... (thankfully, it all turned out to be okay, phew)
All in all, a great evening's worth exploring, glad I finally got this place ticked off the list
1.
2.
3.
4. (Who can spot @Kidney in this one)
5.
6. (The main packaging machine)
7.
8.
9.
10. (Possibly some form of control room)
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17. (Riverside view from the roof)
18. (The duel silo building, sadly entry wasn't possible)
19. (There's always time for a selfie
)
~ That's it for now people, thanks for stopping by ~
_____________________________________________________________
The CEMEX Floor Cement Plant in Halling, Rochester, was once one of the largest concrete production firms in Kent, creating a variety of concrete floors, bricks, paving and various other construction materials daily. However, in 2000 the plant entered its decommissioning phase, and by 2009, all forms of production had officially ceased to operate, leaving it standing empty and derelict ready for demolition.
Although the majority of the site was torn down shortly after its closure, 2 of its concrete silos still remain, along with one of its main production houses, and so of course... we just had to get involved
So, after finally coming up with a convenient time and date, @Kidney and I thought we'd take a look at this industrial giant, and what a giant it was...
The initial plan was to make it inside whilst we still had daylight, as light painting our images would be far from ideal due to the proximity of the security hut to the main building.
[REMOVED}
Now, with the sun rapidly dipping, our plan to utilise the daylight for our images seemed somewhat unrealistic, so we resigned ourselves to the fact we'd have to take a chance on light painting...hey ho!
After cautiously wandering through the back of the site among the many piles of rubble and heaps of earth, we'd made it to the main building, and fortunately, site security hadn't yet discovered the destroyed door (thank God) and we were swiftly inside.
It came as a pleasant surprise to us just how much original equipment they'd left lying around, all the conveyors, box packaging machines, electricity panels etc, were all left intact and unvandalised, it was certainly something of a gold mine, to say the least.
Once @Kidney and I had just about managed to crawl through the pigeon shite covered conveyor, we were through to the 2nd floor, and began to light paint what we could, trying our best to avoid the broken windows to not make our presence known, should there be someone still left on site. We worked our way up all 4 floors, repeating the same photographic process, snapping shots of anything and everything that seemed worthwhile, all whilst treading as lightly as possible in order to not kick up the many layers of dust and cement powder.
After we'd reached the top floor, and stumbled our way through one of the many narrow, pipe filled corridors, I soon realised roof access was just 1 door away, and so we worked a bit of the old magic, and as if by miracle popped right open...
It was a bitterly cold night, and so after just half an hour or so of rattling off a few shots of the River Medway, we began to make our way downstairs and in the direction of our exit point. Unfortunately, as we tried leaving, the camera I'd spotted on the way in decided to suddenly spin around and look directly at us, and right there was our cue to start running... (thankfully, it all turned out to be okay, phew)
All in all, a great evening's worth exploring, glad I finally got this place ticked off the list
1.
2.
3.
4. (Who can spot @Kidney in this one
)
5.
6. (The main packaging machine)
7.
8.
9.
10. (Possibly some form of control room)
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17. (Riverside view from the roof)
18. (The duel silo building, sadly entry wasn't possible)
19. (There's always time for a selfie
)
~ That's it for now people, thanks for stopping by ~
_____________________________________________________________
plus a bit of editing to make them a tad brighter, once again cheers for the lift back aye 
