I'm quite new to this whole thing, and probably pretty young to a lot of people, but lately me and my mates have decided it's worth the money to travel further than our local area to find some decent places to explore, even if we are all broke as fuck.
History
The Bata Shoe Factory was built in 1932, and ended up being the central hub for the entire town of East Tilbury. Known as a "Bata town", East Tilbury was built as it is today purely for the workers of this factory. The majority of buildings around the area were built by the Bata Shoe company, such as a hotel, supermarket, cinema, library, swimming pool, and plenty more. The town today appears as a regular dreary section of suburban Essex, but up until the late 20th century, it was "the town that Bata built", thriving and working all for one company.
The factory was operational until 2005, but from the 1980s onwards, gradual downsizing of the factory and its operations took place. In the final years, as little as 200 workers remained at the factory, much less than the 3,000 people the factory had employed at its peak in the 1960s. The factory estate today remains a strange mix of large abandoned warehouses, small business offices, and a small new housing estate now being built on part of the site.
The Explore
We pretty much ran into this place accidentally, believe it or not. After an unsuccessful attempt at getting into what's left of Tilbury power station (too many workers on site), I suddenly remembered the old Bata factories in East Tilbury when my mate asked if I knew any other places in the local area. I now live on the complete opposite side of Essex, near Epping, but for most of my life I grew up in Thurrock, even attending the primary school directly opposite the factories until I was about 8 years old. We decided to go check the site out, not expecting much, as I knew for a fact that the majority of the site had now been turned into a modern industrial estate, home to a ton of small offices for tiny companies.
We walked around for a bit, then decided there was too many workers to enter the site itself without looking suspicious. Most of them were just random people working their jobs in whatever small businesses were located there (only one I paid any attention to was a small site that seemed to own and rent out temporary traffic lights for roadwork sites), but we'd still rather not risk it in broad daylight. We went into the local co-op to grab a drink, and just as we were leaving we saw 4 people walking out of the construction site for the new housing estate. I knew what they were up to straight away, and they were all wearing a hi-vis each with some random company name on. I walked up to them and asked if they worked there, to which they replied that they were just looking around the place. We told them we were searching for any abandoned parts of the old factory, and as it turns out, that's where they'd just been. They led us across active parts of the site where several people turned their heads and watched us, probably just assuming we were supposed to be there.
Getting into the abandoned section of the factory involved some climbing, mainly on stairs (thankfully). Once inside,We stayed with the guys we met for the most part, but several times wandered off to explore the place for ourselves. Here's some photos from inside:
Not the best photo, but here's the view from outside. Yes, we climbed onto that white bit on the very top. Couldn't resist.
I know you guys probably aren't keen on YouTube videos around here, but we also recorded some video in the place, including climbing to the roof:
History
The Bata Shoe Factory was built in 1932, and ended up being the central hub for the entire town of East Tilbury. Known as a "Bata town", East Tilbury was built as it is today purely for the workers of this factory. The majority of buildings around the area were built by the Bata Shoe company, such as a hotel, supermarket, cinema, library, swimming pool, and plenty more. The town today appears as a regular dreary section of suburban Essex, but up until the late 20th century, it was "the town that Bata built", thriving and working all for one company.
The factory was operational until 2005, but from the 1980s onwards, gradual downsizing of the factory and its operations took place. In the final years, as little as 200 workers remained at the factory, much less than the 3,000 people the factory had employed at its peak in the 1960s. The factory estate today remains a strange mix of large abandoned warehouses, small business offices, and a small new housing estate now being built on part of the site.
The Explore
We pretty much ran into this place accidentally, believe it or not. After an unsuccessful attempt at getting into what's left of Tilbury power station (too many workers on site), I suddenly remembered the old Bata factories in East Tilbury when my mate asked if I knew any other places in the local area. I now live on the complete opposite side of Essex, near Epping, but for most of my life I grew up in Thurrock, even attending the primary school directly opposite the factories until I was about 8 years old. We decided to go check the site out, not expecting much, as I knew for a fact that the majority of the site had now been turned into a modern industrial estate, home to a ton of small offices for tiny companies.
We walked around for a bit, then decided there was too many workers to enter the site itself without looking suspicious. Most of them were just random people working their jobs in whatever small businesses were located there (only one I paid any attention to was a small site that seemed to own and rent out temporary traffic lights for roadwork sites), but we'd still rather not risk it in broad daylight. We went into the local co-op to grab a drink, and just as we were leaving we saw 4 people walking out of the construction site for the new housing estate. I knew what they were up to straight away, and they were all wearing a hi-vis each with some random company name on. I walked up to them and asked if they worked there, to which they replied that they were just looking around the place. We told them we were searching for any abandoned parts of the old factory, and as it turns out, that's where they'd just been. They led us across active parts of the site where several people turned their heads and watched us, probably just assuming we were supposed to be there.
Getting into the abandoned section of the factory involved some climbing, mainly on stairs (thankfully). Once inside,We stayed with the guys we met for the most part, but several times wandered off to explore the place for ourselves. Here's some photos from inside:
Not the best photo, but here's the view from outside. Yes, we climbed onto that white bit on the very top. Couldn't resist.
I know you guys probably aren't keen on YouTube videos around here, but we also recorded some video in the place, including climbing to the roof:
