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General - - Becton Gas Works, East London circa late 1986 | Industrial Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

General - Becton Gas Works, East London circa late 1986

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coat953

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
More oldies. We got into Becton works soon after Stanley Kubrick had finished filming Full Metal Jacket there. Very weird with all the Vietnamese signwriting, palm trees in skips and even a Vietnamese newspaper (see below). This was the first time we were nabbed by security, though when we made a bolt for it, he was too fat to chase us. He did try and nearly got us when we found the battery was flat on the old Morris Minor I was driving and we had to bump-start it....

History Lesson, Beckton was built to make gas from coal in 1870 and stopped operating in 1969 after the development of the natural gas fields in the North Sea rendered it redundant. It was a huge site, covering over two square kilometres. When I went, I spent hours wandering around, it went on forever. It's long gone now and almost no traces remain. But, the spoil heaps have the distinction of being the highest point in the borough of Newham!

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Apologies for the quality, these are on old Ektachrome slide film which is deteriorating. Gotta get 'em all digitised asap!
 

The Kwan

28DL Regular User
Regular User
Cheers for posting this up for us to see mate, it is really interesting...you will need to just pop some history about the gas works in the report if that is okay so folk know a bit about it without having to hit google :thumb
 

GAJ

Mr Muscle
28DL Full Member
Shiiiit son!! It's no secret I fuckin love gas sites & seeing this is absolutely awesome!! More of this stuff please, it's amazing to see stuff from this time.

Thanks for posting these up & please continue to do so :thumb
 

bhg

In Search of Lost Time
Regular User
omg! this is from M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E song scene! One of the best final scenes ever!
I love the report and your shots.
#more please!
 

catbalou

off the wall
Regular User
Loving this! Really interesting to see oldies like this and great shots too. As others have said.... more please! :D
 

drhowser

Bespectacled & irrelevant
Regular User
Very nice! I'm loving your old film stuff.

I've actually got a box of EPL 400 sat in the freezer, it probably went out of date about the time you were shooting these!
 

Gabe

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
More great stuff. Ive walked around this site a few times trying to find anything of interest thats left and theres absolutley nothing so cheers for posting this up.
 

boxfrenzy

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
That's ace mate, really good to see.
Oasis filmed the video for D'You Know What I Mean here in 1997 a couple of years before it was knocked down to build the Tesco - I watched the helicopters from work all day.
[video=youtube;6NtqA5zywQA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NtqA5zywQA[/video]

One of the spoil heaps became the Beckton Alps, a dry ski slope. Rumour has it that there's an old railway locomotive buried in it. :)
 

Esoteric Eric

28DL Regular User
Regular User
These are excellent. Stanley Kubrick is my favourite film director and I'm liking the clothes you guys were wearing at the time.
 
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