Report - G E C Alsthom Engineering Systems, Whetstone, 10/04/14

[HMGP]

I did my apprenticeship at the site before leaving in 1997, I went to show my son where I used to work and surprised to see to closed, I have not been back there since I left, looking on the net when I stumbled on theses sites trying to find out what had happened.
The pits were part of the "High Bay" facility and nuclear refuelling machines were built in them, tested, dis-assembled and rebuilt at the power stations, to my memory they were over 100' deep - I had to work down them once and they were very tightly controlled for emissions, falling objects etc.
Also on the site was an "AMF" facility this was the active maintenance facilty which serviced "hot" redioactive parts coming from the power stations, it had its own laundry, was self contained and was quite secretive so as not to alarm the locals of radioactive traffic to the site.
My advice would be to be very careful what you touch and where you go on the site as these were some quite dangerous areas, (chemicals, lead and radiation) thanks for the pics though - intersting but sad for me.

 

[BrainL]

Excellent pics, I really like this place and you;ve done it proud with them shots

 

[BrainL]

I did my apprenticeship at the site before leaving in 1997, I went to show my son where I used to work and surprised to see to closed, I have not been back there since I left, looking on the net when I stumbled on theses sites trying to find out what had happened.
The pits were part of the "High Bay" facility and nuclear refuelling machines were built in them, tested, dis-assembled and rebuilt at the power stations, to my memory they were over 100' deep - I had to work down them once and they were very tightly controlled for emissions, falling objects etc.
Also on the site was an "AMF" facility this was the active maintenance facilty which serviced "hot" redioactive parts coming from the power stations, it had its own laundry, was self contained and was quite secretive so as not to alarm the locals of radioactive traffic to the site.
My advice would be to be very careful what you touch and where you go on the site as these were some quite dangerous areas, (chemicals, lead and radiation) thanks for the pics though - intersting but sad for me.

Fascinating to read that mate... so were the deep holes in the ground not used in the days of the jet engines being built there? I had a climb down one but it was flooded after around 30' or so I think

 

[HMGP]

The jet engines were a bit before my time, I joined when it was GEC Energy Systems and then changed to GEC Althom Engineering Systems Ltd. I seem to recall that the engines were developed down the bottom end of the site near the railway line. They used to overspend gas turbines down there and you used to see bits of trees and birds get sucked into the giant air infeed. The pits in your pics would have been for the early refuelling machines used at Sizewell B and probably when the company was English Electric. There are even bigger pits on the other side of the site (which I Guess are still used) theses were deeper for the newer and larger re-fuelling machines that were built in them. There was a lot of classified MOD work carried out on the site, I remember one night when I wasdoing a night shift me and a mate went to a walk and a smoke and were surprised to walk into an army tank going into one of the buildings - never seen anything like that before, go knows what was going on.

 

[Miss Mayhem]

Very nice I really like this one when I went to it,
You have some cracking shots

 

[zombizza]

This site appeals to me for some reason. Your photos have come out real nice. Very moody lighting there

 

[Dougan12]

I did my apprenticeship at the site before leaving in 1997, I went to show my son where I used to work and surprised to see to closed, I have not been back there since I left, looking on the net when I stumbled on theses sites trying to find out what had happened.
The pits were part of the "High Bay" facility and nuclear refuelling machines were built in them, tested, dis-assembled and rebuilt at the power stations, to my memory they were over 100' deep - I had to work down them once and they were very tightly controlled for emissions, falling objects etc.
Also on the site was an "AMF" facility this was the active maintenance facilty which serviced "hot" redioactive parts coming from the power stations, it had its own laundry, was self contained and was quite secretive so as not to alarm the locals of radioactive traffic to the site.
My advice would be to be very careful what you touch and where you go on the site as these were some quite dangerous areas, (chemicals, lead and radiation) thanks for the pics though - intersting but sad for me.

I currently work for one of the companies that GEC became. The buildings would have been the social club, the drawing office, etc.

Not entirely sure what the deep holes were, but they are not the Highbay. That is at the south end of the site and is still operational.

All of the derelict buildings north of the northern-most gate have now been demolished unfortunately.