Gillette commisioned an architect (erm) to build a shiny new factory in 1936 upon the 'golden mile', a collection of high end, fancy looking factories, public buildings & houses built along a stretch of the A4 thru Isleworth in W.London in the deco style throughout 1920's & 30's.
Gillette themselves shut down production in 2006 moving production abroad to the Czech Republic I think (confirm!), the main deco front building was mean't to be stripped back and converted into high end apartments and a 4/5star hotel, but plans have stalled and currently the factory lyes in a state of limbo.
Visited in Jan2010 with Speed - Access was comical, it was a case of erm, maybe this is the right way, 9n 9n 9n theres unt das camera, bah bugger it, just walk past it, see what happens, nothing ever did, so headed straight to the clocktower.
The junction is named after the Gillette works, showing its importance back in the day.
Headed straight for the clocktower, and she's a beaut (35mm film)
the inner workings. the clock mechanism sat in the cabinet on the top floor with bevel gears sending the drive to each of the clockfaces via what I could best describe as glorified power steering motors which assist the hands to move about the face.
Metal Gear Solid feat. Donkey Jacket crew
The gears help drive the 4 massive clockfaces, which unfortunatly weren't lit up, we had to wait a few hours until they did eventually turn on.
Clock mechanism weight detail
Scattered about the clock room were spare bulbs for the neon hands, clockface and other parts. - 35mm film
Viewing window - This was the 1st time either of us had visited Gillette, having both strong memories of Downfallens awesome report from a few years before, he had a picture looking right down at the clockface, reckoned he had hung out of one of these holes. - 35mm film
Bulleye - got really really bored sat around waiting for the neons to come on, took some self portrait 'with vintage cam' shots - 35mm film
Heading back down via the pretty tight cast iron spiral - 35mm film
The way the nuneaton boys roll - 35mm film
Heading down into the main deco office building again we made a group effort of lighting this one up, only took the 1 shot, and it seemed to come out OK - linked large for your pleasure - 35mm film
The base of the main staircase, with the front door just a few feet away, unfortunatly most of the rest of the building had been stripped of its style
The now very stripped old factory floor, as I waiting for this shot to do its noise reduction thing I walked off a bit then heard a phone ring just behind a door near me. I walked upto the door, as if I was going to walk through it, then somebody picked up the phone, and answered it! And then another person! SECURITY! arghghgh, the person on the other end of the phone was probably trying to alert them to our presence, so I made a very quick, very noisy & clumsy attempt to get back across the factory floor without making hufe amounts of noise - FAIL :/
Just can't get enough of that clocktower!!!
Neon Symmetry - 35mm film
TEN TO AAIIGHGHHT MUTHAS!!! - shamelessly stolen from Speed, but its worth it
:
Gillette themselves shut down production in 2006 moving production abroad to the Czech Republic I think (confirm!), the main deco front building was mean't to be stripped back and converted into high end apartments and a 4/5star hotel, but plans have stalled and currently the factory lyes in a state of limbo.
Visited in Jan2010 with Speed - Access was comical, it was a case of erm, maybe this is the right way, 9n 9n 9n theres unt das camera, bah bugger it, just walk past it, see what happens, nothing ever did, so headed straight to the clocktower.
The junction is named after the Gillette works, showing its importance back in the day.
Headed straight for the clocktower, and she's a beaut (35mm film)
the inner workings. the clock mechanism sat in the cabinet on the top floor with bevel gears sending the drive to each of the clockfaces via what I could best describe as glorified power steering motors which assist the hands to move about the face.
Metal Gear Solid feat. Donkey Jacket crew
The gears help drive the 4 massive clockfaces, which unfortunatly weren't lit up, we had to wait a few hours until they did eventually turn on.
Clock mechanism weight detail
Scattered about the clock room were spare bulbs for the neon hands, clockface and other parts. - 35mm film
Viewing window - This was the 1st time either of us had visited Gillette, having both strong memories of Downfallens awesome report from a few years before, he had a picture looking right down at the clockface, reckoned he had hung out of one of these holes. - 35mm film
Bulleye - got really really bored sat around waiting for the neons to come on, took some self portrait 'with vintage cam' shots - 35mm film
Heading back down via the pretty tight cast iron spiral - 35mm film
The way the nuneaton boys roll - 35mm film
Heading down into the main deco office building again we made a group effort of lighting this one up, only took the 1 shot, and it seemed to come out OK - linked large for your pleasure - 35mm film
The base of the main staircase, with the front door just a few feet away, unfortunatly most of the rest of the building had been stripped of its style
The now very stripped old factory floor, as I waiting for this shot to do its noise reduction thing I walked off a bit then heard a phone ring just behind a door near me. I walked upto the door, as if I was going to walk through it, then somebody picked up the phone, and answered it! And then another person! SECURITY! arghghgh, the person on the other end of the phone was probably trying to alert them to our presence, so I made a very quick, very noisy & clumsy attempt to get back across the factory floor without making hufe amounts of noise - FAIL :/
Just can't get enough of that clocktower!!!
Neon Symmetry - 35mm film
TEN TO AAIIGHGHHT MUTHAS!!! - shamelessly stolen from Speed, but its worth it
:
