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Report - - ICI Nobel Explosives - Beginning of the End - June 2010 | Industrial Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - ICI Nobel Explosives - Beginning of the End - June 2010

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BenCooper

Mr Boombastic
28DL Full Member
It's been, ooh, 15 minutes since I last did a report on this place :) Sadly, it now looks as if this place doesn't have much longer...

Firstly the WW2-era Cordite press houses - this part is very torn up, looks like for buried electrical cable and scrap, very smashed up but still some lovely details left, like this Tangye press:

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Some more things from the Cordite houses:

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Now the destruction - the Nitroglycerine hills have been attacked with a JCB, digging into the berms and demolishing the buildings inside. The unique gunpowder section has had some tracks bulldozed into it, and the edge-runner mills have been smashed up and removed:

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Those edge-runner mills were unique. Even the museum at Waltham Abbey only has a replica - there were three in very good condition here, there's now one left and it's probably going soon. Pissed off doesn't begin to cover what I think of this destruction.

Finally, from the labs, some old colour films:

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Go see this place while you can - it's not going to last much longer...

Loads more in my Flickr set.
 

BenCooper

Mr Boombastic
28DL Full Member
Some more bits and pieces, sorry - it amazes me that there's still more to be found here...

Climbing on some blast walls:
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Gunpowder press GP2:
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Yet more old pictures:
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A bunch of newer advertising boards:
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Drum test area:
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Low pressure chamber - for testing explosives at different atmospheric pressures:
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This was the back path to the labs - last week it was a very narrow track overgrown with gorse. They're working quickly...
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The cold test building - explosives were stored at low temperatures to test how they would behave in cold climates:

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Hundreds more pictures in my Flickr set...
 
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