The visit
These photos were taken over two visits, on both occasions it became evident there was a security presence in the building. What followed on both visits was a game of cat and mouse
After the first visit I didn’t feel I had enough photos for a report, so after a message from Royal Bob it was time for a revisit.
History
Stolen from Zer081
Pilkington’s were originally established in St Helens, Lancs. in 1826.
Around the time of WW1 they looked to establish another site in the UK, supposedly to protect against European competitors entering the British market.
The site chosen for this was Kirk Sandal near Doncaster, favoured for its canal side location and ready access to local coal and sand.
The plant opened at great cost in 1922, apparently consuming most of the company’s reserves plus an additional £1m in new capital.
In 1923 Pilkington’s, in collaboration with Ford in the State, developed a continuous flow process for the manufacture of glass plate and a method of continuous grinding. Doncaster was quickly converted to this new technology, again at huge expense.
n the 1950′s Pilkington’s developed the “float” method of glass production (the molten glass is poured onto a bath of molten tin at 1000C). This was much cheaper as it did not require the grinding and polishing processes. Pilkington’s quickly set about converting all their factories to this new technology…except Doncaster.
By 1963 Doncaster was the only Pilkington factory producing polished plate glass and by 1966 was only running at 56% of capacity and production was suspended and the plant mothballed.
The factory escaped this fate and was still producing glass up until December 2008.
Thanks for looking
These photos were taken over two visits, on both occasions it became evident there was a security presence in the building. What followed on both visits was a game of cat and mouse
After the first visit I didn’t feel I had enough photos for a report, so after a message from Royal Bob it was time for a revisit.
History
Stolen from Zer081
Pilkington’s were originally established in St Helens, Lancs. in 1826.
Around the time of WW1 they looked to establish another site in the UK, supposedly to protect against European competitors entering the British market.
The site chosen for this was Kirk Sandal near Doncaster, favoured for its canal side location and ready access to local coal and sand.
The plant opened at great cost in 1922, apparently consuming most of the company’s reserves plus an additional £1m in new capital.
In 1923 Pilkington’s, in collaboration with Ford in the State, developed a continuous flow process for the manufacture of glass plate and a method of continuous grinding. Doncaster was quickly converted to this new technology, again at huge expense.
n the 1950′s Pilkington’s developed the “float” method of glass production (the molten glass is poured onto a bath of molten tin at 1000C). This was much cheaper as it did not require the grinding and polishing processes. Pilkington’s quickly set about converting all their factories to this new technology…except Doncaster.
By 1963 Doncaster was the only Pilkington factory producing polished plate glass and by 1966 was only running at 56% of capacity and production was suspended and the plant mothballed.
The factory escaped this fate and was still producing glass up until December 2008.
Thanks for looking
Last edited:
