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Report - - Wenford dries October 2019 | Industrial Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Wenford dries October 2019

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Scarlet_rouge

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Wenford Dries

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Wenford dries were built in the early 20th century by the Stannon China Clay Company (but were acquired by English China Clays in 1919). To the east of the buildings is a levelled terrace which originally supported the railway tracks used to transport the finished clay from the dries. Liquid china clay slurry from Stannon Moor (over four miles away) was carried in a pipeline to the settling tanks behind the dries

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where it was dried and stored prior to removal. The dries are the have gone through constant changes in the processes used to dry china clay, and as such there is evidence of alterations and additions to the original building.

The dries operated until 2002 apart from a brief closure during the Second World War. Traffic to the dries was coal inward and china clay outward, with high quality bagged clay in vans and lower quality in sheeted open wagons called clay hoods. After the closure of Wenfordbridge in 1971 the line ended just beyond the clay dries, 11 miles and 71 chains from Wadebridge. The line closed completely on 3 October 1983.

On our visit we saw the chimneys

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Going from the kilns

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Which were used to dry the clay. I think it was amazing to see the condition of the wooden parts of the roof after all these years despite the asbestos roof not doing so well, the wood looks like it was put there yesterday

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Where the roof was damaged it had allowed nature to come and reclaim what once belonged to it. There was a lot of evidence of nature reclamation at wenford

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It is a shame to see so much graffiti, though some of it was quite good or funny

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I took literally hundreds of photos on my visit, and most likely will again for my next visit, but theres only so much you can put on a report before it gets too much so I'll leave it at that. There are more pics on my Instagram which can be found on my account info.
 

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16vDeak

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
I explored this just over a year ago when i was killing some time waiting to collect some parts! Did you see the room thats oddly full of car headlamps?
 

Scarlet_rouge

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
I explored this just over a year ago when i was killing some time waiting to collect some parts! Did you see the room thats oddly full of car headlamps?
Yes, it seems to be a bit of a car part graveyard for some reason. Will be going again in February hopefully
 

Bikin Glynn

28DL Regular User
Regular User
NIce that, I thought it was the same one I visited last year but think its a differnt one? almost identical though but guess they were all built on the same lines.

 

Scarlet_rouge

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
NIce that, I thought it was the same one I visited last year but think its a differnt one? almost identical though but guess they were all built on the same lines.

Yes, it's different but all part of the same thing. The chinaclay was mined and sent to st austell by rail where it was shipped out. If you ever get the chance, Wheal Martin visitors centre has a still working china clay mine and heaps of information about the industry, all very interesting!
 

DrGonzo

Hello Officer
28DL Full Member
Nice to see the history tied in with the images rather than just a copy paste at the top. I quite like this place for some reason, been a few times now.
 
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