Evening all, hope everyones all gravy, had a lovely couple days of urban and rural exploring over the weekend. Couldn't really be bothered with a big drive on saturday so stayed pretty local, been meaning to pop in here for ages but havent got around to it for one reason or another. Visited with my mate jane and thanks to some help from raz we were in without a hitch. Cool place, awesome just how much stuff is still there, which was good cus i was only really using my 35mm lens as i'm still without a wide on, borrowed janes for a couple but for the most part its a set of details and things that caught my eye about the place as opposed to the space as a whole.
The explore
As i mentioned before thanks to raz for the heads up, big help mate especially the info on the bells, jumped in there and could hear some voices so kept quiet and then saw a couple of people, they'd seen us aswell and it was that moment of, right are they explorers or do these guys work here.....-oh cool they got cameras, golden
was another group of explorers-with their very young puppy cradled in one of them's arms no less!, they told us about another access point which tbf was easier on the way out. Was a nice mooch wouldn't say chilled out as knew there were bells in certain parts and people do come and go down here so tried to keep quiet. All in a pretty enjoyable mooch around a cool bit of brum industry, lots to rummage through and get your fingers dirty on which is always interesting n fun, bailed out in our own time without causing anyone any grief so all in a successful little wander.
Bit of history shamelessly pinched of HT, cheers dude:grin2:
In West Bromwich is the West Bromwich Spring Co. Ltd, also known as Helical Works. The West
Bromwich Spring has been at the forefront of precision manufacturing since 1896. Their website
boasted a claim Precision springs made to order: Any Design. Any Quantity. Any Time.
Found it difficult to find a lot of history on the place online for some reason, just loads of links to
yell.com etc giving details of the business as if it was still up and running, which makes sense I
suppose as the site is roughly 25% live with only the rear areas falling into dereliction. Found some
disjointed info about the owner legging it from the site and not returning after a large quantity of
his machinery failed safety checks in 2007 and it would've been too expensive to bring the
equipment up to satisfactory standards. The company was valued by an independent body around
this time at £-110,892. The unknown owner currently rents parts of the complex out to private businesses.
aaaand the picywicks
WARNING Hand tool geek alert, Woden was a sheffield tool maker back in the glory days of sheffield steel tool making, they primarily made planes and various edge tools but as you can see vices were not beyond the realms of possibility, that said it could be a vice made after the company was taken over by record sometime in the late 50s, i think woden became the record budget range (still be better than the chinese shite getting passed off as record these days!) eventually the woden TM was discontinued in the late 60s.
thanks for looking dustbin lids
The explore
As i mentioned before thanks to raz for the heads up, big help mate especially the info on the bells, jumped in there and could hear some voices so kept quiet and then saw a couple of people, they'd seen us aswell and it was that moment of, right are they explorers or do these guys work here.....-oh cool they got cameras, golden
was another group of explorers-with their very young puppy cradled in one of them's arms no less!, they told us about another access point which tbf was easier on the way out. Was a nice mooch wouldn't say chilled out as knew there were bells in certain parts and people do come and go down here so tried to keep quiet. All in a pretty enjoyable mooch around a cool bit of brum industry, lots to rummage through and get your fingers dirty on which is always interesting n fun, bailed out in our own time without causing anyone any grief so all in a successful little wander.Bit of history shamelessly pinched of HT, cheers dude:grin2:
In West Bromwich is the West Bromwich Spring Co. Ltd, also known as Helical Works. The West
Bromwich Spring has been at the forefront of precision manufacturing since 1896. Their website
boasted a claim Precision springs made to order: Any Design. Any Quantity. Any Time.
Found it difficult to find a lot of history on the place online for some reason, just loads of links to
yell.com etc giving details of the business as if it was still up and running, which makes sense I
suppose as the site is roughly 25% live with only the rear areas falling into dereliction. Found some
disjointed info about the owner legging it from the site and not returning after a large quantity of
his machinery failed safety checks in 2007 and it would've been too expensive to bring the
equipment up to satisfactory standards. The company was valued by an independent body around
this time at £-110,892. The unknown owner currently rents parts of the complex out to private businesses.
aaaand the picywicks
WARNING Hand tool geek alert, Woden was a sheffield tool maker back in the glory days of sheffield steel tool making, they primarily made planes and various edge tools but as you can see vices were not beyond the realms of possibility, that said it could be a vice made after the company was taken over by record sometime in the late 50s, i think woden became the record budget range (still be better than the chinese shite getting passed off as record these days!) eventually the woden TM was discontinued in the late 60s.
thanks for looking dustbin lids
