Fails of the Urban Explorer: Wellington Mills

Wellington Mills, Knoll Mills, I’m still not sure what the name of this remaining building should be named.

Mill or Mills, the latter is plural and as there’s only one left so should it be named with the former title?

A lot of this is lost in history and many are named ‘Mills’ as there used to be lots all clumped together.

Wellington Mills in Greenfield, Saddleworth was built in 1852 for Shaw, Son, and Lees cotton Spinners who traded until 1858 and were succeeded by N Broadbent and Sons until 1932 after which the buildings were left unused for 6 years. 1938 saw part of the buildings used as general engineering works and in 1941 the rest of the premises were opened up with the installation of 362 looms by the fabric weaver B. Kershaw.

In the years up to 1946 the engineering section of the mill produced engine parts for bombers after which it became first a naval store and then a store for the British Wool Board. In 1946 the buildings and land were purchased by William Oddy who transferred their woolen carding and mule spinning operations form Shipley to the mill. This was the birth of the Knoll Spinning Company.

Source

Wellington Mills was a location that I and @dizzydiscovery embarked on almost 3 weeks ago now and has been subject to vandalism by the local wankers.

There’s a large and busy Tesco next to it which didn’t help so we started looking at the opposite end for a way in.

The red fire escape looked promising, that’s if one can hold their nerve while climbing up potentially rusty steps that are over 150 years old.

Now while I don’t have too much of a problem with this, my urbex partner kind of does.

Getting into the grounds proved quite straightforward and in no time at all, we were plodding through the familiar wasteland of an urbex jungle.

…’could I fit through that hole in the door eighty feet up?’…

It's always good to scout around a building and have a look at what can be seen.

This section was full of cooing pigeons, not happy at all to see us. It was a dead-end and all entrances had been blocked.

Did these use to be some kind of offices? They looked like they had been stuck on the mill and were in a badly overgrown state.

I found 5p here, but it wasn’t sitting on this device, was it to be my lucky day?

Judging from the photograph, it looks like we managed to get inside, but you would be wrong. There was a hole in the wall and just enough leverage to take this shot of what looks like some power boxes.

Scrambling around all this shit we had one of those moments when I looked at @dizzydiscovery and we both thought the same thing.

…’what the fuck are we doing here and why!’…

We both know the answer, and it’s inexplicable to anyone who has not been bitten by the urbex bug.

Tesco was just on the other side of the large fence, and fuck knows what people were thinking with all the noise were making crunching down branches, twigs, and metal cans in the way.

A couple of entrances were to be found, but both looked like they were some kind of cupboard rooms.

A Tesco trolley had somehow made it over the fence to start its new lonely life in a closet room.

We trudged back to where the fire exit was and had a closer look. It’s hard to see on the photographs but there was an abundance of barbed wire on every corner of it.

I didn’t fancy getting ripped to shreds so walked around the front of the building noticing the big hole, that was a little close to the Tesco store for my liking.

Parked up on the road was a grey van, with an inhabitant inside. The hole is around 6 feet off the ground and I would have had to jump to get a grip.

We decided to not bother having gotten a load of ‘other’ footage from around the back of Wellington Mills.

Who was the mysterious van driver? He didn’t look like he was taking off so we called it a day and put this one down to a semi-fail.

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