Pilkington Glass - Doncaster - February 2012

History from Mutley

Pilkingtons 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 Sandall 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 Pilkingtons, 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. 

In the 1950's Pilkingtons 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. Pilkingtons 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.
Not sure what happened in the intervening years, but there was obviously an upturn in fortunes as the plant was producing up to December 2008.

Well I think this is the best place that I've been this year so far.

Visited with CANDF Geovdub and Only2eyes

HMS Bronington (M1115) - Liverpool - February 2012

HMS Bronington is a Ton-class minesweeper of the Royal Navy, launched on 19 March 1953. This mahogany-hulled minesweeper is one of the last of the "wooden walls" (wooden-hulled naval vessels).

After being decommissioned from service, the ship was purchased in January 1989 by the Bronington Trust, a registered charity, whose patron Charles, Prince of Wales commanded this vessel in 1976.

The hull is constructed of mahogany with a combination of aluminium alloy and non-magnetic materials to provide maximum safety against magnetic mines.

The main armament was fitted on the fo'c'sle, a single barreled 40/60mm Bofor gun.

Bronington's main role was hunting for mines by using the high definition sonar. Once a mine was found the Clearance Divers would then make them safe by either using explosives or bringing them inboard and defusing them. Bronington could also sweep for mines by towing minesweeping gear which would cut the moored mines loose or by towing acoustic/magnetic influence sweeps which could imitate the characteristics of larger ships and set the mines off harmlessly.

For some time, the ship was berthed in the Manchester Ship Canal at Trafford Park, Greater Manchester, England. In 2002, she became part of the collection of the Warship Preservation Trust and moored at Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. Since the closure of the Warship Preservation Trust, she remains in storage

The ship is also listing at the moment so I believe its at least 10 degrees which makes for an interesting walk around inside, This place was one of the most difficult places to take a photo I've been what with the cramped spaces and setting up a tripod was made even more difficult because of this but still a good way to spend a Friday night.

   

 Class and type: Ton-class minesweeper

Displacement: 440 tons

Length:  153 ft

Beam:  28.9 ft

Draught:  8.2 ft

Propulsion:  2 x Paxman Deltic 18A-7A diesel engines @ 3,000 bhp (2,200 kW)

Speed:  Cruise 13 knots (24 km/h) on one engine. Max 16 knots (30 km/h) on both

Range:  2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km) at 12 knots (22 km/h)

Complement: 32 men

Armament: 1 x Bofors 40mm gun

Bridgewater place - Leeds - January 2012

Bridgewater Place, nicknamed The Dalek is an office and residential skyscraper development in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is the tallest building in Yorkshire, and has held this record since being topped out in September 2005. It is visible at up to 25 miles (40 km) from certain areas.

It was first announced in 2000 and, following several redesigns and delays with the construction process, construction of the building began in 2004 and was completed in 2007. It became the tallest building in Leeds, by a significant margin, and Yorkshire (although this does not take into account structures such as Emley Moor). Bridgewater Place has a height of 112 metres (367 ft) to roof level. Originally the tower was to have a spire which would have extended the height of the building to 137 metres (449 ft), however this was never built.

Bridgewater Place has 32 storeys, of which two are used for car parking, ten for offices and twenty for residential purposes.

I don't normally post "High stuff" as I don't think that you can get a scale of height from photos but here it is. Again sorry for the slow start to this year I have been trying recently weve been to 12 different sites to only find them sealed up or have the on site security collar us.