Thursday 19 January 2017

The Breach, Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire

History

A short culverted section of the Sough Dike outfalling in to the River Don, in Oughtibridge, near Sheffield. The infall has concrete reinforcement but the primary construction is stone. The water has worn a channel through the middle with many holes and water leaking in from all sides. Erosion is so bad that in the middle there is a large pool too deep to pass.

Esoteric Eric







Wednesday 18 January 2017

Conisbrough/ Edlington Tunnel, South Yorkshire

History

A now disused water pipe in a tunnel built around 1892 to supply water to Edlington/ Warmsworth from Thrybergh Reservoir, running through Denaby and Conisbrough.

The tunnel consists of various types of construction, running for around 1200 metres, is around 3-4 ft wide by around 4-7 ft tall and features 4 ventilation shafts.

The pipe itself is around 30cm in diameter, with each joined section being around 3 metres long.

Esoteric Eric










Cadeby Tunnel, South Yorkshire

History

The tunnel was built in 1849 for the South Yorkshire, Doncaster and Goole Railway Company. The head engineer was Charles Bartholomew of the River Don Company. It consists of Gritstone voussoirs and rock-faced sandstone walling. Quoined buttresses flank a horseshoe arch with rustication below the impost band and roll-moulded hoodmould. Roll-moulded cornice breaks forward over the buttresses; blocking course steps up at centre. The line was opened on 10th November 1849 and linked the Midland and Great Northern networks; after 1864 it became part of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway which itself became the Great Central Railway in 1897.

Source:
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/cadeby-tunnel-conisbrough-august-2015.t98553

Esoteric Eric






Tuesday 10 January 2017

Winnington Works, Northwich, Cheshire

History

It was here that ICI manufactured sodium carbonate (soda ash) and its various by-products such as sodium bicarbonate (bicarbonate of soda), and sodium sesquicarbonate. The Winnington site, built in 1873 by the entrepreneurs John Tomlinson Brunner and Ludwig Mond, was also the base for the former company Brunner, Mond & Co. Ltd. and, after the merger which created ICI, the powerful and influential Alkali Division. It was at the laboratories on this site that polythene was discovered by accident in 1933 during experiments into high pressure reactions.

Wallerscote was built in 1926, its construction delayed by the First World War, and became one of the largest factories devoted to a single product (soda ash) in the world. However, the decreasing importance of the soda ash trade to ICI in favour of newer products such as paints and plastics, meant that in 1984 the Wallerscote site was closed, and thereafter mostly demolished. The laboratory where polythene was discovered was sold off and the building became home to a variety of businesses including a go-kart track and paintballing, and the Winnington Works were divested to the newly formed company, Brunner Mond, in 1991. It was again sold in 2006, to Tata (an Indian-based company) and in 2011 was re branded as Tata Chemicals Europe. The Winnington plant closed in February 2014, with the last shift on 2 February bringing to a close 140 years of soda ash production in Northwich.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Chemical_Industries

Esoteric Eric