Fullers
Earthworks - (
Laporte Plc)
Report of my Re-visit. After a short recce a few months earlier in May, which saw workmen and dog handler security on-site,
a recent internet urbex forum report gave the green light for another attempt, once inside the perimeter fence it was still quite difficult to work out where any entry points were past the fencing that surrounds the sites buildings. A bit of ingenuity and a little climbing found me inside the inner sanctum, i had seen many photo reports so i already knew what to expect to see, it was still a real thrill to explore in the late afternoon sunshine that was slowly turning the rusting metal machinery & buildings into something quite beautiful. It must have been fantastic when first abandoned, although the view from the top of the silo is still magnificent,
on with the video
...Enjoy the explore of this
Behemoth!
History:
A greyish, mineral-rich clay, fuller's earth is well-known for its absorbent qualities and has many uses ranging from powder cosmetics to 'mud' used for drilling oil wells. Its best known use however is as cat litter, of which millions of bags are sold every year. Most of this is now imported from the
Americas but until recently, fuller's earth was quarried from the
Lower Greensand strata at
Woburn (
Beds.), at
Baulking (Oxon.) and at
Redhill (Surrey). On the Redhill deposit, the most successful quarry operating at the turn of the century was the Copyhold
Works of the
Fuller's Earth Union Ltd
established c.1860-70. Initially supplying the woolen trade, demand later shifted to the growing chemical and comodity sector with customers in the 1920s-40s
including the
Southern Oil
Company Ltd,
British Glues and
Chemicals Ltd and
Price’s Patent
Candle Co.
In
1954 the works, by now employing 780 men, were bought by chemical company Laporte Industries.
Production was stepped up to meet increasing demand and a large factory consisting of kilns, granulators, blungers, silos and transit systems on several
floors was built.
A large quarry existed to the east and in the
1970s this strange landscape stood in for various alien worlds in the
BBC’s Doctor Who series.
In the 1980s, the Copyhold site was sending loose earths and packaged cat litter around the world.
By
1995, however, due to falling profits it was announced that the company would close 10% of its
100 plants.
Copyhold fell victim the following year and the Laporte
Group ceased fuller’s earth production altogether in
1997.
After the production lines were switched off, the
119 acre pit was purchased for use as a landfill site by Biffa
Waste Services and continues to take waste from across Surrey.
The factory was for a while used as a waste transfer station but this was abandoned at some time in the last four years.
Music soundtrack:
"
Right Behind You"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under
Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
"Controlled
Chaos - no percussion" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
- published: 19 Sep 2014
- views: 1811