Me and a couple of friends tackled this tonight as we've lived next to it our whole life and drive past it everyday and never ventured in to have a look. We spent around 3 hours here most of it on the roof waiting for it to get dark. A warning of the site if your scared of pigeons stay away theres hundeds of the flying rats and they love to jump out at you when you least expect it.
Some brief history ( taken from Google )
The Silo was built by the Government in 1940 as a WW2 grain buffer. There's a rail head next to it, so its makes sense that the place might just have been a collection point for harvested or imported grain. It gets unloaded and dried before its blown into the top of the silos. It was still in use until the late 1980's, but today its full of junk outside, a pet supplies company uses some of it and a company stores Vans and skips. There seems to be a number of these concrete grain silos around the country. From what I can asceratin so far, it seems some were built during WW2 and others, such as Haughley Silo in Suffolk, was built post war, during the period of the Korean War, to store Canadian grain in the event of the then much feared Atlantic blockade. Interestingly Haughley Silo is situated on a rail head, would like to know whether others around the country in isolated positions are also on rail heads. I would be very interested if anyone out there can enlarge upon what I have found so far.
The Future
Grundon Waste Management has submitted a plan to Oxfordshire County Council, which is responsible for waste management to build a waste recovery plant on the Site. This would see a giant new building replace the 1940s grain silo alongside the A34 and the Oxford-Bicester railway line at Water Eaton. Up to 150,000 tonnes of waste a year - including aluminium and steel, paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and wood - would be processed at the site next to the Water Eaton park-and-ride centre. The silo would be demolished to make way for a main building, waste reception area, storage containers and a car park. The site would be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
A Selection of Pictures i took
Matt
Some brief history ( taken from Google )
The Silo was built by the Government in 1940 as a WW2 grain buffer. There's a rail head next to it, so its makes sense that the place might just have been a collection point for harvested or imported grain. It gets unloaded and dried before its blown into the top of the silos. It was still in use until the late 1980's, but today its full of junk outside, a pet supplies company uses some of it and a company stores Vans and skips. There seems to be a number of these concrete grain silos around the country. From what I can asceratin so far, it seems some were built during WW2 and others, such as Haughley Silo in Suffolk, was built post war, during the period of the Korean War, to store Canadian grain in the event of the then much feared Atlantic blockade. Interestingly Haughley Silo is situated on a rail head, would like to know whether others around the country in isolated positions are also on rail heads. I would be very interested if anyone out there can enlarge upon what I have found so far.
The Future
Grundon Waste Management has submitted a plan to Oxfordshire County Council, which is responsible for waste management to build a waste recovery plant on the Site. This would see a giant new building replace the 1940s grain silo alongside the A34 and the Oxford-Bicester railway line at Water Eaton. Up to 150,000 tonnes of waste a year - including aluminium and steel, paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and wood - would be processed at the site next to the Water Eaton park-and-ride centre. The silo would be demolished to make way for a main building, waste reception area, storage containers and a car park. The site would be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
A Selection of Pictures i took
Matt
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