# ICI/ Nobel Explosives, Ardeer - Pic heavy



## Pyroninja (Jan 5, 2010)

Ok so this site has been thoroughly covered and reported by Mr Cooper but I feel almost obliged to add my own tuppence worth..

Founded in 1871 by Mr Alfred Nobel in order to produce his shiny new invention, Dynamite. The business then grew and moved onto the production of other explosives such as blasting gelatine, gelignite, ballistite, guncotton, and cordite. The workforce grew until it reached a peak of nearly 13,000 employees. In 1926 the result of a merge between Brunner, Mond & Company, the United Alkali Company, and the British Dyestuffs Corporation with Nobel Industries LTD resulted in the creation of ICI. The site was descirbed as the worlds largest explosives facotry, more like a town than a factory with an on-site bank, travel agent and dentist. A train station was once present to which transported workers to and from the factory. A nitric acid plant was built in the 1960's but was only operational for 12 years before being decommisioned, a large cooling tower was to be found in this area but this was destroyed during bad weather. 

All production has now been centralised to a smaller part of the site leaving a lot of the old buildings lying disused and abandoned...

Photos are from visits between March and September.

*The Bunkers*

One of the bunkers from outside






Switchgear





Equipment





Emergency Instructions





"ICI EXPLOSIVES - AEROSPACE & AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH

NOTICE TO VISITORS AND STAFF
EMERGENCY PROCEDURES - BUILDING WPP3

SITE TOXIC GAS ALARM
FIRE ALARM SOUNDING
AN ACCIDENT REQUIRING AN AMBULANCE

SITE TOXIC GAS ALARM
This is a siren alarm, when heard you should proceed immediate to the GAS SHELTER, for this is located in the Garnock West farm house. The way to the shelter is indicated by white arrows on a green background with the door to the gas shelter marked with EMERGENCY GAS SHELTER in white on a green background. Do not leave the gas shelter until the alarm has stopped, and the person in charge allows you to leave.

FIRE ALARM
This is a loud klaxon

If you discover a fire immediately inform a member of the department who will set off the fire alarm and call the fire brigade.

If the fire alarm sounds leave the building immediately by the nearest safe exit and proceed to the FIRE ASSEMBLY AREA, for WPP3 this is located in front of Garnock West farm house, and is marked with a sign of a white circle on a green background.

AN ACCIDENT REQUIRING AN AMBULANCE
The ambulance point for WPP3 - No. 19 - is located at the front of Garnock West farm house.

From the manual labled 'ENERGETIC POLYMERS DRAFT-MANUFACTURING METHODS' "

Corridors which run along the spine of each bunker, motors would have sat here which would have operated Tangye presses in the rooms in which they are connected to





One of the presses





Various pieces of scientific equipment, scales, oscilliscope, glassware etc





Another Corridor





*The Mixing houses*






Nitroglycerine vats, notice the holes in the wall, should anything go wrong water would have been pumped through these flooding the entire mixing area





Small building used to load/unload materials onto the carts which ran on the many miles of narrow guage rail track connecting the whole site





*The Laboratories*
Between this and the first visit I got a new camera, as a result...better pictures 

Test vault





Viewing corridor





Outside labs from 'The Street'





Testing ground, small detonations and left overs from experiments would have been destroyed here





Plate cameras, hooked up to a unit which would have allowed the cameras to shoot one after the other allowing the caputre of a detonation





Glass plate negative, not from previously mentioned cameras. This shot showed the damage done to 2 sheets of glass at an overpressure of 100psi from an explosion, one glass cracked the other blown completely out the frame.





Large mortar to test the power of explosives.





Inside one of the labs





The biggest one 





Monitoring equipment





Archive room, probably my favourite part of this whole site, full of photographs and records of experiments, the outcomes and details of world first pioneering research for explosives and methods used today can be found in here, shaped charges for example used in modern demolition and warheads were discovered and created here.





*The Power Station*
An industrial gem, a giant in comparison to all the other smaller buildings here. It generated electricity for the facility and steam which was distributed throughout the site in insulated pipes for heating..Had a peak output of around 16MW

External





In the belly of the beast





I was expecting an air tight chamber with a big blast door, flashing lights, gas masks and hazmat suits..instead it was only a make shift staff room with double glazing and a pretty normal wooden door, you can only imagine the dissapointment... 





Boiler faces





Turbines





Up and into the boiler towers





At the top of the boilers





Gantries above the coal hoppers





Some juicy control panel goodness





Switchroom





80KA, yes 80,000 amp fuse 





Underneath one of the boilers





Control panels in the tiny control room





Coming back down, time to go home





*Sorry for this being such a huge report but each section is an explore in itself, eventually after 4 visits to the site I had seen enough to produce a report. Despite this future visits are in order as there's still a significant portion of the site to be visited....*

_Thanks for taking the time to have a look_


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## BenCooper (Jan 5, 2010)

I really like the shallow DoF on the corridor shots - good stuff


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## Pyroninja (Jan 5, 2010)

Thanks Ben, yeah I've really taken quite a shining to using the F/1.4 for corridor shots in order to get that DoF effect, also like the tighter feel it gives to the corridors to.


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## sallybear (Jan 5, 2010)

Cracking report there, great read and pics are good too. Mixing rooms look really interesting


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## Foxylady (Jan 5, 2010)

Excellent pics and write-up. Great to see more of this amazing explore. Lol at 'Which Explosive Should I Use?'


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## Pyroninja (Jan 5, 2010)

Thanks Foxylady haha aye I had quite a lol at it to


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## Pincheck (Jan 6, 2010)

very nice no big bangs in this report


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## cozone (Jan 6, 2010)

Wow ... some fascinating machines, and a pretty comprehensive report.


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## Pyroninja (Jan 6, 2010)

Pincheck said:


> very nice no big bangs in this report



Haha aye sorry Pincheck, had to leave the bangs out sadly 

Cheers Cozone


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## Lightbuoy (Jan 6, 2010)

Amazing looking place. Really enjoyed your photos -me favourite being the one of the viewing corridor -ta Pyro!


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## Pyroninja (Jan 8, 2010)

Cheers Lightbouy, aye it's an impressive site, spread out over a huge area however so its more of an expeditidion than an explore..


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## Pincheck (Jan 8, 2010)

Pyroninja said:


> Cheers Lightbouy, aye it's an impressive site, spread out over a huge area however so its more of an expeditidion than an explore..



day or night  should get some snow shots at night


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## King Al (Jan 8, 2010)

Super pics Pyroninja I would love a run around that place!!!


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## Urban-Warrior (Jan 8, 2010)

love the pics... would love to visit that place


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## ThatChap (Jan 8, 2010)

That picture of the Toxic Gas Shelter made me chuckle; the archive room looked pretty fascinating as well.
Nice work!


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## Skin ubx (Jan 8, 2010)

you should write a book called Explosive Ayreshire or something like that - great stuff - one thing make sure you price the book at something people can pay, oh and be good to put some of your own findings in the book too.


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## el gringo (Jan 8, 2010)

Great photos and loads of detail on each bit. I can't believe that they left all those reports and photos there! That glass plate neg looks beautiful; I'd love to have a look at some of those.


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## BenCooper (Jan 9, 2010)

Skin ubx said:


> you should write a book called Explosive Ayreshire or something like that - great stuff - one thing make sure you price the book at something people can pay, oh and be good to put some of your own findings in the book too.



Snigger 

Problem with self-publishing is that they charge by the page, so any decent-sized book is going to be expensive - the only way around it is to convince a publishing house to take it on and print a few thousand.

The glass slides, etc, are I believe on their way to the Ayrshire Archives for safekeeping.

(For those that didn't get Skin's joke - I've produced a book called Explosive Scotland, which is all about Ardeer and ROF Bishopton)


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## wolfism (Jan 10, 2010)

For a decent print run (say 1000+) you'll always be cheaper per copy going to a commercial printer and getting it printed on 4-colour litho then bound up, rather than using a print on demand service. Plus you get the chance to choose your own paper stocks and so forth, and sign off based on cromalins rather than just PDF's … but there's still no *cheap* way to publish books.

Comprehensive set of photos, Pyro, this place has limitless hidden corners and secret tracks …


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## BenCooper (Jan 10, 2010)

Aye, the trickier part is convincing a publishing company that it's worth them paying for the 1000+ copies


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## wolfism (Jan 10, 2010)

Well, you have to make friends with Hugh Andrew (Birlinn) as he's about the only non-fiction publisher left in this country with a decent list …


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