Sterling Cables, Newbury

This is all about the old Sterling Cables factory, Newbury's well-known, little-understood eyesore, 3 mins from where yours truly lives. Nobody arriving at Newbury by train can miss it - it stands right on the railway line.

Five minutes from the centre of town, this object, probably not loved by anybody, is not a thing for the town to be proud of. It stands at the centre of an area now known as Sterling Industrial Estate, a motley collection of buildings, all of which were at one time part of the cable company, and all of which, except the tall thing, are in use nowadays. Most of the companies using the buildings are car-related - fixers, washers, parts suppliers, souper-uppers, etc, though there is a company specialising in period property reclamation.

The building is probably Newbury's tallest, though a friend argues that the telephone exchange may be taller. It stands on the site of an old gasworks and the ground is known to be contaminated.

Here are a few pics. I've put a full report with 30 pics here

























All the best,

Alan

Cheers Alan, not spotted this place before.

Might go have a gander

Love it, seen this place a lot, heard its full of asbestos and still partly in use, owned by valley gas as well apparently (the people who also own the two yank cars you posted probably), apparently the whole estate bar a few places will be flattened soon for houses.

All that coming from a friend who works in a garage very near.

What Zotez said is right.

I'm mates with the owners of Valley Gas & when i enquired about climbing the tower, i was told it's too dangerous as a lot of the steel work & stairways have been cut away & nicked for scrap a few years ago making it really unsafe.
But i will see if i can get access to get some photos of the inside of the tower before it's pulled down , even if they are just from the bottom looking up.

I actually really like that building, theres something interesting about it, shame it sounds too dangerous. Thanks for the great photos

Ironically i've just been told that the car in pic 4 behind the bush next to the mini belongs to my mate!

Be interesting to know if any of the old gas work features survive in the building

hydealfred - no, I doubt it. I think the gas works was pulled down before the cable factory was built. The contamination is under the ground level.

A

I've freeclimbed up that metal framework, and been inside the building too. I can't say there are any features left inside, other than rotten floors, dive bombing pigeons and several inches of guano. You can get on the roof from inside, up a series of ever more rickerty ladders. The views are what you would expect... from Newbury...

A.

Nice pictures mate may have to check this place out as it is only like 3 miles from my house

mc_nebula said:

I've freeclimbed up that metal framework, and been inside the building too.

Click to expand...

I might have to try that when my arm gets better. i enjoy climbing, but climbing and urbexing at the same time will be awesome :L although i might have to be a bit more careful as I just tore all the tendons in my wrist from falling off scaffolding last week :L


LiamWG

Also remember you're in full view of the road, trains, people working below, valley gas, all the garages, etc.

Your forgetting my ninja skills Zotez :L and when I try this I will make sure I am not under the influence so it makes it 100x more safer than the scaffolding
Where is your sense of adventure mate

Zotez said:

Also remember you're in full view of the road, trains, people working below, valley gas, all the garages, etc.

Click to expand...

....and they all seem to work 7 days a week!

A

Alansworld said:

hydealfred - no, I doubt it. I think the gas works was pulled down before the cable factory was built. The contamination is under the ground level.

A

Click to expand...

I have a picture taken in mid 1950's of a train passing the gas works and the building appears to be the same one as is in place today. I think the cable works used part of the existing gas works building. So could some internal bits survive

hello there, i am Zotez's mate who works in one of the garages near the tower.

It is very odd seeing a picture from that long ago and seeing what has changed and what is the same.

Sterling cables only altered the building by putting the mettal extention on the top by the look of it but not tottaly sure. The tower is apperently full of aspestos and plenty of pigeons... I wouldn't advise climbing in there but upto you i suppose!

Back in january they were drilling holes in the ground around the estate to see how much contaminent was down there, when they were drilling next to our old workshop they struck oil! but used dirty oil, so don't know where that came from! Anyway, they said that the average amount of contamination in the ground of fuel station is about 2 or 3 of how ever they measure contamination but on sterling industrial estate it is an impresive 1000 plus.

At the moment the owners of the land have applied for planning permition to knock down the tower and all other building appart from 2 (the grage i work in and the building next to us haha) on the estate and build flats that will actually be taller than the existing tower! Everyone else around the estate got nottices to leave but last week we found out that there rents have been extended for at least another 2 year. So at the moment it sounds as the tower is staying where it is for a few more years.

Thanks to hydealfred for the wonderful picture! From it you can see how the tower has subtly changed.

Daz, that's very interesting, particularly about the contamination. I would think that is a real headache now, possibly scuppering any imminent plans to redevelop the area. Add to that a probably enormous amount of asbestos in the tower AND its unsafe condition, certainly judging by the rusted state of the external girders. Also, I'm surprised to hear that the plan would be to demolish everything except a couple of the smaller buildings. You would have thought they would knock down the whole lot, as the buildings are not in any great state of repair, and I doubt any of them are listed.

Getting quite interesting!

A

The two smaller buildings are owned by different people who don't want to sell them.

I'v never actualy thought of the tower as an eyesore, just some living history of newbury... well maybe not living!