ICI Plant Protection Division is a British company founded in 1926 and developed a wide range of Paints (Crown, Delux etc) and 'Specialty chemicals'. They were a very large FTSE100 company at their peak.
In 2007 the acquisition process of ICI by AkzoNobel began, eventually being bought for the sum of £8 Billion in the August of 2007. The adhesive side of ICI was sold to Henkel to appease the European commission in ensuring they didn't overly dominate the market.
Strangely, the CEO of ICI at the time, Sir John Harvey-Jones, died 7 days later on the 9th of January 2008 at the age of 83.
The offices and laboratory were closed at some point in mid 2008, and look like they were cleared by contractors in August 2008.
There have been multiple plans for turning the site into housing over the years, yet 12 years later nothing has happened.
The explore itself was great. The long corridors all looked similar and it was very easy to get lost. After wandering around for a good few hours it started to get dark and we left. Definitely want to go back soon to have a proper look round of the basement and the roof.
We were told that there was security on site mainly for the building in front however we didn’t see anyone over the 2/3 hours we were there. Overall it was a great find, the place is covered in tons of graffiti I would have loved to have seen it before it was trashed.
In 2007 the acquisition process of ICI by AkzoNobel began, eventually being bought for the sum of £8 Billion in the August of 2007. The adhesive side of ICI was sold to Henkel to appease the European commission in ensuring they didn't overly dominate the market.
Strangely, the CEO of ICI at the time, Sir John Harvey-Jones, died 7 days later on the 9th of January 2008 at the age of 83.
The offices and laboratory were closed at some point in mid 2008, and look like they were cleared by contractors in August 2008.
There have been multiple plans for turning the site into housing over the years, yet 12 years later nothing has happened.
The explore itself was great. The long corridors all looked similar and it was very easy to get lost. After wandering around for a good few hours it started to get dark and we left. Definitely want to go back soon to have a proper look round of the basement and the roof.
We were told that there was security on site mainly for the building in front however we didn’t see anyone over the 2/3 hours we were there. Overall it was a great find, the place is covered in tons of graffiti I would have loved to have seen it before it was trashed.
