Thanks to Dave and Joe for the heads up here....
I have admired the ornate clock tower on the crown works for many a year. As the works is set in a former quarry, the tower is almost level with the road and was always a distraction from the road for me as I used to drive around colliery country.
The company is still going, but metal box co has itself moved into a new metal box, leaving the sprawling works to be demolished. The firm still make chocolate tins and the like.
We got to see this a little late really, handsome offices and huge sections of the works have already been reduced to rubble. Out grail was obviously the clock, which I was annoyed to find had lost it's ladder after closure. It was possible to climb and squeeze through the hole which feeds the clock's weight cables to it's mechanism, so we achieved our goal. The tower bell and workings are all beautiful!
On the way out we also found a very old carpenters shop, still fitted with the tools of the trade and the usual collection of junk that a workshop collects over a century!
Oh, it even has it's own culvert, which Speed and I named "Crown Culvert" after the works, pics of that to follow...
I have admired the ornate clock tower on the crown works for many a year. As the works is set in a former quarry, the tower is almost level with the road and was always a distraction from the road for me as I used to drive around colliery country.
The company is still going, but metal box co has itself moved into a new metal box, leaving the sprawling works to be demolished. The firm still make chocolate tins and the like.
We got to see this a little late really, handsome offices and huge sections of the works have already been reduced to rubble. Out grail was obviously the clock, which I was annoyed to find had lost it's ladder after closure. It was possible to climb and squeeze through the hole which feeds the clock's weight cables to it's mechanism, so we achieved our goal. The tower bell and workings are all beautiful!
On the way out we also found a very old carpenters shop, still fitted with the tools of the trade and the usual collection of junk that a workshop collects over a century!
Oh, it even has it's own culvert, which Speed and I named "Crown Culvert" after the works, pics of that to follow...
