Report - Nobel ICI Explosives Factory - Ardeer, Scotland - April 2022

[tesselate]

Well I've procrastinated enough on posting that I've got quite the backlog so here it goes.

Nobel's explosives plant and power station feature quite heavily on the internet and the following previous reports on this forum inspired my friend and I to take a trip.

Report - - Nobel Explosives Electrical Substation.. Ardeer, December 2021 | Other Sites

Whilst on a Christmas break in Scotland I thought I would go check this inconspicuous building at Nobel explosives at Ardeer. Set away from the main explosives site sits this old electric substation. The girlfriend wanted to go the shops so I went here instead. It was a very wet day, even by...

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Report - - Ardeer Nobel Explosives.. Scotland 2018 | Industrial Sites

I had wanted to visit nobel explosives for ages now, its only a short drive from the girlfriends and I had never been. So whilst up there she had to work so I decided to have a day there myself as she had been to the power station before. So I was up early, made some sandwiches and I was off. It...

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Report - - ARDEER POWER STATION, ICI NOBEL, SCOTLAND – SEPTEMBER 2018 | Industrial Sites

History The power station was built post war during the 1950s to provide power to the ICI Nobel chemicals plant, with a stated output capacity of 16MW from two Bruce Peebles and Co steam-powered turbines. The station closed in the early 2000s, and has fallen into decay ever since. Our Explore...

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For those that don't know: The Nobel company's history starts with the founding of British Dynamite by Alfred Nobel, the original factory began work in 1873. Various munitions manufacturers folded into the growing Nobel company before it merged into the ICI Chemical Industries giant that is still around today.

The power station featured was constructed in the 1950s with various production lines continuing into the 1990s

We focused on the south west corner of the site featuring the laboratories and the main power plant. I hope to return some time and check out the blast walls across the river and the substation.
This was our first time visiting a site like this so we probably spent about three hours total covering the area shown on the map, there are trucks irregularly driving along the roads from the quarry so stay safe. The buildings are surrounded by gorse but is worth the industrial strength anti histamines for the millions of bees that populate them now. The ground floor of the power plant seemed to be filled in with soil.

 

[Mikeymutt]

Nicely done. It's a great place to visit. Did you not get in the power station, I see you done the fertiliser plant next to it.

 

[tesselate]

Unfortunately no, we had some other plans that afternoon which limited out time. I’ll definitely be heading in on my trip back though.

 

[Ya Boy Croy]

Great set of photos! It looks absolutely stunning!

 

[HughieD]

Please tell me those last two shots were taken with your drone

Stunning set of pictures....

 

[Calamity Jane]

Nice 1st report, well done. Great aerial views there. Like the chimney image a lot.

 

[KPUrban_]

The drone images are very well done.

 

[DanMoist]

I spent a few days looking round here recently. It's a lot of fun.
There's an active section in the centre which is easy to indentify since it has a well maintained fence with electrical wire on it.
The northern end can be accessed just by walking in on any of the paths near the railway or via large holes in the fence on the industrial estate. It's used as a public park by the locals and there's obvious routes in.
North of the active site and south of the river there are sand pits so it's best to avoid their lorries. There's no security presence that I saw and it's possible to reach a lot of buildings and the power station, plus some good light towers if you like climbing. There's a really nice looking building that is sadly in a small fenced off zone. There's several holes that the locals have used to reach the building but they had all been sealed up when I visited.

I got inside the power station with hopes of reaching the roof but the internal stair cases are shot to bits and very dangerous.

I also walked to the Big Idea centre on the peninsula. This lies in an outer cordon of the site and they like to act as if this is a forbidden area, with vague signs about construction works. The obvious route is a narrow strip along the coast between the outer cordon fence and the sea. Both days that I walked in this area I saw a patrol Land Rover and had to lie low behind cover until it had passed. The outer cordon fence along the coast has a lot of gaps under it. The Big Idea centre now has a very large fence, cameras and, on Saturday, a man sitting in a room there probably reacting if the cameras pick anything up. It's possible to reach this area via the southern bridge, there's a crawl at one end, and a bit of climbing around the fence at the other end. There's also a walk along the river bank between the two bridges but you might get wet feet and some gardening work to get through the hole in the old fence.

I spent a few minutes looking through the fence within sight of a camera on a tower. A few minutes later two security trucks turned up. I was back in the woods by then. They are pretty hot at monitoring the fence line.

I used a very handy Google map layer for the site that came from here: Report - - ICI Ardeer - August 2019 | Industrial Sites

ICI Ardeer map â Google My Maps

Key: BLACK MARKER - Abandoned building in a restricted area. RED MARKER - Demolished building. BLUE MARKER - Abandoned building in the non-restricted area. I cannot confirm the accuracy of this map, but I am trying hard to make it as accurate as possible. SOURCES - Areas...

www.google.com

 

[DanMoist]

I've been reading about the fence system. It's similar to this: http://perimetersecurity.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/SA1000-FenceSecure-Data-sheet.pdf
It's piezo cable which means they detect shock and impact that might be someone trying to climb it. They probably picked up some vibrations when I was really closed and touching the wire.
The wire is in sections, each part terminating in a plastic box. In the centre of each section is a plastic box connecting to cables that run under the ground to the monitoring centre.

 

[Speed]

Yeh its generally referred to as a "rumbler''. Common on high security sites but easy to spot.

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Please tell me those last two shots were taken with your drone

Stunning set of pictures....

fkin long selfie pole I recon!

 

[Bikin Glynn]

I used a very handy Google map layer for the site that came from here: Report - - ICI Ardeer - August 2019 | Industrial Sites

ICI Ardeer map â Google My Maps

Key: BLACK MARKER - Abandoned building in a restricted area. RED MARKER - Demolished building. BLUE MARKER - Abandoned building in the non-restricted area. I cannot confirm the accuracy of this map, but I am trying hard to make it as accurate as possible. SOURCES - Areas...

www.google.com

that map is pretty good, who made that I wonder? is it an explorer or is it a legitimate may from the site owners?