History - The Pilkington Glass Factory is located in Doncaster, in the Kirk Sandall Industrial Estate, in the outskirts of the town. Pilkington Glass was founded in 1826 as a partnership between members of the Pilkington and Greenall families and based in St Helens, Lancashire. During the 1960s and 1970s, Pilkington opened factories in many countries across the world including Argentina, Australia, Canada and Sweden. The firm was taken over by Japanese company NSG in 2006. NSG have left it in a neglected state of disrepair for over 10 years now. The factory closed in 2008 with the loss of more than 100 jobs. However, during its 80 years in business, they employed many more workers and Doncaster was famous nationally and internationally as a global centre of glass making. It's a widely known place, not only among the local urbex community, which isn't surprising, meaning that it unfortunately attracts hordes of vandals. This has resulted in it being stripped of many of its features. The company next door to this factory use parts of it as storage facilities for their railway sleepers.
My visits - I came here a numerous amount of times due to the size of the place meaning I wasn't able to cover it in one go, it is colossal. It still has appeal even though it has been severely vandalised and trashed. My visits were fairly relaxed, however I felt a bit on edge due to the sheer size of the factory, as I've already described. I would still recommend this place, although I would watch out for the workers next door as I spotted them coming inside a couple of times.
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy my take on it! Sorry for some photos not being of the greatest quality.
My visits - I came here a numerous amount of times due to the size of the place meaning I wasn't able to cover it in one go, it is colossal. It still has appeal even though it has been severely vandalised and trashed. My visits were fairly relaxed, however I felt a bit on edge due to the sheer size of the factory, as I've already described. I would still recommend this place, although I would watch out for the workers next door as I spotted them coming inside a couple of times.
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy my take on it! Sorry for some photos not being of the greatest quality.
Last edited:
