Star PaperMill Chimney Climb.
Visited with Agent Smith and Captain Ginger Beard.
More info on the paper mill and only a limited degree of info on the chimney in this report.
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/star-paper-mill-blackburn-dec-2015.t102105
And a link to the local press on it going down....
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/9656043.Blackburn_landmark_mill_to_be_demolished/
I had walked past this chimney and site many times whilst off for a play in the surrounding area and ever since we got in the site and stood at the bottom of this 42 metre chimney I knew i wanted to get to the top of it…. Ahh the views I thought, but how we were going to get up there….?
Its probably worth mentioning here i was questioning the stability of the chimney as there was a massive gap at the bottom, a small doorway on one side and on the other side probably a 6ft wide by 8-10 foot high brickwork was missing, il try and find a photo for that but back then iv gotta say i wasnt that bothered about taking photos.
Fast forward a year or two and whilst out climbing in a local quarry we happened to bump into a few guys and gals abseiling down the rockface dressed in a wedding attire, wedding dress and suit, it was a photo shoot, if I recall correctly we helped out with taking some 'over the cliff face shots'. We got talking to these kind of strange folk lol. A sight I have never seen in my life I might add, got talking to bigjobs and it kind of rekindled the interest I had in joining up on 28days due to some of the exploits he told us about…..
a few weeks past and I decided I was going to have this chimney so me, agent smith and captain ginger beard set about sorting gear for the job, kept going down there and measuring things up, quite technical you know…. Things had to fit in all the right places so to speak, and it had to fit! and after getting some advice from jobs on the ropework side of things, I only usually use ropes as a backup on the rockface so this kind of thing was all new to me.
Mr pink (my usual climbing partner, and tom foolery) was out of the country at this time so i thought... sod him... i i cant wait!!
He lead it a month after me.
The date was set….. aswell as my alarm for 4am!!
In the meantime I contacted jobs to see if he fancied coming down to watch the grand finale, I told him I didn’t want his help on anything and just to come down if he wanted, I wanted to do this on my own, so we met him at an agreed time and he was on time!!!!! He kept telling me that things usually go wrong if hes not late!.... great!! Lol. No pressure then eh!!
I wanted to start climbing the chimney in darkness so that I wasn’t up there in sight of the public for too many daylight hours, started climbing at about 5.30-5.45 in the dark which was really difficult as I didn’t want to use a headtorch for fear of being seen and reported and got to the top after an agonising 2 hours, first pic of my view topping out was just as the sun was coming up… and timed perfectly I got the sun just coming up on the horizon, that really made it for me as I had thought about what time I would like to get up there to see the sunrise but didn’t have a clue what time I would top out, im sure I was just abit lucky there!
I set a line up for everyone else to ascend one after another.
We all went up… and abbed down and we all went for tea……erm...... I mean a big full English breakfast.
Unfortunately the chimney has been took down a couple of weeks ago, we knew it was going to go but to actually drive past one day and not see it, well my heart sank to be honest, just a big pile of bricks there now, we were planning on going up there again, as we have a few times now, one time was in the dark where i climbed away from the rope to the top band, (about 3 metres from the top) just on the brackets (just resting on the doggs) slings and a rope ladder. this was horrible to be away from any such dynamic rope and moving about was extremely difficult, standing in slings attached to brackets, same with the rope ladder , i sat on top, took a few rubbish pics and decided i better get myself off this thing...... oh boy, at this point im really regretting not taking that line up with me... lol. lesson learned i suppose but being pumped out trying to move back down its probably the nearest near to death experience iv had..... and it wasnt nice.... anyway........
On with some pics
First photo i took when i reached the top, still shaking and pumped out.
but just look at that!!
that feeling will stay with me for the rest of my life.
This is what the brackets looked liked, some bigger cracks slightly lower down which i didnt get a shot of as was abit too busy.
Nice views.
The scaffolding around the base.
Thanks for looking!
Stonemonkey
Visited with Agent Smith and Captain Ginger Beard.
More info on the paper mill and only a limited degree of info on the chimney in this report.
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/star-paper-mill-blackburn-dec-2015.t102105
And a link to the local press on it going down....
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/9656043.Blackburn_landmark_mill_to_be_demolished/
I had walked past this chimney and site many times whilst off for a play in the surrounding area and ever since we got in the site and stood at the bottom of this 42 metre chimney I knew i wanted to get to the top of it…. Ahh the views I thought, but how we were going to get up there….?
Its probably worth mentioning here i was questioning the stability of the chimney as there was a massive gap at the bottom, a small doorway on one side and on the other side probably a 6ft wide by 8-10 foot high brickwork was missing, il try and find a photo for that but back then iv gotta say i wasnt that bothered about taking photos.
Fast forward a year or two and whilst out climbing in a local quarry we happened to bump into a few guys and gals abseiling down the rockface dressed in a wedding attire, wedding dress and suit, it was a photo shoot, if I recall correctly we helped out with taking some 'over the cliff face shots'. We got talking to these kind of strange folk lol. A sight I have never seen in my life I might add, got talking to bigjobs and it kind of rekindled the interest I had in joining up on 28days due to some of the exploits he told us about…..
a few weeks past and I decided I was going to have this chimney so me, agent smith and captain ginger beard set about sorting gear for the job, kept going down there and measuring things up, quite technical you know…. Things had to fit in all the right places so to speak, and it had to fit! and after getting some advice from jobs on the ropework side of things, I only usually use ropes as a backup on the rockface so this kind of thing was all new to me.
Mr pink (my usual climbing partner, and tom foolery) was out of the country at this time so i thought... sod him... i i cant wait!!
He lead it a month after me.
The date was set….. aswell as my alarm for 4am!!
In the meantime I contacted jobs to see if he fancied coming down to watch the grand finale, I told him I didn’t want his help on anything and just to come down if he wanted, I wanted to do this on my own, so we met him at an agreed time and he was on time!!!!! He kept telling me that things usually go wrong if hes not late!.... great!! Lol. No pressure then eh!!
I wanted to start climbing the chimney in darkness so that I wasn’t up there in sight of the public for too many daylight hours, started climbing at about 5.30-5.45 in the dark which was really difficult as I didn’t want to use a headtorch for fear of being seen and reported and got to the top after an agonising 2 hours, first pic of my view topping out was just as the sun was coming up… and timed perfectly I got the sun just coming up on the horizon, that really made it for me as I had thought about what time I would like to get up there to see the sunrise but didn’t have a clue what time I would top out, im sure I was just abit lucky there!
I set a line up for everyone else to ascend one after another.
We all went up… and abbed down and we all went for tea……erm...... I mean a big full English breakfast.
Unfortunately the chimney has been took down a couple of weeks ago, we knew it was going to go but to actually drive past one day and not see it, well my heart sank to be honest, just a big pile of bricks there now, we were planning on going up there again, as we have a few times now, one time was in the dark where i climbed away from the rope to the top band, (about 3 metres from the top) just on the brackets (just resting on the doggs) slings and a rope ladder. this was horrible to be away from any such dynamic rope and moving about was extremely difficult, standing in slings attached to brackets, same with the rope ladder , i sat on top, took a few rubbish pics and decided i better get myself off this thing...... oh boy, at this point im really regretting not taking that line up with me... lol. lesson learned i suppose but being pumped out trying to move back down its probably the nearest near to death experience iv had..... and it wasnt nice.... anyway........
On with some pics
First photo i took when i reached the top, still shaking and pumped out.
but just look at that!!
that feeling will stay with me for the rest of my life.
This is what the brackets looked liked, some bigger cracks slightly lower down which i didnt get a shot of as was abit too busy.
Nice views.
The scaffolding around the base.
Thanks for looking!
Stonemonkey
Last edited:
fuck this for a laugh but the breakfast I can do 
