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Report - - The National Gas Turbine Establishment - Pyestock - 'Old Story Fresh Photos' - 2007-2019 | Noteworthy Reports | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - The National Gas Turbine Establishment - Pyestock - 'Old Story Fresh Photos' - 2007-2019

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Speed

Got Epic Slow?
Regular User
So i started writing this a few months ago but ran out of time. In the current situation time is hardly a constraint for alot of us tho so i thought id make the effort to finish. Maybe some of you are in the same boat and can take the time to do some decent reports too. I know theres alot out there still to be documented properly!

A few weeks ago I finally made my latest (and probably last) trip down to the forests of fleet to take a very much overdue look at the anechoic chamber, the last remaining 'original' test cell on the once vast urbex playground that most people simply know as 'Pyestock'. Big thanks to @Olkka for holding my hand that evening! Truth be told ive been meaning to visit the chamber for years now, way before it hit the urbex tourist trail in fact! This wasn't because i was dying to see what was inside so much but because i have had a hankering to write more the about the NGTE for a good while now and it seemed wrong to do this without fully completing my personal mission first! When we created the 'Noteworthy' section on 28days a number of years ago i was very keen to find a Pyestock report to drop in there to showcase what has to be one of the greatest explores to have existed in our 15+ year lifespan. Trouble is there just isn't that many reports that fit the bill! Theres a few from later in its lifetime but although these tend to have nice pictures, they fail to tell the actual story of the exploring, at least the exploring as it was back in late 06 early 07 when the place was first coming to light.. In the end we added my first report from the site, a 9 hour epic and one of the first to show the majority of the site online, however by 2020s standards its an absolute dog of a report that lacks real context now the vast majority of explorers from that time are retired and gone! This thread then is a retrospective look back on that day with some photographic help from of some of my subsequent explores of the NGTE before i get to old an decrepit to remember how it all went down!

Dont expect this to be an in depth technical review of the site, if you want that id recommend Simon Cornwells www.ngte.co.uk. Simon was around pyestock in the early days, probably before we were in fact and has rightfully put one hell of an effort into documenting the site and what it accomplished over the years. For purposes of this thread all you really need to know is the following..

The NGTE was a government establishment set up in the 1950s to test gas turbine engines (including the variants more commonly known as the 'Jet' engine.) These engines were obviously big news in the early days of the cold war so a lot of investment was ploughed into their development and the Pyestock site increased in size massively from the early 50s through tho the late 60s. The majority of the site is devoted to a number of test 'cells'. These were basically wind tunnels where engines cold be tested in the same conditions that they would find flying at high speed and at high altitude. This means moving a massive amount of air, fast, at high (or more accurately low) pressure, in various temperatures and humidities to simulate what engines would experience hanging off the wing of a plane in a controlled environment.. no mean feat!

The first i heard of Pyestock was in late 2006 when a report popped up on 28dl from some local guys who had been. They had gained access to a few parts of the site, most notably the 'air house' that we will cover shortly. It was clear it was a special place from just a few photos but looking back its amazing just how lazy and slow the response of the exploring world was. Nowadays car keys would have been jangling in more or less everyone's pockets and it would have been all over insta and the daily mail within hours. That just wasn't how it was back then tho! A few months went by, Christmas came and went and only a few more reports surfaced, all of the same bits, Air House, Cell 4, No. 10 Exhuaster.. Personally, at the time, i was at a point in my exploring 'career' if you like where id just started to really spread my wings and head out of my local area to some of the big name asylums and more epic sites further a field than comfortable hours drive. Originally our interest in a trip to Pyestock was very much a touristy one. I had a plan to head down for a few hours then move on to some other local haunts like CMH and Park Prewitt. It didn't quite work out that way tho!

Im going to try and do this in the order we did it that day, starting at the biggest building on site, the 'Air House'.

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Air house as we approched

Myself and my exploring partner of the time 'Dab' had made an early start and made good time down to fleet arriving around 8am for sunrise. As i remember it we just dumped the car by the side of the road and wandered through the woods until we found a fence. Compared with most explores id done before this place initially seemed a little dodgy. It very much had an air of the military government establishment about it, somewhere you wouldn't want to be caught! We hadn't done any research, just rocked up one day after seeing a few photos online. Later we would find that we had little to worry about, security was non-existent for at least a year after Pyestock hit the big time but we didn't know that on the first tentative approach! I seem to remember scaling the high chain link fence only to then walk a few yards on the inside and find a big hole in it just a little further along. We were fairly amateurish back then for sure! The obvious place to head was the big building, what turned out to be the Air House. We had seen plenty of photos from in here. Its basically a giant compressor house, a row of 8 electrically powered and steam started compressors with 3 stages of compressor (in white) a large GEC motor providing most of the power and a small steam turbine to start the things up! I cant say i really understood that at the time tho! to me, never having set foot in anything like this before, no power stations or turbine halls at all, it was just bloody epic!

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Compressors in early 2007

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Same view in 2010

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Again 2007

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2010, GEC plates long gone

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Controls


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Condensers

Adjacent to the main hall we found our first control room, this became a theme for the day, hunt the control room, they were everywhere with their 50s green panels and endless knobs an twiddly bits. There wasn't a whole lot more too the building to be honest. A stack of silencer chimneys down one side and a bunch of iconic blue pipes exiting from each side. We spent about an hour in there before moving on and meeting up with another two of our mates who had come down from Colchester a little late.

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Control Room 2007

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Trashed by 2010

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Close up of the controls, i dont appear to have a shot of the pull out syncroscope, a nice feature!

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Behind the panels


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A guest list from late 2007. I wonder how many people off here even still explore? Cant be many!


Next on the tourists agenda was a look at some of the weird blue pipe things we had passed on the way in. This turned out to be 'Cell 3 West' one of the last test cells built on the site to test new fangled 'bypass jets', the kind of thing you see mounted on the side of todays airliners. These engines are kind of like a jet engine attached to a propeller so they move a lot more air than a normal jet does. They are also much bigger and this was the main reason this larger cell was constructed back in 1969. On the day it was just that tho, a big blue pipe thing with a white mouth that we climbed inside and didn't really find much to shout about. It had a control room which we didn't venture inside on our first trip but on a later trip we found it to be fairly modernised and didn't even bother to get the camera out in the dark.

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Under the air house intake mains

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Cell 3 West

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The other end

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Inside


Next up was a building known as 'Number 10 Exhauster' Another later addition to the site this was basically added as the 8 compressor sets in the air house could no longer keep up with demand. It had a nice little control desk and a spare turbine cowling i would have loved to have made into a garden shed! Incidentally there was also a Number 9 Exhauster on site too but we didn't stumble across this until much later. In fact i didnt look at it properly until my last pre-demolition trip in 2010. The building it was in was dark... We didn't even bother to go in it for 4 years #noobs..

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No. 10 Exhauster intake main

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The Exhauster

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No.10 Control Desk

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Close up of some controls

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No.9 Exhauster

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Partially stripped (2010)

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Lesser Spotted No. 9 Control Room

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Motor control


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An intake nozzle that would have been fitted to engines on test.
 
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Speed

Got Epic Slow?
Regular User
Without knowing it we stuck our heads in Cell 3 proper but as this building didn't jump out to the untrained eye as being exactly crammed with epic we did, as pretty much as everyone else had done and went next door to Cell 4. Now this one was impossible to miss! A massive building housing a massive array of pipework and urbex photo ops. Cell 4 was added in the mid 60s and was most famous for testing the engines for Concorde. It was a short lived investment having been pretty much mothballed in 1980 but this meant that parts of it were quite dated and decayed. We also noticed some strange signs and what not hanging about the place. Later it became clear this was one part of the site that had been used as a filming location for the filming of the totally forgettable 2004 epic 'Sahara'.

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The top of Cell 3, We didnt bother to look down!

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Cell 4

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Entrance

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Everyone's favorite tourist snap

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We actually entered up here to start with.

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Pneumatic lines

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I seem to remember an ok control room for Cell 4 but in darkness. I never got a photo. This was there too tho. Some kind of hydraulic controls?

Upon entering Cell 4 we had noticed what look liked a cable tunnel heading off 'somewhere'. We didn't follow it at the time but we did end up at the other end of it by chance. In later years we found out this was known as 'monks tunnel' it connected Cell 3 and 4 to the newly built 'Computer Building' 100 yards to the north east and provided a nice covert way to access the center of the site once security did finally become existant. In the Computer Building itself most of the old main frame kit had gone but there was still an impressive control room for Cell 3, at the time we kind of ignored it as it was 'too modern' ugh..

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Cell 3 Control

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Monks Tunnel

This is where the day started to get more interesting however, and yeh after mooching round all that lot it did get more interesting! You see as we sat in the computer building gazing out the windows we could now see across most of the site and it suddenly stuck me that we had seen more or less everything we had seen online yet there was still maybe 2/3rds of the place still there! Had everyone else really just stopped half way? It appeared so! This is when the day changed, what had been a touristy jaunt turned into a real explore and probably the first day i learnt the difference!

A plan was hatched, the 2 guys from Colchester headed back to the air house which they had missed and me and Dab pressed on into the now totally unknown. We headed for the next building along which also happened to be the biggest. We were a bit more cautions here as it took us much closer to one of the partially live office buildings on site. We need'nt have worried tho, it appeared they were deserted or at least anyone there didn't see us or didn't care about us wandering up and down the roads nearby.

This building turned out to be the 'Plant House' This was one of the oldest buildings on the site built in 1951 before the airhouse or any of the other test cells. The plant house was kind of like a mini pyestock all in one building. In the center it had some wonderful Parsons compressors and around the outside a number of test cells, one of these being called 'the cathedral'. The Plant House may not have been the biggest building on site but being slightly older i felt the quality of what it contained was a level above the 60s part of the site. Everything was just that bit more dated and of course it had a mint control room too. It was literally untouched and we had to remove a ceiling tile and climb in to get around the locked doors. Felt quite clever at the time! :p

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Plant House External

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First glimpse inside

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Test cubical control room

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Dab in the main control room 2007


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Destroyed by 2010

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Compressors

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Parsons

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Second geared compressor

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Metropolitan Vickers

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Amazing control panel

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Yoink!

While in the control room of the plant house we had had a rifle through some of the drawers and pulled out an old map of the site. The one thing that stood out on it above all else was 'power station' so we made that or objective for the rest of the day. We met the other guys again and headed out of the plant house towards our destination. It would still be several hours until we made it there tho. The next thing we stumbled across was cells 1 and 2. As the name suggests these were the first two test cells built on site. They were basically outside with just a canopy to keep the rain off but between the two was a concrete bunker type building that housed the control room. It was dark inside unfortunately and had obviously been partially modernised since the early 50 but still had some really cool control desks that looked like they were straight off a star trek set.

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Our map

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External


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And Closer

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Cell 1+2 Control Room


 

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Speed

Got Epic Slow?
Regular User
We moved on again edging closer towards the new goal. The next building was named 'Battle House' on the map. A bit of a mystery! Even once inside i was a bit confused. We would later find out the building was primarily the site boiler house and it gained its name as it housed a pair of boilers procured from HMS Namur a Battle class destroyer. A third boiler had been installed shortly afterwards and later on a compressor test cell housing a 14,000 horsepower double ended steam turbine had been added to one end. Sadly the turbine was not still in situe! As an aside Battle house closed in 1993 and along with it the power station that it fed. It had also fed steam to the air house to help start the giant compressor sets but by the 1990s this was now possible to accomplish using VFD technology and steam was power was done away with completely. It has always slightly puzzled me why the whole lot didn't just run off steam alone but i guess there was a problem condensing that amount away from the sea or major rivers.

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Battle house on the left, Admiralty house center and the power station on the right.

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Ship Boilers

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Air intakes

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Compressor test house

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Test Control

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Another 'why didn't i yoink'!


Now it was time, the main event, i had hoped anyway! We had made a quick stop at the Admiralty test house where they once tested gas turbines for ships but there wasn't much to see so without wasting time on photos we crossed the road again and entered the power station building. To be honest at first glance it seemed a bit disappointing. The single Parsons turbine looked a bit lost sitting there all on its own, i had expected rows of the things but it wasn't to be. The power station was surprisingly small but i guess that made sense as when it was built most of the site wasnt there! My disappointment soon subsided once i spotted the beautiful semaphore signalling system that sat next to the turbine however. What a hunny! One of the best things ive ever seen while exploring and oh how i regret not having the foresight to liberate it back then, it would have been entirely possible im sure..

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Power Turbine

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Semaphore Control Panel


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Steam Controls

Things were about to get better again tho. I headed up to the front offices and stepping into the main corridor i looked to one end and could just catch a glimpse of what we were there to see. Control room! The green of the panels were calling so i made a bee line down the corridor through a couple of glass doors and found myself on a glass Crittal walk way between the main power station building and the adjacent switch house. This was a fabulous moment that is hard to describe in words but what you could see through the windows was just perfect and a amazing culmination to the explore. The control room was small but oh so perfect, the single desk with a spattering of vintage paperwork an old skool chair, parquet floor stained in a hatched pattern where years of condensation had dripped off the glass bricked skylight above. Just perfect and we had no idea it existed until we clapped eyes on it! The best kind of discovery..

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A Glimpse

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Control Room

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Reactor 1

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Close ups

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That pattern


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Switch House

Anyway i calmed down after a while, had a look down the rest of the switch house and crossed over to the Assembly workshops which were basically empty. It was time to call it a day so we headed back across the site. I forget if it was by pure chance or if someone had seen something prior but someone suggested we had another look around Cell 3. We had glossed over it earlier in the day but now with our exploring heads on someone decided we should have a better look. Im glad we did.

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Empty workshops

Heading down the steps it was getting dusky now and torches were out. We stumbled across some curved blast doors and popped out in a truly surreal scene. This was Cell 3, we didn't know it at the time but this had also been used for filming so was a little artificial in places but by torchlight it seemed real enough. We made our way through the weird doors and down a tunnel that gradually fanned out into a massive underground chamber. Again i didn't understand at the time but this was where exhaust gasses from the jet exhaust would cool before being pumped back around to the air house. We finished the day on a high and this became one of the most photographed parts of the site in latter years.

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Cell 3

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Yes i had a red filter for my flash, i was a cunt

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Sahara Doors


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Underground

9 hours on, what had started as a tourist trip down south, largely by luck more than judgment, had turned into one of my best explores ever (even today) and the finds just kept coming! Theres a few building ive not covered here mainly because they were just empty! I refuse to put up photos of that shitty plane, of all the things to photograph here that was not it! Over the next few years i returned again a few times but sadly not as many times as i should have. I dont have the quality photos nore parsons turbine cowl to show for it sadly. I think i learnt a valuable lesson that day tho. Always keep your eyes open for what the last guy didn't see and just because someone has been somewhere it doesn't mean its 'done'. You can go to some of the most touristy places out there are and still come away having truly found something if you have the right frame of mind.

My last visit to Pyestock proper was in 2010. It was all still there but trashed beyond belief compared to 3 years previous. Everything containing copper had been ripped apart and most makers plates and souvenir trinkets had gone. By 2012 it had all gone tho. Apart from this last bit. The Anechoic chamber, a building i had heard running on previous trips but by 2017 it too was dead, replaced by computer simulation. If im honest theres not much too it. Its a concrete box with foam tiles and an inlet and outlet silencer. Was cool to finish it off tho. Hopefully you found this interesting, its something to pass the time at least eh?

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The chamber in the distance (while running)

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Finally inside
 
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Terminal Decline

28DL Regular User
Regular User
Wow! Great to see such a thorough and well written report on the site from the early days. I'd be pretty chuffed to find just a single one of those compressors or control rooms but the whole site combined really is the stuff of dreams these days. Love it
 

Bugsuperstar

Irresponsible & Reckless
Regular User
So many fantastic memories brought back while reading this. The place was amazing.

I learned a good few things from your write up too so thanks speed.
 

Five.Claws

General Nuisance
28DL Full Member
I'm so jealous of these photos! I've seen this place a few times now and it never ceases to amaze. I hope I get a look in some day!
 

host

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Simply stunning mate. A very in depth report. Still without doubt one of the best sites in the U.K. you won’t see the likes of this again.
 

Ojay

Admin
Staff member
Admin
This place filled more time and more visit's than anything that's ever surfaced within this silly hobby, after say Battersea PS

Many memories for all involved and such a shame the playground is no longer

I'll do some meddling with this and yer other thread when I get a mo this week :thumb
 

mookster

grumpy sod
Regular User
The single best location there has ever been in this country. I had four visits in 2010 and will always kick myself for missing any and all opportunities to go back.

The outside of the site was almost as epic as the interiors of the buildings alone.
 

Seffy

O high
Staff member
Moderator
Well that was a welcome throwback - this place was the shit. Nothing really comes close to it! I also forgot about the Simon Cornwell website so thanks for the reminder that it exists. Good tour mate.
 

Speed

Got Epic Slow?
Regular User
The single best location there has ever been in this country.

Last time i checked Corsham was in this country ;) Your not far wrong tho. Id be hard pushed to choose between this and Teeside steel as a second place based purely on what was there to find. Pyestocks big downfall in the exploring rankings has to be that it was just too easy tho. There was no challenge. All its other rivals like Bishopton or even Cane Hill were all tricky challenging explores and that made them better 'explores' if not better 'locations'..
 

Ojay

Admin
Staff member
Admin
Last time i checked Corsham was in this country ;) Your not far wrong tho. Id be hard pushed to choose between this and Teeside steel as a second place based purely on what was there to find. Pyestocks big downfall in the exploring rankings has to be that it was just too easy tho. There was no challenge. All its other rivals like Bishopton or even Cane Hill were all tricky challenging explores and that made them better 'explores' if not better 'locations'..

Yes to Bishopton
 

mookster

grumpy sod
Regular User
Last time i checked Corsham was in this country ;) Your not far wrong tho. Id be hard pushed to choose between this and Teeside steel as a second place based purely on what was there to find. Pyestocks big downfall in the exploring rankings has to be that it was just too easy tho. There was no challenge. All its other rivals like Bishopton or even Cane Hill were all tricky challenging explores and that made them better 'explores' if not better 'locations'..

Very true regarding its relative ease in comparison to other true epics. It is of course my own personal view that it was the best, and I'm sure many of us would give our left arm for another chance to wander around it nowadays. Although I'm sure the goons would have had a field day there...
 

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