Visited with @Chloe Explores on our rainy day out.
After a short walk through some woods we were greeted with a large building that was once a wine centre and restaurant. It was also known as Bacchus Bar but i cannot find any information about this.
There was a digger and a van parked outside but no sign of anyone around so we went in. this place is falling down in the main bar area, it seems a small bit of scaffolding is holding the ceiling up. i wouldn’t go as far to say it was a peaceful explore given the rain and wind making odd noises from various points and the fact we could hear building machinery so were quite paranoid that someone would bulldoze it with us in it. there is a lot of building work nearby so we decided it was that we could hear.
one room had a wasp problem so steered clear of that and floor was rotten in places.
we were in there quite some time and were just about finishing up inside when the machinery noise goes louder and nearer, peeking out we see a digger rolling up so we grabbed our stuff and legged it in to a bush except it wasn’t the one we came through and there was a fence.
by this time the bloke has got out his digger and is wandering around in front of the bush, without much choice we made ourselves known to him and approached to ask he escorts us off site. we were prepared for him to have the hump with us and we were so wrong, he was lovely! he had seen us running away and wondered if we were vandals but upon meeting us he said he knew we weren’t there for trouble. then he told us he was there to clear the acres of land and had no idea what was happening to the building, it was his first day on the job.
as he could see we weren’t there to cause damage or trouble he said we could go back to what we were doing and left us to it. we quickly looked around outside and got some shots, not wanting to take the piss we didn’t explore any of the smaller buildings, then we thanked him and left.
i wonder if we were young lads if we would have had the same treatment?
History -
Hard to find much about this place but i managed to find the following;
The estate was founded by the Vining family and in 1985 the first vines were planted.
From a local newspaper report dated 05/03/2001 i understand that the fourth largest vineyard in the UK was based here. they had won awards and it was the home of the English Wine Company, they were hoping to become a national centre of excellence for English wines.
Bottles of 1994 Wellow Ortega and Faberrebe wines were delivered to the French capital by the owners.
In 1987 the owner completed the mammoth task of hand-planting 33,000 vines on 45 acres of the site, five and a half thousand vines planted two years previous were expected to produce around 5,000 bottles of wine that autumn - which would have been the first commercial ‘crop' for Wellow Vineyards.
The owner intended to plant a further 30 acres the following spring, increasing the
total area under the vine to 80 acres, which he claimed would make Wellow
Vineyards the largest venture of its type in the U.K. They expected to be in full production by 1992, expecting to be selling between 300,000 and 500,000 bottles of wine each year.
The company is now dissolved
After a short walk through some woods we were greeted with a large building that was once a wine centre and restaurant. It was also known as Bacchus Bar but i cannot find any information about this.
There was a digger and a van parked outside but no sign of anyone around so we went in. this place is falling down in the main bar area, it seems a small bit of scaffolding is holding the ceiling up. i wouldn’t go as far to say it was a peaceful explore given the rain and wind making odd noises from various points and the fact we could hear building machinery so were quite paranoid that someone would bulldoze it with us in it. there is a lot of building work nearby so we decided it was that we could hear.
one room had a wasp problem so steered clear of that and floor was rotten in places.
we were in there quite some time and were just about finishing up inside when the machinery noise goes louder and nearer, peeking out we see a digger rolling up so we grabbed our stuff and legged it in to a bush except it wasn’t the one we came through and there was a fence.
by this time the bloke has got out his digger and is wandering around in front of the bush, without much choice we made ourselves known to him and approached to ask he escorts us off site. we were prepared for him to have the hump with us and we were so wrong, he was lovely! he had seen us running away and wondered if we were vandals but upon meeting us he said he knew we weren’t there for trouble. then he told us he was there to clear the acres of land and had no idea what was happening to the building, it was his first day on the job.
as he could see we weren’t there to cause damage or trouble he said we could go back to what we were doing and left us to it. we quickly looked around outside and got some shots, not wanting to take the piss we didn’t explore any of the smaller buildings, then we thanked him and left.
i wonder if we were young lads if we would have had the same treatment?
History -
Hard to find much about this place but i managed to find the following;
The estate was founded by the Vining family and in 1985 the first vines were planted.
From a local newspaper report dated 05/03/2001 i understand that the fourth largest vineyard in the UK was based here. they had won awards and it was the home of the English Wine Company, they were hoping to become a national centre of excellence for English wines.
Bottles of 1994 Wellow Ortega and Faberrebe wines were delivered to the French capital by the owners.
In 1987 the owner completed the mammoth task of hand-planting 33,000 vines on 45 acres of the site, five and a half thousand vines planted two years previous were expected to produce around 5,000 bottles of wine that autumn - which would have been the first commercial ‘crop' for Wellow Vineyards.
The owner intended to plant a further 30 acres the following spring, increasing the
total area under the vine to 80 acres, which he claimed would make Wellow
Vineyards the largest venture of its type in the U.K. They expected to be in full production by 1992, expecting to be selling between 300,000 and 500,000 bottles of wine each year.
The company is now dissolved
