Industrial Decline: Salthouse Mills, Barrow, A Before and After Set

Industrial Decline: Salthouse Mills, Barrow-in-Furness

A 'Before and After' Set (Well, the 'Before' anyway... watch this space)

(For the Flickr set click here)

A look around Barrow's abandoned Salthouse Mills, wondering whether or not their future may be bright and how much resemble it will bear, in years to come, to its former self.

It cuts a lonely and slightly ominous looking figure, even from a sunlit grassy approach.

Although the best view, in my opinion, is the one you get from the train into Barrow station. Although shot with a mobile phone, from a moving train, I think even this picture captures the ghostly eptiness:

The red brick buildings by the docks are a shadow of their former selves, forming only a shell in places, but their chimneys still proudly standing.

Since closing as a paper mill, the buildings have more recently been occupied by auto repair and vehicle dismantlers and the site also encompassed the Roosecote Raceway Stock Car track. Now however, it stands empty, its condition dangerously deteriorating following a series of fires since its abandonment.

Perhaps it will make a grand waterfront appartment building one day? Or perhaps continue its decline into dust. Time will tell.

Thanks and respect are duely paid to the young lad I met down there, who was doing his best to keep an eye on the place, and on satisfying himself I wasn't a reporter even provided an impromptu guided tour.