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Located just a few miles off of the M40, Chinnor Cement Works looms over the rural Oxfordshire village from which the site takes its name.
After complaints about pollution from nearby residents, the South Oxon council gave Rugby Cement the choice of fitting filtering equipment and cleaning up the site, or face closure. Evidently, closing the plant and moving out was the cheaper of the two options, and so in January 1999, the site was abandoned.
No attempt to remove the machinery has been made, and so it remains as an untouched shrine to the former industry that employed so many people in the local area.
Sadly, in December 2004, a fatal accident took place here, in which a teenager fell to his death. We must stress that this site is very dangerous; unstable gantries, long drops and sharp metal objects can be found everywhere. Even with our knowledge and experience, we managed to sustain minor injuries during the course of our visit. Please read and pay close attention to our disclaimer.
At present (August 2006), there are plans to redevelop the site into housing and business premises, but these seem to be quite a long way from fruition.
NOTE: all enlarged images open in a pop-up window, so blocking software should be switched off.
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Image reference: CRW_2730
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Welcome to Chinnor... The main entrance into the cement works is still well-branded with Rugby Cement's logo. It's also overlooked by business premises and guarded by security cameras, so we decided to take the unofficial entry route... |
Image reference: CRW_2512
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The view across one of the chalk-pits towards the buildings. Apart from a tractor in a nearby field, the entire area was eerily silent. |
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Image reference: CRW_2550
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One of the loading bays, where quarried material was dumped into huge hoppers ready for processing. |
Image reference: CRW_2559
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The corrugated iron walls of the loading bays. Time and the elements have taken their toll, with large sections simply rusted away. In this area, most surfaces are grey or white due to the thick layer of chalk and cement dust caked onto them. |
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Image reference: CRW_2602
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Various gauges, dials and fuse-boxes inside one of the slurry storage silos. |
Image reference: CRW_2605
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The control valve at the bottom of the silo, with the solidified contents of the slurry mixture underneath. |
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Image reference: CRW_2607
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And again... |
Image reference: CRW_2614
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An agitator for a mixing pool, similar to those found on sewage farms. |
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Image reference: CRW_2616
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A huge warehouse for storage of raw materials. On the other side of the wall, in the coal storage area, the massive crane bucket hangs silently from the overhead mobile gantry. |
Image reference: CRW_2623
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The cab of the mobile gantry crane, still covered in coal dust several years after it ceased operating. |
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Image reference: CRW_2628
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A flooded control room... |
Image reference: CRW_2640
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... with a splash just to prove it! |
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Image reference: CRW_2657
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One of the 3 massive kilns, each approximately 200 feet long. Built on a very slight gradient, the raw materials were fed in at the raised end, whilst a 2000°C flame, produced by coal-burning furnaces, provided heat at the lower end. The tremendous heat which accumulated in the kiln caused the raw materials to react, producing 'clinker', which was then ground into a fine powder; cement. |
Image reference: CRW_2661
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Another of the kilns and rotating machinery. |
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Image reference: CRW_2678
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The burned-out control room for the kilns. This was the only major damage we found whilst on the site - thankfully, vandalism seems to be virtually non-existant. |
Image reference: CRW_2686
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'Blitz' posing in a corridor leading out of the kiln house... |
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Image reference: CRW_2696
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... before we changed our minds, and headed back to the kilns for some more photos... |
Image reference: CRW_2704
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...but this time, from a much higher vantage point... |
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Image reference: --
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...before heading yet higher! To prevent people getting up on to the roof of the building, sections of ladders and steps were severed before Rugby vacated the site. So we improvised, and after climbing up some of the in-tact ladders, jumping gaps between gantries and then clambering up chains and various other objects, we finally reached the roof, with only minimal injuries!
( photo of 'peroXide', taken by 'Blitz' ) |
Image reference: CRW_2721
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The view along the tops of the slurry silos, with only a rather unstable safety fence to prevent a fall!
At this point, we became aware of security guards searching the buildings below us, so we silently made our way back down to the ground and stealthily left the site, having only seen roughly half of it. |
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