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Mission #1 Complete: Millennium Mills

P

paolo

Well-Known Member
With me... KittyP and IHB, aka "Badgers".

Entry to the site was at dawn. A rip off mini cab journey done, we were in straight away and making our way to the building. One very slight hitch our recce's didn't pick up was another fence further in, but this was helpfully "holed"... and so we went to our chosen window. Equipment readied in less than a minute, up we went.

None of us are great climbers, so there was a kind of leap of faith as made our way up the last few feet and hauled ourselves in. Once we were all assembled we had the much needed smoke break and sorted our kit out. Out came the tripod, camera, something to drink... and our self congratulation on not bumping into security.

Then it was up... steadily working our way to avoid the holes, and on into the bigger "newer" part of the mills.

In all we did about six hours, trying to make sure we saw everything. The "Open Room" was both spectacular and dizzying. One of the group did crawl out to the ledge for photos down the 10 story drop - I couldn't even look.

The final ascent to the roof wasn't too worrying thankfully. All fully walled so even I was mostly OK, ladders all very solid. After a week of shitty weather, we were utterly blessed with the clearest blue sky. From the top we could see *everything*... out to Crystal Palace, as well as the City and of course Canary Wharf. I'd guess we had 15 maybe 20 mile visibility.

After awhile, we thought we'd probably been a bit too "exposed" on the roof... not so much from security, but more joe public phoning in about terrorists near the airport, so we decided to head down rather than tempt a 'discussion' with the pointy end of SO19.

Despite advice "don't do this as your first one"... we were quite attached to doing this particular building. We had some good advice though. Correction: Essential Advice. Without that we would have been staring at the outside and then going home.

Full Photo Set Here
 
hiccup said:
Wow, fantastic photos. Love this one.

Good work. Where's next?
Click to expand...

At this point too tired to even think of the next one... but there will certainly be a Mission #2... hard to think of anything on the scale of Millennium Mills but I'm sure we'll find something.

The great thing about that building is - once you are in (and that's not at all easy without the right kit) - noone is going to bother you. Free roaming in what must be 500,000 sq ft of space. Barring the bloody great holes of course. :eek:

The open sided room is something else. Ten stories up, with a great view of the barrier. Very weird to be in a "room" with such a massive drop at one end. We stayed there for about 15 minutes, before I started to get the wobbles and needed to be inside.
 
It was certainly quite a day.

I'd guess there's about 500,000 sq foot of space, spread over two "merged" buildings, running up to about 12 stories, with a further two stories of roof bits on top. Most of it wasn't too worrying. The internal staircases are all concrete and solid, and the external stepped ladders were also fine. I saw only one broken step in our time there.

We took a look in one of the upper sections of the old building and instantly decided we'd give it a miss. It was all wood flooring, and there wasn't any need to take the risk given how much we'd been able to see everywhere else.

One of the best bits was finding the office with various documents and records, which was like looking back to a frozen point in time - when the mill closed. Kitty found an invoice with the Spillers name on it, and badgers found the spraying records and another book documenting workers holidays.

For some reason, the pigeons all lived near the top - and, when we were there at least, all in just one the room. Maybe they like having pigeon company or something.

It was up at that level we started finding "comedy doors". Doors to death on the outside wall. Some sliding, some regular. They are probably a hangover from when there was an adjoining silo, where bridges connected. Badgers did open one of them, very gingerly. Another one of those moments where I just couldn't watch.

Before leaving, we headed down to the ground floor, which felt more like a basement due to it being bricked up. After a few minutes we hear a very loud banging noise and suspect someone is trying to get in, or perhaps it's security checking doors or something. Needless to say we were quite spooked. When we got back up the first floor we discovered a metal cabinet door, flapping in the wind. Phew!

Our exit, timed to avoid security (at least our guess of when they'd be round), gave us our final mental wobbles as we got down from the 15 foot entry point. It was a relief, finally, to be back on solid ground, after spending so much time constantly being alert to lethal hazards.

At Pontoon Dock DLR, we looked back at the Mills, thinking "we've just done that". An awesome place.

me and kitty...

104615916_92024fa39d_o.jpg
 
Wow - they're great photos. I go to Barrier Park quite a lot with the kids so I 've always wondered what that building was like. Nice one.
 
Wonderful stuff. The one with the peeling green paint and control buttons jumped out at me as well. You've got more bottle than me for taking pictures in forbidden/dangerous places, well done. Keep up the good work but take care. :)

Hocus
 
It's not for everyone.

The holes there aren't too bad. Basically they are man made, from equipment removal, rather than the result of decay, so the surrounding floor is rock solid. You'll see where Badgers is crawling across, there is a massive supporting beam underneath, which Kitty identified before he went across.

Millennium Mills was one of the early industrial buildings to use reinforced concrete. Back in the 1917 when a nearby explosives factory blew up, Millennium Mills and the adjoining silos took the full blast. Although the areas that were wooden floored burnt out, the structural fabric of the building was unaffected, unlike some of it's neighbours. In the later buildings - mostly what we explored - the floors are all very very thick concrete, with some not surprisingly very high "slab loading" figures to accommodate the equipment for the Mill.

So, the holes are only are a danger if you go down an existing one - no new holes are likely to appear - in the concrete areas at least (there's quite a few wooden bits in the some of the rooms, which we avoided). That said, it's obviously not a building to fool around in. We went with good hand protection, first aid kit, "access equipment" to avoid free climbing, lots of water and some food.

The open sided room was something else though. I feel dizzy every time I think about being in there. And the "comedy doors" weren't too great either! :eek:

I guess overall it's bit like, say, mountain climbing. You can't eliminate risk, but you can minimize it. No room for heroics or getting out of your depth. You need a good team where you can trust each other, and no hotheads who want to egg people on to do daft things.
 
Ahhhhh, didn't know either of you three were into this sort of stuff at all!

PMs will be sent shortly ;) :cool:

(TOP pics by the way, what day of the week did you go in?)
 
Moggy said:
Ahhhhh, didn't know either of you three were into this sort of stuff at all!

PMs will be sent shortly ;) :cool:

(TOP pics by the way, what day of the week did you go in?)
Click to expand...

Went in Saturday.
 
loud 1 said:
bit of a side note..

the 'danger' signs etc in the photos,are worth abit now..


nick um.
Click to expand...

Err no thanks. We are not thieves. Heritage is to be seen, shared via photos and words, but not stolen. Some of our team are on the breadline, but they've got some self respect. That's not something you can cart away in a backpack and flog on ebay.
 
Mission #2 report is incoming... any moment.

Slightly hiccupped by the fact that:

(a) We were busted
(b) Have spent the afternoon in the pub dissecting
(c) It takes a very very long time to write these things up, no matter how poor the words end up being. (Generally: More beer = worse write up. Easy.)

Gonna whirl it in General this time.
 
great photos - shame i'm not currently able to keep thederelictsensation going, otherwise i'd love to put them up as a project. i've sent a pm with a suggestion for #3.

for the record, i disagree about the floors - they aren't safe - if you look closely there are also random holes on the 'safe' side. identify the beams and only walk along above those. a mountaineer probably would be roped up before she'd agree to go along some of those places. probably not a good idea to walk along looking through a viewfinder, then, like this idiot. :(

respect for getting to the roof - i never got that far. some point i'll have to put up the video that i used MM as a location for.

i agree that it's well out of order to nick stuff. you need to have some respect for places and for people who follow you - only developers and vandals do crap like that.

ninjalicious' book Access All Areas is well worth having a look at - both for excellent advice on urban exploration (also vadding and infiltrating), dealing with security and other officials - but even more an interesting kind of philosophical exploration of the many ethical issues that it brings up. very sad that the guy died recently (not of exploration, you'll be glad to hear)
http://www.infiltration.org/
 
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