Tales of the Urban Explorer: Fole Creamery

It had been a mixed start. After the successes of 'The New Inn' and 'Froghall Farm', both of which had been far from spectacular, our next target was a pub which by the time we arrived was a large pile of bricks.

Failure's I can stomach, you can always try again, but when the place no longer exists, it's downright fucking annoying. I spent all this time looking you up and you have gone forever…, bastard!

That day's agenda was quite spread out and our next one, some abandoned barracks was not tasting good in my mouth.

I always find ex-military sites very samey, large, unwieldy, and at best filled with some decent graffiti.

@anidiotexplores woke me from semi-conscious driving stupor with a yell of…, 'what's that over there…'

I woke up startled and pulled over quickly screeching the types and sending us both into a forward lurch.

It looked large, abandoned, and was on a side road with a house at the entrance. We would need to do a U-turn and drive down this lane a little to check it out.

Fole Mill was built in 1771. This is very early Industrial Revolution productivity and almost at the time when the Land Owners forced the Serfs to do all the work while they put their feet up and got pissed on the finest whiskey and fat on endless joints of unhealthy meat.

After several changes of owners, including the Co-operative Wholesale Society, Fole Creamery closed in 2009 making 246 people redundant.

It is fitting that a factory that produces cream should exist in the middle of the wilderness. There are plenty of cows around to supply it, and the business rates are likely very low, and yet it had gone bust for one reason or another.

2009 was the start of the Great Recession. I have no doubts it was a contributing factor.

Parking was never going to be an issue. This was a large building on a road that few cars ventured down, it was a dump, lockup, and explore job.

Which entrance; the large left one, or the partially closed right?

We chose the left first and were rewarded with a large room full of crap!

If this was as good as it was going to get, I was going to check out some of the filthy paperwork and possibly get a handle on what it was like working at 'Fole Creamery'.

Well Ron..., I bet you are very proud of your achievement. My daughter used to get similar useless certificates at primary school for passing 'Recorder Stage 5' and the like.

This wasn't any better and was sending me to sleep. It was old and created during the last century, but could have been about suppressing excessive flatulence in the office space while important people are walking around.

We exited and entered the 'other' door which looked like this from the inside. No need to use the handle, just duck and shuffle through. I had to chuckle even though its deliberate vandalism.

The evidence was overwhelming and bang up to date with 2009, the year this place went belly-up.

It had been a bad year and mass redundancies were about to take place, and USDAW, the most incompetent fucking Union in the county was letting everyone know.

Yeah, I have had dealing with these twats who like to take your employee money and in return are toothless wankers.

If this was a method of deterring me from climbing up those metal stairs, it was always going to end in tears. We quickly found another route in the form of some very clear wooden stairs.

This was more like it, there's nothing better than a nice, large airy office complete with nature coming through the windows and interfering with your duties.

Lovely in the summer, a little cold in the deep mid-winter when you are typing away and the snow is settling between your finger joints creating additional arthritis.

There were even spare ink cartridges just in case the inserted ones happen to run dry.

…and a user manual; they were prepared... these office workers.

Those paranormal weird people have been here. They tend to stay overnight and pretend they have seen ghosts. Attention seekers I say, and having seen no ghosts ever in any of these places I can justify my stance.

The large design schematics looked complicated. Valves here, there, and everywhere. I didn't take a lot of notice.

People should not leave their attendance slips for everyone to see. The grunts at least were paid by the hour and I'm still trying to figure out what the rate of pay was?

'Fole Creamery' was relatively bare besides the offices which looked to have been left in the same state as when everyone bailed. If you wanted to have a good look, there was plenty to go at.

None of the correspondence was even remotely recent, telling me the shutters were pulled well over a decade past and it's been like this since the documented closure date.

If it was secure, the apes had been and made plenty of holes ensuring this was no longer the case.

On leaving we encountered a single vehicle driving down this lonely road.

Maybe 'Fole Creamery' was a victim of its isolation, and they could not recruit anyone with any skills to work there, or was it simply the banking collapse which now seems long ago?

An interesting diversion and better that it was an impromptu discovery made while travelling which albeit are mostly shit, can reveal the odd gem.

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