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View Full Version : Hickson & Welch Chemicals, Castleford - Jan '10



wolfism
07-02-2010, 12:18 AM
Welcome to Chemical Island: visited with Pincheck on the way to the forum meet in Leeds.

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Cheers to Mexico for posting this site in the first place, giving us the inspiration to tackle it. At first we were puzzled why there haven't been more reports from Hickson & Welch … but having turned up and done it on sight, we now know. Beforehand I knew Castleford mainly in relation to the TV programme with Kevin McCloud where a “big name” designer was drafted in to carry out urban improvements: in the end a new curvy footbridge spanned the river and although we spotted it in the distance, we also saw that the town centre still looked run-down. Style over substance? To balance that, the streets were crowded, there was no shortage of business being done in the shops, so although “Cas” was badly hit when its major employer, Hickson & Welch, shut its doors in 2005, that closure didn’t floor the town completely. The chemical plant’s fractioning towers still loom over the town centre, a constant reminder of its past influence, and the continuing spectre of what lurks in the soil at Ings Lane.

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Sedate canal boaters chug along on one side, and pikeys wear their trademark Tinky Maxx stripey jumpers on the other side. In between lies a maze of tanks, pipes, bunds and control rooms with a haze of chemical fumes drifting through them – despite some demolition, much of the site remains. The main part we explored was the Hydrogenation plant: it processed Chlorine and Phosgene (mustard gas) and sits on a peninsula between the canal (Aire Navigation) and the river. It’s known as the “Island Site”, and made up a third of the whole, although parts of the mainland are devoted to Arch Timber Preservation, and an Eon power station – both of which are still active. At that side of the Navigation lies a further spread of buildings and towers, including various distillation plants, such as the 90 & 100 Still Bases. One of the fascinating things about a site like this is the chance to learn a little about a new language: applied chemistry, and amongst the strange names we came across was “Low Egg” a particularly quirky one which was part of a sequence, "Low Egg Distillation" plus "Egg Sweat & Discharge" then "Final Egg".

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There have been chemical works in Castleford since 1860, when the Calder Chemical Co. established themselves further along the river. Hickson & Partners was founded in 1915, and built their chemical plant at Ings Lane which produced TNT (tri-nitro-toluene) for the war effort – having been in and out of other former explosives plants, that alone inspired me to get off my backside and see this place. After WW1 ended in 1918, the plant was turned over to producing dyestuffs and processing acids – many of the processes are common to both explosives and dyestuff manufacture. In 1930, an explosion destroyed a large part of the factory and brought the company to its knees. After an inquiry and fresh finance, the new company of Hickson & Welch emerged in 1931 and rebuilt the plant so that it could concentrate on producing organic chemicals, including Dicol, Benzene derivatives and Aniline dyestuffs. (Despite giving up explosives manufacture there was still a nitro-toluenes section at Castleford, part of which, the 60 Still Base, exploded in 1992 killing several people).

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When you have a large chemical plant at your disposal, it’s relatively easy to alter the products you make, by re-plumbing the distillation plant and altering the feedstocks you pump in at one end. H&W made a bewildering array of related chemicals, many of them highly toxic. Although I knew the name “Hickson” in relation to their Tanalith timber preservative (the stuff which stains softwood used in buildings a pale green), my old man knew them as producers of the insecticide DDT, one of dozens of agricultural chemicals which were banned in the 1960’s. They were the largest British producer of DDT, so were hit hard when it was proscribed. Despite reverses like this by the mid-1970’s H&W covered 140 acres and employed 1800 people. By then, the business had spread across dyes, optical brighteners for soap powder, photo chemicals, timber stains, preservatives, and agrichemicals. As its operations expanded worldwide, Hickson & Welch became Hickson International plc, but it overstretched itself and found itself in deep financial trouble in the late 1990’s, partly because of their long-sighted construction of a new power plant and a sophisticated effluent plant.

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Savage restructuring forced the sale of many subsiduaries, and finally it was rescued in 2000 by Arch Chemicals, an American company. By then, it had two main businesses: the organic chemicals firm Hickson & Welch, and the protective coatings division, which included Hickson Timber Products. Arch retained the profitable timber preservation side, but sold H&W to a private equity firm in 2003. Remember what happened to MG Rover? The same happened here. Dunedin Capital Partners shut Hickson & Welch down in 2005, after operating it for a couple of years as “C6 Solutions”, and it was sold to a developer who although supposedly interested in running the business as a going concern, had actually earmarked the site for housing. They may have underestimated the scale of pollution on the site; or the housing slump may have taken them by surprise; but site clearance work has been slow. Much of the remaining metalwork is rusting and peeling, presumably as a result of the action of chemicals on the steel – I read elsewhere that the chequerplate decking on the fractioning towers had to be replaced every couple of years due to contamination eating away at it.

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The proper old-school control rooms give you a good idea of the complexity of the processes they handled, and beyond them in the depths of the complex there is some visually impressive decay. The hydrogenation plant had big tanks of nitrobenzene breathing out sweet fumes that smelt of almond essence through their open hatches. Several pipes dripped rainwater and filth, and in the distance the rusty gantries clanked in the wind. We finished part one as the sun was dropping in the west, leaving the tangle of steelwork on Chemical Island silhouetted against a winter sky.

Shot on Agfachrome RSXII :thumb

wolfism
07-02-2010, 12:39 AM
Cheers – feels like we just scratched the surface. Pity it's so far away else we'd be back in a shot … ;)

Muse
07-02-2010, 01:36 AM
Great report, I really like reading your snippets of history and the photos are stunning in that lovely light.

Pyroninja
07-02-2010, 02:30 AM
Ohhh well done guys, this place is amazing!! As you said, shame it's so far away. I'd love to see this. Another well structured report Wolfie, liked the added bonus of the shots being on film.

numpty
08-02-2010, 05:37 PM
spot on! Excellent write-up & background as usual Wolfism - cracking pics from the pair of you.

I love the shots of the (intrinsically safe/hazardous environment) phone!

Rebel
08-02-2010, 06:40 PM
Has anyone cracked the main building at the front yet? Most of the reports seem to be from the back of the plant. The bridge has CCTV on it so as soon as you get near there you've had it basically unless you go through the night.

wolfism
08-02-2010, 09:05 PM
Thanks everyone, enjoyed this place a lot, and the winter sun suited it. Theoss, it's interesting to follow the development of what they made at Castleford, basically mirrors the British economy (explosives in wartime, pesticides when we needed more crops, things to make clothes look clean when we bought into consumerism…)


the emergency plan shows 2 security offices !
No quite my man: the emergency plan actually shows two figures running as fast as they can for the fence. :lol:

wolfism
08-02-2010, 09:50 PM
It's a perennial thorn in my side as well, the throwaway society. I was still using the Kodak DC camera (that we compared notes on at Inverkip) until recently, even though it was 7/8 years old. I think most folk use a camera for about 18 months then Ebay it…

foz101
08-02-2010, 11:55 PM
Only just spotted this thread. Not enough cats...

As for the write up, brills as usual. TNT or Benzene, TNT or Benzene? Tough call. I'm guessing this place is safer when rusting and patrolled than it was when operational?

wolfism
09-02-2010, 09:55 AM
They maybe purged it, but not completely. Certain parts are still very "fumy"...