Regroup behind the wall

On the corner of Air Street and Bankside RE:Group take polluted water and other nasties and turn it into useable fuel. This is an area where pedestrians are clearly not catered for (I nearly got my foot squashed by a lorry turning left at this junction) and you are definitely not supposed to see what goes on behind those walls. That's the old mill putting in a cameo appearance in the top pic.

The Bankside Tree

Not many trees grow in the badlands, here's one struggling on.

Isis Mill

You have seen all those wonderful shots of the countryside in April and May covered as far as the eye can see in yellow. It's all very pretty but the nation's oil seed rape crop ends up in a place like this.

This is the Isis mill and is a stone's throw from that old mill. It looks similar to the old mill but this one is still working and producing masses of vegetable oil. It is in fact older being  built in 1912 and  owned since 1985 by Cargill. It crushes rapeseed to produce oil and protein meal. The plant can produce over 320 tonnes of oil per day from 750 tonnes of seed. With such figures it's easy to see why nearly a million acres of the UK are given over to rape each year.

Motor trade

Not owning a car means I know little about the motor trade but even I know that these establishments are not the top of the range shall we say. Nevertheless they have a seedy charm all of their own. Should you be needing their services you'll find both on Bankside.

Old Mill

Close by the swing bridge I showed yesterday  is the British Extraction company mill. It was built in 1919 to grind linseed and rape seed and so on to extract oil. The seed was delivered by boat and stored in the large silos to the rear. As you can see it's no longer in use, in fact it has stood idle for over forty years! There was a move to demolish it in the 1990s but  now it has Grade 2 listing so it just sits there watching the river flow. It was so well built it won't fall down.

Like the bridge this building attracts the attentions of photographers who sneak in and explore it.   You can see some of their  images here and here. Climbing up to the roof is definitely a young person's game.

Swing Bridge

This is the Wilmington bridge originally built to carry the railway across the river but now it's just for pedestrians and cyclists, oh and photographers. It was opened in 1907 and the last train crossed in 1968. It still works as a swing bridge to allow river traffic to pass though I have to admit I've never seen it in action as it were.

Peeling Paint

No visit to Bankside would be complete without an image of the Reckitt chimney. It is simply huge (450 ft) and dominates the whole area but it,  like much of the area, is now standing idle and slowly decaying.

The chimney was used to remove sulphur dioxide produced in the making of ultramarine which has many uses not least in paint manufacture some of which could be applied to this wall. There's more, much more, on the history of this site and the production of this useful product  here, this link was written when the plant was still operational, it closed in 2007.