Tales of the Urban Explorer: Unity Mill

“We can’t just walk down that road, there’s a bloke living there raising pigs or something?”

‘Private Road, No Access’, said the sign boldly. Was it meant for vehicles or pedestrians? If the latter, then there would be no reason to walk through PigMans property unless we were going to ‘Unity Mill, and he wasn’t going to like that.

I'm sure in 2004 this would have been a tough one to crack. Now the only issue was avoiding the bloke that 'owns' the road that runs into the main factory. I don't know if he's a rabid maniac, and would just as well have no contact so we bypassed him skirting around the edges, getting very muddy only to be met with a long line of sturdy fencing.

At the bottom end, someone had obviously gotten pissed off and started tramping it down with their heavy boots. It was still a little tricky to navigate being quite springy but hardly a deterrent for @anidiotexplores and myself.

Unity Mill was constructed in the 1860s for spinning cotton and was formerly known as Trianon Mill. By the 1890s it had been converted to a rubber works but later was converted back again to a textile mill. The site was used for the manufacture of products for the food, animal feed, and brewing sector until it closed in December 2003.
Source

I grabbed the history but can't find the source (besides the same sentence being used on every Urban Exploring post known to man). Closed for 20 years means, it's going to be just about ruin level, and I found one example of a fire being started, and would be surprised if there's no more.

I noticed the 'trespasser' sign didn't spout the usual bullshit warnings of 'trespassers will be prosecuted' and reverted to 'trespassers will be liable for any damage'.

Does that mean we would have a welcome committee waiting for us, complete with tea and biscuits? This is as good as it gets, so we took it to heart and hoped there might be some Jammie Dodgers as well as Cappuccino’s with free refills.

Source
…’Unity Mill 2005, when windows were a thing and explorers were nowhere to be seen’…

Despite being on the grounds of one of the derpiest mills ever, access was still proving tough. Part of ’Unity Mill’ has been demolished so those doorways up there now lead to a huge drop and fresh air.

This smaller building was looking unappetizing, but the whole thing looked kind of crap so we figured a look would do no harm.

With only a 'Slag' in the corner and an average pink octopus, we made for the main building looking for an entrance.

After circling like landlocked buzzards, @anidiotexplores climbed a metal fence making shit-loads of noise in the process to, ‘get in’, or so he thought.

"Oh fuck, this is it, no way up the stairs", he complained. They had bricked off the staircases, well how nice. Hoping PigMan had not heard all the noise, we continued until one of us spotted this:

@anidiotexplores being the skinny bastard he is, breathed in hard and squeezed edging through the inner gap with some trouble. Would I have to sit it out?

Not a chance! I did the same and edged through inch by inch feeling metal on both my front and back digging into my skin. This was not an exercise for fatties and I still don't know how I managed to get through such a tiny gap.

We were in, but was it worth the effort of several scrape marks on my upper body?

Well of course, with sights like this, how can one complain?

The stairs blockers must not have factored in that getting past that iron fencing was ever going to happen as they appeared to be mostly open.

Three floors of virtual nothingness awaited us. Besides many images such as this one, ’Unity Mill’ was bare and riddled with fallen bricks and masonry.

You can see part of it has been concreted, but it was hardly impeding our progress. Some people don't know if they are gay or not. It's a confusing subject, and people's minds can change often, as can be seen on the walls.

@anidiotexplores dithers around on the far side of this floor which has half of it missing. There were several areas that we were almost forced to jump to get across. It was kind of dangerous but the sections intact appeared extremely sturdy.

One of the stairs and a few blockages awaited but with multiple exits there was always a way to ascend or descend.

Most of the artwork was on the ropey side, with glimmers of talent. If you can't get through a wall, making a hole is sometimes for the best if you want access.

The mandatory cock shots, without them it wouldn’t be genuine.

‘Liz’ was as good as it gets, and that had been violated with nonsensical bullshit writing.

What a depressing place to work. Having experience working for a very short stint in a mill, I can attest it was the worst place to work ever, surpassing even 'The Horrors of Kwiksave'.

Keep to the right, there’s little health and safety this far up.

A scene looking out, it’s a long way down.

Careful edging around there, the floor will ‘probably’ not collapse but there are no guarantees.

Finding little but piles of bricks, we edged back through the extra small gap, giving me some more chest scratches and marks, and headed for the next exploration.

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