In today’s Urbandoned video, we explore the disused Shoreham Cement Works on the south
coast of England.
The factory has been shut for almost 30 years.
It’s stunning location and surviving features make it a prime industrial abandonment and
one we had been looking at visiting for some time.
Join us as we head inside to see what remains.
In our last video, we asked the question, ‘What do you think security measures will
be like to protect abandoned buildings in the future?’
We had some very interesting replies, but this one from Polly stood out.
They talked about the simple security changes that are noticeable like front door cameras
and doorbell monitors, and then suggested that security robots will be much more common
in the near future, because they would save cost.
We completely agree!
As it is the start of a new year, we would like to ask, ‘what would you like to see
from us in 2021, in terms of locations and special video ideas?’
Be sure to comment to possibly feature in our next upload.
From the outside, the abandoned cement works is one of the most impressive structures we
have seen.
It is massive, towering 10 stories at points and spans across both sides of the road.
We were aware that the land around the building contains security who have been known to be
quite aggressive in the past as well as an active truck hiring company, therefore, we
decided to use the cliff surrounded wasteland around the back to get as close as we could.
The dirt roads we were walking along were patrolled every hour or so not long before
this visit, so we took caution as we made our way over the rocky turf towards the distant
chimney.
After an hour or so, we had found ourselves within touching distance to the rear conveyor
belts that would take us over the live trucks into the factory.
The only issue here was that demolition work was ongoing around the conveyor building and
we couldn’t get spotted by any workers.
Finally, we had made it inside undetected.
These long, impressive pieces of machinery are known as kilns and are a key stage of
cement production.
At the time of building, this pair were the first ever installation of Vickers Armstrong
rotary kilns, which was replicated by other plants elsewhere.
Their introduction was considered state-of-the-art, changing the world of cement making for the better.
Clay and other materials would be loaded into the kilns that stretch 350ft as a slurry before
being heated to 1500 degrees whilst rotating.
This brought the material together until it left at the bottom as ‘cilnker’ ready for the next process.
The ‘cilnker’ would fall into the coolers which are the smaller pipes below.
Once exiting these, the cooled material would travel onwards to the mill via conveyor belts
where it would be grounded up and formed into cement.
With sunlight beaming into the production hall, it was an incredible sight.
As a matter of fact, everything about Shoreham placed it very high on our list of locations
we visited last year.
It is an amazing place visually, and historically too.
The facility dates back to 1878 when the original cement company, Beeding Portland, was founded.
It was taken over by Sussex Cement just before the turn of the century, who quickly introduced
the two rotary kilns, likely to be the first of their kind.
Each kiln would produce more than 550 tonnes of cilnker a day.
In the mid 1900s, the plant was totally re-built into the arrangement that remains today.
Despite the success of the kilns, they needed a lot of people to operate them.
Although modified into a different cake feed process in 1983 to increase efficiency, the
cement works was losing production.
In addition with high dust loss causing pollution, it was the end of the road for the gigantic
complex with it’s outdated machinery, so it shut in 1991 and has lay abandoned ever
since.
Every inch of the building is coated in cement dust and most of the structure is overwhelmed
by asbestos.
It is this that makes renovation or demolition to the property difficult as fees to do so
are extremely high.
After looking at the control room side of the hall, we moved back across to the conveyor
side where clay and other materials would have been fed into the kilns through massive
pipes.
Thankfully, the kilns are too stiff to suddenly rotate nowadays meaning we were able to wander down them to
get an entirely different perspective, one that you could only get of a cement plant
with it being vacant.
Moving on from the colossal kiln hall, we progressed into other chambers of the building,
that would house storage and the cement mill where the process would finish.
Huge mixers would have sat on the stone foundations all that time ago.
Potentially in the past shortly after closure, the company would have wanted to strip the
factory in order for demolition preparation, but as time went on, the cost increased and
the initial interest was lost.
Beside the cement mill, a storage warehouse was near enough similar size to the kiln hall.
In here, the raw materials would be kept with a movable gantry crane that would run up and
down the space to organise the imported material.
The motors would power the rotation of the mixers in the cement mill.
Sadly there was more than enough graffiti in the room which is probably very old, with
this building located right near to an active road as we just found out.
Following our close encounter with a truck driver, we figured it was best to leave this
area of the cement works and look for a way up onto the roof.
It’s fascinating how nature has taken over the land around the facility as well as the
building itself.
The quarry where material was chalked off all that time ago has become the habitat for
local wildlife and plants have developed everywhere in the concrete and metal property which shows
how long they have had to grow.
As for the silo structure across the road, we were told it wasn’t worth a closer look,
especially as it features many small companies around it and possibly inside too.
Because of this, we were happy enough with our exploration to conclude it after enjoying
the amazing views from its peak.
Plans are constantly being suggested for the dilapidated cement works, but as of now nothing
has come into fruition.
The state of the factory can only get worse shown by a fire that took place in September
2017, destroying two empty buildings and 19 vehicles parked next to them.
Time will only tell what happens in the future for the property, but we are glad we had the
chance to showcase it to the best we could.
Hope you enjoyed our coverage of the building.
If you did, feel free to like the video and subscribe to never miss future uploads.
Here are some of our photographs captured at Shoreham.
If you like the look of them, check out our Instagram page in the description where we
post images from our explores months before they are seen on YouTube.
Thanks for watching!
Hopefully this was the ideal start to the year and you enjoyed our video.
Although we are in another lockdown, we have many videos to come from our backlog, so content
will continue coming every two weeks.
See you next time!