bedfordshire – sYnc

Quenby Price/Cargills Grain Store

In 1910 R.Quenby & Sons were first listed as millers after buying a 21 year lease on a local mill in Bromham, Bedfordshire. In 1938 they became a registered company as Quenby Price Limited. In 1969 they moved out of the mill and into nearby Turvey Station that had closed in 1962 (the last train left this station in March 1962) as a result of Dr. Richard Beeching’s ‘Beeching Bombshell’ report that resulted in more than 4,000 miles of railway and 3,000 stations being closed over a 10 year period. (During 1962 780 miles of track were closed across the country). The station buildings were used as offices but sadly they did demolish most of the platform.

In 1971 Quenby Price Limited leased the orignal Bromham Mill buildings, mill house and 6½ acres of land to Bedfordshire County Council as a picnic site, selling them to the council two years later. After Quenby Price moved out, the Mill was taken over by artisans making pottery and leather goods until a fire broke out on 20 Feb 1974. Bromham Mill is now a popular Bedfordshire tourist destination

The Turvey Station site grew over the years under the name Quenby Price and many of the original buildings were demolished and rebuilt to keep up with mechanisation and modernistation techniques in agriculture. The company changed hands several times over the years, falling into the hands of Unilever under the name United Agricultural Merchants (BOCM Silcock Ltd). I was lucky enough to have a tour of the site in the early 1980’s when it was fully operational and remember visting the old silo building and climbing the ladders to a high dusty gallery (long demolished).

The site changed hands again several times before being finally taken over by Cargills PLC and then ultimately its closure several years ago, it now lays derelict having been ‘made safe’ and also fairly well stripped by travellers.

The site comprises of two wet grain storage bins, a pre-cleaner, two grain driers, six storage silos with 10,000 tonnes of grain storage and two despatch bins. Everything is linked with grain elevators, conveyors and horizontal augers. In addition to this are workshops, admin buildings offices and a Laboratory.

UPDATE – March 2011
This site has been levelled to the ground over the last three weeks, totally demolished, nothing exists.

There was a development company involved who bought the site several years ago and I suspect it will soon be redeveloped as a residential site.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy the pix

Despatch Bins

Grain Dryer

Button Porn

Button Porn Part 2

Grain Elevator

March 2011 shots…

Ravensden ROC Post – Bedfordshire Group

Opened – Unknown
Closed – October 1968

There isn’t too much that can be said about this post as you can see from the pictures. I’m not entirely sure when it was capped with concrete and steel bar but its at least 15 years ago, also I’m not sure if it is just a cap or in fact they poured rubble down the shaft and topped it with concrete. If I run out of things to do before I die I might go back with a large can of PlusGas and ‘FSM Cam’ it just out of idle curiosity.

Great location geographically with great vision all round, or certainly would have been before the odd building and trees that have sprang up since the 1950’s. Bedford is one of those unusual counties with very few ROC Posts, despite the fact that Bedford ROC Group HQ No 7 was the HQ for the UKWMO Midlands Sector, covering many more counties at the time.

Nature has certainly claimed back this post…

Riseley ROC Post – Bedfordshire Group

Site: Riseley ROC Post & Aircraft Observation Post

Opened – March 1964
Closed – September 1991

This visit was more of a recon than a full visit and as such was done on my way home from work with none of my gear and wearing only a t-shirt. As you can see from the pix this entire site has been consumed by nature, something I kind of like to see which is why I photographed it as is, instead of coming back tooled up. The t-shirt was an epic fail as the stingers here are 8ft high and the brambles twice that, in fact this compound is so densely overgrown you could walk round it without even knowing there was anything in there….I never did see the air vent, I would have been stung to death trying to find it. Water levels are the lowest here for a very long while with approx 10ft of the shaft visible (it’s been up near the top before). I also had to extract fast as I heard voices coming towards me from the other side of the hedge so apologies for the crap pix….no tripod, falling down rat holes and legging it didn’t make good photos.