Steve Pellatt
Going up in Smoke I
Hope Valley, Peak District National Park, UK
When is an eye-sore not an eye-sore?
That is a question that has always popped into my head when I have seen the Hope Cement Works in real life or photo. There it sits in the middle of the Hope Valley in the Britain’s first National Park intermittently pumping smoke up into the air…terrible? Well maybe but then think that Britain’s largest cement works dates back to 1929 which predates the creation of the Peak District National Park (PDNP) by 22 years. If you believe the Breedon Group’s data then it creates 260 jobs and contributes £53 million to the PDNPeconomy www.breedongroup.com/content/dam/breedon/corporate/docume....
Until I looked it up I hadn’t realised that the current planning permissions run out in 2042 so, unless renewed, operations will end. Will it be blown up like some old power stations with Togs on the top of Mam Tor copying those at Mesa Arch in Canyonland NP? If you have ever shot Mesa Arch you will know what I mean, if not image what the 27 people who set the record for getting into a classic mini car felt like!
Or will it become a sibling to Battersea Power Station that changed in perception from eye-sore to icon? As a Tog, I think I favour the latter as the images you get when the fog rolls through the valley and the cement works appears and disappears like a will-o'-the-wisp are something else…well they are to me.
Anyway, enough of my ramblings! Here are a couple of the images where I picked out the cement works that last morning in the PDNP. The almost mono image was taken when I first set up and a little before the sun rose. The other more colourful one was taken when the sun was up heating the mist like a fire does cauldron.
© All rights reserved to Steve Pellatt. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.
Going up in Smoke I
Hope Valley, Peak District National Park, UK
When is an eye-sore not an eye-sore?
That is a question that has always popped into my head when I have seen the Hope Cement Works in real life or photo. There it sits in the middle of the Hope Valley in the Britain’s first National Park intermittently pumping smoke up into the air…terrible? Well maybe but then think that Britain’s largest cement works dates back to 1929 which predates the creation of the Peak District National Park (PDNP) by 22 years. If you believe the Breedon Group’s data then it creates 260 jobs and contributes £53 million to the PDNPeconomy www.breedongroup.com/content/dam/breedon/corporate/docume....
Until I looked it up I hadn’t realised that the current planning permissions run out in 2042 so, unless renewed, operations will end. Will it be blown up like some old power stations with Togs on the top of Mam Tor copying those at Mesa Arch in Canyonland NP? If you have ever shot Mesa Arch you will know what I mean, if not image what the 27 people who set the record for getting into a classic mini car felt like!
Or will it become a sibling to Battersea Power Station that changed in perception from eye-sore to icon? As a Tog, I think I favour the latter as the images you get when the fog rolls through the valley and the cement works appears and disappears like a will-o'-the-wisp are something else…well they are to me.
Anyway, enough of my ramblings! Here are a couple of the images where I picked out the cement works that last morning in the PDNP. The almost mono image was taken when I first set up and a little before the sun rose. The other more colourful one was taken when the sun was up heating the mist like a fire does cauldron.
© All rights reserved to Steve Pellatt. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.