To be Demolished

This is a sad but inevitable picture - the destruction of a relic of our industrial history - a cradle of modern paper making. The Frogmore Mill was the first to produce continuous papers using the Fourdrinier method, in 1803, whilst in 1809, in a mill a few hundred yards away, John Dickinson started to produce continuous paper using cylinders. In 1811 John Dickinson bought this place, Nash Mills and paper was produced here until 2006 but since that time it has been empty.

There are plans to use the land for a housing development but I don't know what is happening now the property market has collapsed. As you can see from the picture there has been some demolition but it looks as if it has been frozen - there is no sign of activity and everything looks too tidy. In which case the building will just rot for a period. What has been exposed though is the way the canal went into the factory and the romantic in me rather likes the reminder of how things used to be with the canal being used as the major freight route, with the finished paper being taken right into the heart of London to a depot in Kings Cross.

I like the old brick walls of our industrial path and I want to pass them when running by the canal. They are what we have come from and once they are turned into housing those roots will have been pulled out. However something must be done when a building is no longer useful. Land needs to be redeveloped.

We already have a paper making museum at the Frogmore Mill but unfortunately that is also being hit by the recession, as their business model relies on the sale of land for development. I hope it survives as it would be too, too sad to lose this connection with the past. After all it is no small thing to be able to put a stake in the ground and say 'something of significance happened here.'

All this is a long winded way of saying I went for a run today to Nash Mills, which I do frequently. It is after all my stock run .

Juneathon Day 12 stats:

Run Distance: 10k
Time running: 54 min