Pilkington Glass: Exploring an Abandoned Glass Factory
This particular Pilkington Glass Factory is located in Doncaster, but at one point, had factories around the globe.. Originally founded in 1826 and based in St Helens, Lancashire, during the 60s and 70s, Pilkington opened factories in Argentina, Australia, Canada and Sweden. Taken over by Japanese company NSG in 2006, they have left it in a neglected state of disrepair for over a decade now. The factory closed in 2008 with the loss of more than 100 jobs. However, during its 80 years in business, they employed many more workers and Doncaster was famous nationally and internationally as a global centre of glass making.
Mine and ‘Rusty’s’ visit was on a quiet Sunday morning and at the time, access wasn’t too difficult. Broken glass and stripped out wires adourned the place but the biggest noticeable feature, was the red polishing dust, which absolutely coated the place top to bottom like a red Winter and leant itself to some interesting photographs.
One of the images from this report features in the new, exclusive 2024 calendar, on sale here.
