The Snapping Bishop

Photographic Piece: Title. Forbidden News.

Found plastered to one of the walls within the main loading bay.

Millennium Mills.

There is a building, standing resolute, almost benign to the passing of time; it’s huge, and I mean big. A twelve story warehouse at its highest, and three times the width, originally used to mill flour and make food stuffs. Large parts of its massive structure date back to 1933 and smaller parts go back another forty years. It now stands slowly decaying, overlooking the Royal Victoria Dock, just across from the new Expo exhibition center and next to the London City Airport, all within easy view of the rapid developments making up the skyscrapers of the London Docklands. (Just to the left off the shot below)

It’s been empty since 1992, which seems a shame since its name clearly deserves the whole hundred year working period, but thats when these London docks and the trade shipping this far down river started to declined rapidly from the 80’s onwards. Spillers then moved production to Tilbury Docks, further east, making similar use of the river, rail and road networks as it had done with the Royal Docks as they once were. The Old Mill still dominates a huge area of land including a restored ship-to-grain-silo building (labled the ‘D’ silo) which can be seen standing brightly painted white behind the Mills to the south.
Googlemap Link

Now, I’ve wandered around a few times but I can’t find a way up onto the upper floors (well, not a safe way anyway). All the windows, floors , ledges, stairs, shafts and holes are blocked and boarded. This place has been “wandered” many times before and you’ll find many London folk have documented their efforts on various websites and blogs. I tend to wander alone, so falling a couple of floors through excessive clambering helps halt my single-minded stupidity. However if any of you reading this would like an accomplice for a try, please do give me a shout and I’ll get the chalk out.

Spillers Millennium Millsl was built in West Ham nearby around and at 1900, owned initially by Vernon & Sons, but later purchased Spillers who also bought up various other silos owned by Vernon & Sons. Initially there where four of this type, thankfully D silo still remains intact.