Tales of the Urban Explorer: Hays Colours

Talk about a pain in the arse! We drew up to Hays Colours expecting little resistance.

The little history I managed to find was from another explorer and tells me it's been empty since 2006. In that case, it should be a complete falling down wreck and easy to access.

Hays Colours was a dye and pigment manufacturer and distributor based in Halifax. In 2001 it was bought by Albion Colours who in turn were bought out by Brenntag Colours in 2006. They've since moved premises and left this building dormant. - Text Source

Not so. The front looked well sealed, and the buildings though in a forlorn-looking state were boarded up or had that spiky-looking fencing around them.

Besides that, a row of terraced houses guarded over the old works like a bunch of sentries, just waiting for us to move and do the wrong thing.

After looking around, finding sod all and looking a mite suspicious to onlookers I said to @dizzydiscovery, “Fuck this, let’s hit the back”

“The back” meant a walk down a meandering public footpath and then scrambling up this filthy hill to the outside wall.

Things would have been OK except it had recently down poured soaking the ground and forcing us to get our jeans damp. My legs are not so lanky that I get up there without some proper climbing.

…’it might not look steep but trust me, it was. Add the rain which brings mud and it's not pleasant trying to ascend this embankment…

After shimmying along the edge of the old factory and hoping we were going the right away, it opened up and we found ourselves on the right side of the spiky fencing.

A fox came bounding past us and vanished into the undergrowth. Hopefully, we were not in the realms of its den as I didn't fancy an angry vixen snarling at us.

The clouds were looming again and I hoped the rain would stay away until we were at least inside.

Inside was not proving exciting at least initially. Some piles of junk and holes in the roof.

As well as bigger holes in the floor you could fall through.

Sometimes you have to concede defeat when attempting to climb a ladder. I know.., I know… I should have tried harder.

This was all beginning to look very derpy. I did find this cool-looking switch, complete with rust and is that an old industrial sized dryer of some sort?

Was this it, how depressingly dull! How do we get inside this adjoining building?

Even though we were inside the compound area, it was tightly sealed but we could see an entrance from the other side.

This meant backtracking around to that slippery hill and shimmying to the other side of this mass of buildings.

A little climbing an eight-foot wall, with nice bits sticking out for our feet and we were in. Getting down that same wall was another story. I am not particularly good with heights.

Up these steel steps took us into another building that initially looked about as interesting as the last one.

Would there be anything in these old drawers besides a clump of fresh air?

Now what was this sitting on the floor.., I looked a little closer.

It’s an estimate to install some flame-proof circuit breakers. I guess fires are a big thing at a fabric company.

It’s from December 1979, they want over £900 and £98 of it is labour? Fuck me... I was barely out of school and earning £31 a week then.

I found another one floating on the floor nearby, this one was from ICI.

Not quite as compelling but from February 1980. Only 40+ years ago, but it's better than the other boring shit I was looking at.

There was some kind of lift to the top floor in the distance but we decided to take the stairs.

Very yellow and metal, we were not going to fall through these.

It was bare up there, with little to take in.

A nice view from the window, hopefully, none of those sentries spotted us.

We gave the cellar area a miss. It looked a little grim and burned out down there.

We are not used to warning signs during explores. Generally, there are poles, nails, metal sheets, and metal wiring all waiting to impale you.

We left feeling a little deflated. There was still one area we had missed that may have contained the real treasure.

It was late morning and with THREE successes under our belts, we felt the day was only going to get better.

It was time to leave Halifax and enter the mighty city king of dereliction, Bradford, and rendezvous with @goblinknackers for the rest of the planned venues.

Do you like posting your Urbex content and photography for FREE on Facebook and YouTube? I like to get some form of reward for my work and every time I create I do just that. Take a look at The Urbex Community on HIVE.

If you want to keep creating for FREE then ignore what you are reading. If you want to be like me and gain something other than BUGGER ALL for your work then click here and learn about posting on the HIVE blockchain.

• Earn FREE EOS from Coinbase by taking partaking in a simple quiz here
• Earn currency while you play brewing virtual beer with CryptoBrewMaster
• Earn currency while you play and become a global Rock Star with Rising Star
  

If you found this article so invigorating that you are now a positively googly-eyed, drooling lunatic with dripping saliva or even if you liked it just a bit, then please upvote, comment, rehive, engage me or all of these things.