Rank Hovis Mill

The Rank Hovis Mill at the Royal Victoria Dock. This area of the docklands was once the centre of London's flour milling industry, and both the Co-operative Welfare Society and Rank Hovis had similar mills to this one in the locality. Now derelict but an obvious target for conversion into residential use, this sole surviving mill was built in 1932 and is on the south side of the Royal Victoria Dock. In 1998 a pair of peregrine falcons fledged two young on the building, probably the first occurrence of this in London in modern times.In 1988 JMJ staged a concerts in the area of the old London Docklands ,he used the spillers mill next door as a screen for the projectors and lasers. I filmed this one lazy sunday last summer. very much a chilled out explore :)

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Tags:

• Rank
• Hovis
• Royal
• Victoria
• Dock
• JMJ
• spillers
• docklands
• mill
• peregrine
• falcon
• chilled

[cloudybix]

Sorry, I don't, maybe my children do. If I can find any I will let you know. The swans nested behind the silos that stood away from the right hand end of Millenium (as you look coming in the dock gate). I used to watch them take off and land on the docks. I kind of hoped that some would still be there. I can still feel the rollerfloor in the soles of my feet and the smell of germ cooking and wheatfeed in the rain.

[3dmaxuser]

@cloudybix ,, I would have loved to see this place up and working, some parts of the building still smell of what I think is the wheatfeed your talking about. I have a new Hd camera so hope to go back and try it out as its not to far from where I live. I wish the other building where still there, I remember as a kid the site seemed to go on for ever.

[cloudybix]

I was an apprentice at this mill in the seventies, seeing it again made me cry. Me and my mates used to slide down the spiral bag chutes on night shift...I used to fix those elevators......ride the man hoist.... my sweat is in those timbers. The car park where I parked my car is a field! Spillers Millenium, my Dad and brother worked there. D silo, it was unused back then, just a giant pigeon roost. Were the swans still nesting? I fed several little families of swans there. Just a boy.....

[3dmaxuser]

@cloudybix thanks for posting its great to hear from former workers of these old sites, Ive not seen any swans over there for years. I will miss this place when its tuned into a load of flats :( do you have any old photos of the site ? if so I would love to see one or two :)

[pj6641]

are they going to knock the building down i was at the jm j concert it was fantastic always get sad people who want to destroy history maybe we should smash them up

[3dmaxuser]

they have run out of cash so it looks like it will be safe for now , I too was at the JMJ concert , there was much more of the site still standing then.

[H71BCD]

I hope they save this place. Was really pissed that they demolished the gigantic CWS mill - you can make out where it used to be - just a vacant patch now. To me it looked like a really gloomy and creepy building and I was fascinated about what actually went on in there. I read that it was in the way of the planes landing at the airport and they were only going to reduce the height of the silo building and ( head house tower ? ) but carried on and demolished the whole complex.

[Bignadim]

How Long before the Excel Exhition halls fall into disues then dereliction as all things die and move on. Old places will eventually return to earth

[Stormtrooper1488]

@pj6641 Look, it is all going to get demo'd anyway so we may as well have some fun and smash the fucka while we can. I can't see what difference it makes.

[Stormtrooper1488]

Fair enough comment, but we probably enjoy smashing it more than you enjoy seeing it. The other thing is, you can still see it when it is partially smashed and get a different perspective of urban decay over the years. The final thing is that most of these places will be demolished anyway, so might as well have fun while they last.

I hope this explains some of the urbex smash philosophy for you, even if you don't agree with it.