BOCM Pauls, Renfrew Mills – April ‘09

[wolfism]

BOCM Pauls, Renfrew Mills – visited with Pincheck.







Having originally planned this visit for a previous weekend, we finally got the chance, and it turned out to be a cracking day – with a few surprises. Shortly after we kitted up, one of Strathclyde police’s MBB helicopters appeared and hovered above us, so we took a nature ramble and saw a red fox patrolling his beat beside the White Cart Water. The angry wasp buzzed off after a few minutes’ hovering, and the fox was later spotted crossing the site – looking for access? – so we knew he hadn’t been detained. Later we heard the MBB overhead again when we were at the very top of the mill. Pincheck – “Will I see if I can spot the helicopter?” Wolfism – “Err, no.”







Renfrew Mills is an interesting place, and deceptive because, based on its dour grey exterior, you would never guess that the interior is filled with golden light. Parts of it are almost “luminous”. Even though it looks a bit battered, most of the process machinery is still in place – although some buildings here have been razed to the ground, others are still intact, standing in a wilderness of rubble. It was fairly easy to follow the flow of raw material, from the discharge screens on the ground, to the elevators which lifted the seed or grain up to the head house – which cantilevers out over a sphincter-twitching void. The top floor deck is made of plywood with lots of trap doors dropping down into the storage bins - and from there the seed passed into big drum-shaped crushers. The crushed material then travelled through processing equipment, along conveyors, was mixed with heated molasses from big tanks, and passed into giant kettles (similar to those inside Cerebos at Greatham) where the mixture was boiled up. After that, it was mixed with other nutrients to a recipe, then formed into pellets, nuts or what have you. There is the remains of a bagging plant at the bottom of the mill, where it was bagged up as sheep, cattle or pig feed. The control room was a bit disappointing – but apart from that, the spaces inside the mill are very photogenic; there’s a pleasant smell of molasses (and sticky floors) halfway down the mill, but a crappy smell like catfood near the bottom.







British Oil and Cake Mills (BOCM) was formed in 1899 when several seed-crushing firms joined forces, although the individual mills continued to trade under their existing names. In 1907 BOCM introduced the first hen feed called “Eggemon” (a bad pun worthy of P.G. Wodehouse, that only the Edwardians could get away with), and in 1926 was taken over by Lever Bros, later to become Unilever. They embarked on an expansion drive, and built a series of huge mills at ports on both the east and west coasts, where oilseeds of various types could be imported to make cattlecake from – when the seeds were crushed, the oil was drawn off for soaps and detergents, and the remnants were used as animal feed. Often there were flour mills alongside the oil mills. Renfrew was built by BOCM in the early years of the 20th century as one of these port-based oil mills: it sits on the White Cart close to its confluence with the Clyde, and we spotted some old wharves and possibly the remains of a jetty. Much of the distribution from these port mills was by railway, and trains composed of animal feed were a common sight (especially around BOCM at Selby in Yorkshire, so the net says) up until the late 1950's. Renfrew was also served by a branchline and its own internal railway system (the remains of the points are still embedded in concrete in the yard).







However, during the 1960’s the large port mills became uneconomic to run with their aging, labour-intensive machinery and rail-based distribution, so BOCM began building smaller mills closer to new sources of the feedstock: linseed and oilseed rape were now grown locally, so didn’t need to be imported by sea. Post-war, around 16 "country mills" were built, replacing all but two of the 23 "port mills". The two remaining were at Selby and Renfrew. In 1969 BOCM & Silcock Lever Feeds merged to form BOCM Silcock Ltd., and in 1992 Unilever sold BOCM Silcock which merged with Pauls Agriculture to form BOCM Pauls Ltd., and Renfrew was slowly wound down from then on. The buildings left at Renfrew consist of a 1960’s era eight-storey concrete-framed mill with a 1980’s steel-framed extension tacked onto the side: both Selby and Renfrew received major upgrades in the late 1980s. Pincheck also spotted that Renfrew is almost identical to the BOCM mill at Penrith, so they were obviously built to a pattern. The older parts of Renfrew have already been demolished, including the grand 1920’s brick-built office range – just a façade left. BOCM Pauls also made fish feed at Renfrew - the plant had a capacity of 25,000 tonnes, and in 1999, they sold that part of the site to Trouw (not a typo), who make food for farmed trout and salmon, apparently. Renfrew Mills closed in 2006, and now Davidson Brothers make sheep and cattle feed for BOCM at Shotts, and BOCM's pig and poultry feeds are made by East Coast Viners' mill at Drumlithie (you see it from the train near Stonehaven).







We spent quite a while wandering around the walkways and gantries – and were pleasantly surprised by the lack of flying rats. I suspect there must be a falcon or hawk roosting here (as it’s the highest building in the vicinity, and they don’t like to be overlooked) which has scared them off. You get almost as good a view from here as from the top of Barclay-Curle's titan crane at Whiteinch – and happily, we didn't see the flying eye again, either.

[Cuban Bloodhound]

Good background and shots Wolfie.

[foz101]

Last shot - did it fall or was it pushed? I assume it's gonna be flattened fairly soon a there doesn't seem to be much surrounding it?

Are they sending helicopters out for you two now btw?

[magoo²]

Nice one

Shot 12 is dead good!

[skin]

Great shots there - nice report.

[wolfism]

Cheers all – Skin, you beat us to it by a matter of days, otherwise we might have bumped into you in the sheep nuts aisle.

Foz – the legal cloud has been lifted now, so to speak, so we were keen to avoid a repetition. After all, I know the hassles NWEX explorers have had with polis 'copters …

[skin]

The smell on the ground level........ Great set o pics - makes me even think of going back - but with a gas mask on.

[sqwasher]

Nice pics from both you peeps! You're right about the outside looking plain but inside not-that light inside looks great!

[Demps]

hey wolfism! Nice pictures you both got there, ive seen this place somwhere before but didnt take much notice, i have now, thanks.

[andym]

Quality stuff there, reminds me a lot of Ainscough Mill in Burscough.