Kent History Forum. Blue Circle Cement Works

So how come I have suddenly become fascinated with post industrial landscapes?
I need to understand the genius loci of this place and forums like this give me the information to get creative on. Thanks to Tom Turner for inspiration. I read some of this last week but wasn't getting it! Think I might have to go and be a people person and interview some of these workers from BC.

FROM TEAPOT CHARLIE> KENT HISTORY FORUM

Blue Circle cement, NorthfleetI worked at BC, Northfleet from 1976 to 1987, firstly as an electrical apprentice, the as a qualified electrician and then I retrained as a instrument technician. The factory originally had 6 kilns which were very long steel tubes that rotated slowly and sloped down away from the river. Slurry was pumped from the quarry just outside Bean into round tanks at Northfleet. From there it was pumped into the back end of the kiln (the river end) where it turned into clinker by the time it got to the hot end. The clinker was then passed to the grinding mill building, where 2 small and 4 big grinding mills which were effectively large steel drums full of ball bearings crushed the clinker and mixed it with gypsum. The inside was split into sections with holes that were smaller than the balls that section contained. The racket they made would probably fail Health & Safety these days. In the early 80's kilns 3 & 4 were removed to make way for a press plant. It takes a lot of energy to heat slurry into rock so the press plant squeezed water out of the slurry in between large plates. Kilns 2 & 5 used this 'cake' instead of slurry. Not long after that kiln 1 was commissioned followed by kiln 6.The large building you can see from Northfleet high street was the back of the kiln front end or clinker block. It contained large fans that blew crushed coal into the kilns using a long tubular gun. Below the fans housed the conveyor system that transported the clinker. It was very hot and dusty down there. To the west of the clinker block was the workshops of the fitters, welders and electricians plus the stores and further towards the river was the grinding mill building. Between the grinding mill building and the main office block/ river front was the 6 slurry tanks. You can get a feel of the layout of Blue Circle cement, Northfleet works from multimap.com and using this postcode: da11 9haThe railway line came into the factory through a tunnel to the east, dropped the coal into an automated conveyor system on the east side of the clinker building, went around the factory and exited through a tunnel on the west side. Shift workers were allowed to park their cars on the factory side of the rail line but occasionally the train would arrive at shift changeover and block you in. The trains were very long and there was only one car crossing point and they moved very slowly when unloading. I could more or less tell what was going on by the output from the chimneys, during startup more than usual 'steam' would come out of the chimney and when only kilns 2 & 5 were running you could tell if one was down. The chimneys served as a landmark for miles around.They were happy days and I was told "Lad, you have a job for life, we've been making cement around here for years". Nobody counted on MP's opposition to quarrying and the fact globalisation would enable other countries to make it cheaper. The first shipment of Greek cement was tested in the lab at Northfleet and found to be as good as ours but no one admitted as much.All the best Clive