The Kidlington Silos- The Main Visit

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I walked out of my house with a blue plastic cup in my hand. “Thanks” said BlueShiva as I passed him the cup. I passed my black kit bag to Beagle, who was sitting in the back of the car. As BlueShiva started the engine, there was an atmosphere of excitement in the car. BlueShiva and I had been to the silos the day before. We knew what to expect…

The journey to the silos was a fairly quiet one. BlueShiva did a quick drive by of the entry route to show Beagle where we would be entering. BlueShiva parked up at the same location as our visit the day before. We bundled out of the car and prepared our kit. Beagle had his pigeon-shooting bag with him. It seemed much more useful than my trusty rucksack that had to be taken of every time you wanted to get something out. We set of to the entry point full of anticipation. Had the moved wooden pallets been discovered? Just as we were about to jump over the fence, BlueShiva realised that it would be far simpler to enter using the fence on opposite side of the road. Instead of being spotted by cars, and climbing through brambles, we would simply jump the wooden fence, and be in the loading yard in half the time it would take us using the normal way (normal because it was the only way we had ever entered the loading yard). It would also only expose us to trains, not hundreds of cars. This put my mind to rest greatly.

So, we sat waiting for the right moment to hop the fence. Car after car passed us. Suddenly, silence. I waited a moment, and then leaped over the fence. Pity I didn’t look before I leapt. I just had time to say one word. “Shit!”, then I hit the steep bank and rolled down. Nothing but a few bruises. I advised BlueShiva and Beagle to jump onto a small ledge of concrete before running down the hill. Eventually the time came for Beagle to jump the fence. In one movement, he was over. Being the last, BlueShiva would have to be the most careful. Although cars couldn’t see us, pedestrians could see us very well. BlueShiva jumped the fence quickly and took of his bag. While I went and took a piss out of sight of the pedestrians, BlueShiva and Beagle got all our equipment over the railway line fence. Very simple to get through, but not with a bag on. The others got through and took shelter from pedestrians under the railway bridge. Just before I climbed through the wire, I saw a sign. Even a “no trespassing” sign would have put me off more. It simply said “If you trespassed on the railway least year and lived, you were lucky. Think of the 900 people who didn’t.”. What they failed to mention was that no sober person just strolls across a live railway. Even vandals can avoid getting killed. I climbed through the fence to join the others under the bridge.

Our main aim now was to get out of the sight of trains. Countless accidents have proven the fact that if a train driver sees us, he will be two miles down the line by the time the train has stopped. They do have radios onboard, so we would just need to leave the area quickly before the transport police arrived.
“Same place?” asked BlueShiva.
“Yep. The bin will at least stop the trains from seeing us” I replied
I explained to Beagle how we got in last time, and where we would be going. We carefully walked over to the red bin and sat down behind it.
“Hang on Ill just get a picture” I said as I got out the camera.
Bleep.

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BlueShiva lead us over to our previous entry point into the compound of the silos. He pulled away the piece of wood we had put there the day before to make our entrance less visible. We caught sight of a couple sitting in a car. They had a fairly good view of us if they looked our way.

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We waited a couple of minutes and decided to go over, regardless of whether they could see us. I climbed over first. I then took all the bags over to make it easier for Beagle and BlueShiva to get over. Once we were in we made straight for the back door we had left open. Over the scrap yard we ran. We got to the door and hoped it was still open. It seemed not to be. But when we all put our force into pulling it, it finally opened, and hit the wall with an almighty BOOM. We rushed inside. We tried to get here quick, because if we were followed by any employees of the scrap-yard, they would have a hard time getting in once the door was locked. BlueShiva put the bolt back in the chain holding the door shut.

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We were in.

For at couple of minutes I was fumbling abound in my rucksack for the torches. In the pictures I was using the flash, but in reality it was pitch black. When we finally had the torches up and running, we decided to go from the basement up. The smell inside was exactly how I would expect an old place to smell. Indescribable. But not a nasty smell. We first went down into the ground floor room.
“Hey, BlueShiva, over here!” I said.
“I don’t believe it!” He said when he saw the door.
It was the door we tried to get in on our first visit.

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"Poor pigeon" I said.
We found a ton of keys in the office last visit and tried them all but non worked, so we disregarded the door as useless. We considered breaking it down, but decided it would not be in the spirit of UE to do such a thing. Had we have opened the door; we would have got into the whole building.

We looked around the room we were in. There was lots of light coming from a long dirty window. This room had the heating equipment in. Perhaps I should explain. This building was basically a grain silo, which dried the grain before it stored it. In the pictures you can see that there are 3 sections. The middle. This contains the stairwell and the 100-meter drying coulomb. And on either side, the silos. One side for the dried grain, one side for the un-dried grain. The grain was dropped down the drying coulomb and it passed over thousands of tubes filled with nice warm air. They did this in batches. A train would then take the grain away when it was needed. We noticed the burner that made the hot air. A huge jet of flame was blasted through a tube covered in (unfortunately) in asbestos.

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There are many temperature monitors around the building as with all that dust flying around, one little spark and BOOOM!

On the wall was a huge electrical control panel with all sorts of electrical switches.

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We then had a look in the basement. To our dismay, it was filled with a foot of water.

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I then noticed a nice Carbon Dioxide fire extinguisher, just out of reach. So Beagle and BlueShiva held me as I reached for it. I finally got it. I took it everywhere with me until we got to the top. Beagle also wanted a go on a water fire extinguisher. I feel this is ok, as the floors are concrete, and all the water will evaporate over time. Carbon Dioxide is a gas. Enough said. We carefully refrained from using the powder fire extinguishers, as on our test visit I dropped and empty one. It wasn’t empty. It only let out a tiny jet of powder, but the draft sucked it through most of the building, choking us on every level below that we went. So I passed beagle the water extinguisher. It is a fairly old design. One of the ones where you hit the button on the top and that’s it. But we soon found out “once you pop, the fun don’t stop”- even if you let go of the button. The amount of water those things can hold!

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It went on for ages. There were many more extinguishers to come.

We moved up to the next level. It was pretty much the same. And the next. And the next. And the next, and so on. This went on for about nine levels. On the tenth level was the largest enclosed space. Basically, the tops of the silos. We didn’t even know the silos were there until I lifted up one of the manhole covers. The torch beam barely got half way down. Beagle kindly lent me a two pence coin. “Drop!” 1….. 2….. 3….. 4….. 5….. CLUNK! It fell for ages. We found out that the silos are 120 meters deep, even tough they don’t go from the highest point on the building. They go 10 meters down into the basement (part of the basement isn’t flooded). We took the grill off one of the manholes and I took a picture. BEEP!

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The picture is amazing. You can see all the way to the bottom because the flash bounced off all the sides.
We climbed a ladder into the mechanical room, where the lift motor, and the motor that distributes the grain in the silos are. Here, I pulled the safety pin out the CO² fire extinguisher and gave the levers a good squeeze. The roar of gas filled the air, and a plume of gas leapt out of the horn. I passed it to Beagle and got a picture of him using it.

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Climbing out the window, and up another small ladder we reached the climax of our journey. The highest point of the Kidlington silos.

The highest point is actually very flat. There is a brilliant view of all around the countryside. It was very exposed up there though. In more than one way: people could see us if we sat to close to the edge, and the wind was very strong. Taking the panorama was a huge risk, as everybody in the car park could see me. Another huge worry was he fact that a car seemed to have stopped just outside the fencing on the bus station side. The shock was that he has some sort of fluorescent yellow clothing in the back. Like he was a builder- or the police. With my mum’s bloody brilliant camera, I managed to get some really good photos of the car.

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For some reason the drivers door was slightly open. Eventually we deemed him no threat.

I also got some great pictures of some model enthusiasts. They had a buggy that someone in a helmet was zooming round the empty car park in, a VERY fast remote control car and other novel items. I was testing out the optical zoom on the camera. It wasn’t until I saw the pictures on my computer screen that I realised the quality of the zoom. I could make out his number plate from 250 meters away! I could also see the contents of his van, and who’s the van was (In this case, “Barloworld materials handling specialists).

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I also had the idea of “tagging” the building, but in my own unique and non-destructive way. I impaled a biodegradable cardboard crow cutout on one of the lightning conductors. In a few weeks, it would blow down, and melt back into nature from where it came.

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It is only visible with a pair of binoculars anyway. We finally had to get out of the structure and return home. We made our way to the ladder way down. This is a ladder enclosed in a shaft. You have to zigzag down 4 ladders. This is good, as you can only fall 25 meters at a time if you slip :) (Luckily none of us did). With great difficulty I shut the trapdoor above me with one hand. This helps to keep the ladders in good condition for future UE visits/other people. As we descended a worried shout came up from Beagle. BlueShiva had spotted a car loitering suspiciously in the car park. Both BlueShiva and Beagle got out and hid. I decided to stay in and get some pictures of the basement. It was intensely scary with only a tiny headlamp. BlueShiva was calling for me to hurry up. For good reason, as I found out later. He rightly gave me some very important information on a “need to know” basis (giving information to me only when I need it). I clambered out of the crates unaware of the danger ahead…

BlueShiva Beagle and I quickly replaced the crates we had moved to get in the day before. I got my bag on.
“Right” said BlueShiva grimly. “There are some kids over the other side of the building”.
My heart rate instantaneously tripled.
“I have a nasty feeling they are trying to brake into the car hire business over there”.
“Shit” I replied. My lock-knife came out of my pocket and into my hand, folded up. A useful tool was now a weapon if I needed to be.
“I have a feeling that the car driving around in the car park is the getaway car,” he added. He was bloody right telling this to me now. I would have had trouble getting out otherwise. We set off to exit the compound.

The best way to deal with them if confronted would be to go apeshit. To scream and shout at them. “GET OFF MY LAND!” “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE! Would sort them out. They would be off in a flash. But we never even saw them. I have the feeling they saw us, and assumed we were the law, or the owners coming to check the place out- and hid. They did a bloody good job of it. We saw one of the porta-cabin windows was smashed. No alarms. We escaped quickly in case the alarm was a silent one. Considering there was a police HQ down the road, not good. We got out onto the pavement (sidewalk) without incident. More “need to know” info. A police car passed while I was waiting to get up. This would have had bad consequences on my mind, had I known.

We crossed the road and admired the amazing building we had just been in. A day never to forget.

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