Wallerscote Island

Wallerscote Island is situated on the river Weaver in the North West of England near Northwich. The Island is home to part of one of the world's 5 largest soda ash manufacturing companies known as 'Brunner Mond'. In 1873 and Industrialist named John Brunner and a Chemist by the name of Ludwig Mond formed a soda ash manufacturing business so successful that years later the 'Brunner Mond' corporation merged with two other companies, one of which was ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries).

Soda ash (short for sodium carbonate) is created synthetically on the island from salt and lime from the nearby quarries of Buxton. Once processed the soda ash was then shipped down the river to Liverpool Docks for worldwide distribution since soda ash is most commonly purchased by glass and detergent companies.

A few hundred metres away from the island, the bulldozed remains from the central Wallerscote ash works can be spotted on the mainland; this part of the site had been long abandoned since the mid 1980's but sadly faced demolition in 2007. Inside the live plant, a simple task such as walking across the filthy ash covered gantries causes soda ash particles to coat every surface millimetre that the fine dust comes into contact with.

The deafening ferrous noise produced by the grinding machinery sounds like a thousand babies squealing in pain. After continuous hours of absorbing sounds from around the works, a compelling rhythm manifests itself from the chaotic metal rasps. Eventually my unprotected lungs had had their load of ash dust and I found my way back out of the ever darkening plant.