Mystery Tar Works

[Roger Arevalo]

On 12/10/2021 at 15:15, Bikeman said:

From the initial post of the trip to Orgreave - could this be the old chemical works at Orgreave, as the description is exactly as I remember it. I was a shipping salesman at the time and remember passing the plant and the hydrogen sulphide smell of rotten eggs?

The Orgreave site was almost all gone by then, and any other coking plant - even a small one - would have been much more MASSIVE. But the rotten eggs smell was the signature smell of all coal-based chemistry.

[Roger Arevalo]

Sorry for taking so long to reply to the last three posts - I wasn't getting notifications.

[paulhib48]

On 09/10/2021 at 11:18, paulhib48 said:

It’s a few years since I’ve been out that way but wasn’t there something like that next to the entrance to Rother Valley Country Park ?

Sorry if that’s been discounted already 

Sorry I can’t really give you any more than that 
Like you say , I too expected somebody to come along with the answer .

It would be easy for someone to eliminate my suggestion as thousands of people from the area must have spent time in the Country Park and would have passed it as they turned in the entrance and to the left as you proceed towards the lakes 

It was an unmistakable smell and unusual sight 

[Lysanderix]

Looks to me like the Norwood facility of Midland-Yorkshire Tar Distillers…..eventually demolished when Rother Valley was fully opened.

 

 

[Guest leksand]

On 07/04/2022 at 13:51, Roger Arevalo said:

That location is definitely a possibility. Can you narrow it down further? Or especially do you know of any photographs showing it?

There is a photo of a Killamarsh tar distillery, unquestionably bearing a resemblance to your drawing, if perhaps on a slightly larger scale here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/190924022@N03/51386645729/in/album-72157719694832918/

(the copyright is retained so this is left as a link).

This is a little odd, because it seems this is a site (the plant that is) uniteditereturns is aware of and there appears to be an answer to an enquiry he has made elsewhere on the site on the same flickr page! The photo appears to have been posted since your original enquiry too. Is this the plant that was dismissed in the original enquiry?

 

[Roger Arevalo]

Okay now we're really getting somewhere. It was the Kilnhurst tar works I'd discounted as too big (and I think the photo was misattributed to being). Everything looks right about the Norwood-Killamarsh tar distillery. The countryside location, the slope, even the piles of rubble. It's larger than the photo and drawing but still on the small side. It has the full industrial steampunk vibe I remember. The only thing I would have been wrong about was it never having a railway connection - it would just have been removed by the time I saw it.

Can anyone provide the exact location, maybe a pin in one of those overlaid modern satellite photos and a 1980s, 90s, or more recent map that still showed the plant?

[paulhib48]

The site I’m referring to was off the A618 entrance to Rother Valley 

The road into the park is called Pithouse Lane 

It was to the left of this road 
Ive looked at a satellite map of the area but can’t nail the exact position 

[Roger Arevalo]

20 minutes ago, paulhib48 said:

The site I’m referring to was off the A618 entrance to Rother Valley 

The road into the park is called Pithouse Lane 

It was to the left of this road 
Ive looked at a satellite map of the area but can’t nail the exact position 

That's the site I had my eye on too. Now the Old Maps website isn't available anymore I couldn't get as recent maps as I'd like, but there's a chemical plant here: https://maps.nls.uk/view/102345247. On the upper right between the distinctive pointed curve in the Chesterfield Canal and the Killamarsh branch line. Pithouse lane didn't exist back then and now follows the where the rail line was. Further reinforced by the Ellisons Houses - the company was originally Ellison and Mitchell. The site now appears to be Veolia's hazardous waste treatment and waste-to-fuel plant (probably even a similar chemical process) and the road leading to it is Ellisons Road: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.3317807,-1.3065025,624m/data=!3m1!1e3. The older plant looks to heve extended further to the north east, towards the railway, later the road. Another other option could be where the gasometer of Norwood Colliery was - currently a scrap yard, I think. I'm still open if anyone has alternative options though.

What's the latest anyone remembers the tar works still existing, or does anyone know when it was demolished?

Page 11 of this report suggests waste treatment was already going on at or near the same site in 1998: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/288603/LIT_6837_0ab98f.pdf. This mentions incidents going back to 1986: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1998/oct/21/sarp-uk-ltd. Are the tar works and Killamarsh SARP the same thing or were they close to each other - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residents_Against_SARP_Pollution? It was previously known as Leigh Environmental: https://media.greenpeace.org/archive/Leigh-Environmental-incinerator--Killamarsh--Sheffield--27MZIFDUMTR.html#/SearchResult&ITEMID=27MZIFDUMTR&POPUPPN=1&POPUPIID=27MZIFDUMTR. (though that looks larger scale - I don't remember a chimney that big)

[Bikeman]

On 07/04/2022 at 13:51, Roger Arevalo said:

That location is definitely a possibility. Can you narrow it down further? Or especially do you know of any photographs showing it?

The entrance to Rother Valley Park was previously next to a chemical plant called Leigh Environmental, a chemical recycling plant. In 1979 when we moved to Killamarsh, it had a really bad reputation and there followed a leak of Nitric acid and an acrid cloud of gas in 1985, then later in the 90's an explosion. The site was thankfully closed in 1999 and luckily we lived well away from the site to avoid the awful smells. It would need some equipment as you've shown to extract the chemicals from the fouled subsoil on the site, especially next to a built up area, school and Country park.

[Roger Arevalo]

On 20/04/2022 at 21:54, Bikeman said:

The entrance to Rother Valley Park was previously next to a chemical plant called Leigh Environmental, a chemical recycling plant. In 1979 when we moved to Killamarsh, it had a really bad reputation and there followed a leak of Nitric acid and an acrid cloud of gas in 1985, then later in the 90's an explosion. The site was thankfully closed in 1999 and luckily we lived well away from the site to avoid the awful smells. It would need some equipment as you've shown to extract the chemicals from the fouled subsoil on the site, especially next to a built up area, school and Country park.

It must have been a hell of a clean-up job, assuming they even did it properly. Like when they finally got round to decontaminating the Avenue Coking Plant and it was so toxic, the first day on site it was eating through wellington boots.

Some more information about the site:

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1990/feb/28/leigh-environmental-ltd-1#column_366

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1990-02-28/debates/b1c1ab3a-5af8-4560-8fd4-258139697464/LeighEnvironmentalLtd

https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/site-elements/documents/pdf/council/meetings-decisions/meetings/regulatory/planning/2017-09-04-4.2-hazardous-substance-ellisons-road-killamarsh.pdf

As far as I can tell, the tar works section was on one side of a ridge, the incinerator and the rest of the plant on the other, which would explain why I only remember part of it.

They do suggest tar production had stopped by the time I saw it, so that leaves the question of why it still smelled of rotten eggs.

The real irony is how the last link says the site has a long history of successfully managing hazardous waste...

From descriptions and photos it's magnificently horrible - like the 1970s and 80s pop culture nightmare of a toxic waste site:

It feels like a real version of that Knight Rider episode 'Junk Yard Dog' where KITT ended up in the acid pit.

[Roger Arevalo]

I just discovered you can look at old versions of Google Street View and the Killamarsh tar works (which I'm now pretty much convinced is what I saw) was already gone by 2008.

[Athy]

 I started to read this topic out of mild curiosity and have read it right to the end, and what a cliffhanger! At last, after many years of searching, Roger tracks down his holy grail

   Well, except that it isn't there any more, but you get my drift.

[Roger Arevalo]

On 16/06/2022 at 13:25, Athy said:

 I started to read this topic out of mild curiosity and have read it right to the end, and what a cliffhanger! At last, after many years of searching, Roger tracks down his holy grail

   Well, except that it isn't there any more, but you get my drift.

My life complete, I can die at peace. 😌