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Seeing as this place is a 5 minute walk from my house I've spent a bit of time poking about the site for the past few months. Looking at old reports the place was littered with masses of dials, control panels, pipes and more pipes sadly that's not the case anymore but there is still a few bits to see if you look hard enough.
In 1915 Hickson and Partners moved into Castleford where they produced TNT until the end of the Great War in 1918. After this they changed to the production of dyes and the processing of acids.
Just before noon on the 4th. of July 1930 an explosion flattened the factory killing 13 workers and injuring 32 others. Three hundred nearby houses were made uninhabitable and windows and roofs throughout the town were damaged. Shortly afterwards Ernest Hickson died and the company went into liquidation.
From the ashes Ernest's son, Bernard and Colbeck Welch created a new company. In 1931 'Hickson and Welch' was born.
A 56MWe CHP facility built for Hicksons in 2002, Due to Hicksons shutting down in 2005 the plant has been reconfigured to operate as a standalone Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power station
This rather nice looking building is next to the old boiler house which was demolished a few years back
Cheers for looking
