I got out for my first explores of the year last weekend, and unlike most of my first trips out every year it was actually generally successful.

The title is a little misleading, as this was actually the second spot of the day - the first one I tried only had a small area accessible before we were blocked by a bricked up corridor and I didn't take any photos of the small part we did do. So we headed ten minutes down the road to this place, which is somewhere that has been derelict way longer than I've been exploring, been on my 'will see one day' list for as long as I've been exploring and is less than an hour down the road from where I live. We were so close it was impossible to put it off any longer.

This half demolished building is pretty much all that's left of a former lime processing facility next to a quarry, it alone isn't that interesting by any stretch of the imagination except it's become home to the 'hanging monkey', a large stuffed animal suspended high above the adjacent canal on one of the support beams. It was hung up there well over a decade ago and has become something of a local landmark, and it even has it's own location marker pin on Google Maps. A few years ago it was joined by a large stuffed bear sat in a kayak wearing a Superman costume, which recently had a Ukrainian flag attached beneath it.

The monkey and his friend are best viewed from the path running along the canal although I only had my wide angle with me which wasn't the best.

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Thanks for looking

Noice