Temple Works

I have always been poor at ‘urbex’ photography. I love taking shots of old and decaying buildings, but I am not so good at getting up early, climbing walls, and particularly I have a massive fear of dogs which often go hand in hand with security.

So when the pretty amazing Temple Works in Leeds was opened up for a day I was there and first in line for the tour.

The building is amazing – initially a flax mill designed by Joseph Bonomi the Younger and built by John Marshall between 1836 and 1840, it boasts a two acre main space, and apparently is pretty unique (at least for the time) in that it is held up under both compression and tension.

On the tour, in the main room we we hard-hatted and required to walk to a ‘safe area’ without stopping, just in case anything fell. Similarly on the roof, we had to avoid the areas where the pillars beneath were situated. In the under-croft, certain areas had layed undisturbed for so long that the air was so stagnant it could suffocate.

But with the building itself, fetish performers in the basement, and model railways up in the attic there was a lot to see, even if some of the advertised events seemed a little on the thin side.