Scrapyard reminiscing

[alfaSleep]

When I lived in Co Durham it was Craghead Metals, Old Colliery Yard - still there.

Now in North Tyneside, West Sleekburn [Nr Blyth] there are about 5 on the Ind Est - 4x mint alloys for MrSavvy @ £50 c/w centre caps

Gosforth Metals - had a Minx I'm sure?

alfaSleep

[oman5]

I can't remember the name, but there was a yard overlooking the dual carriageway at symonds yat, monmouthshire. I went there for a carb for my 107E prefect in about 1993, the guy running the place was about 80, and most of the stock looked as if it had been there since the 60's, all covered in moss- all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff, as well as numerous 100Es, there was a metropolitan, late '40s/early '50s austin counties and he also showed me a 1948 MM minor, one of the very first off the line with the spacer in the bumper.
I believe the whole place got flattened and everything crushed when the new EU rules came in. bloody tragedy

[Bandylandy]

Insurance stipulations (due to Health and safety) means that in most yards you cannot now wonder around unaccompanied, which in reality means you cant wander round at all, unless the staff are very unbusy

[mr rusty]

So many old-school yards are now gone, and regrettably rightly so given the way they used to just drain everything straight into the ground. Rainham marshes used to be the place to go for me- it was a whole day out as there were around 20-25 yards all next to each other.

It's all gone now and been returned to nature, and I have to say it's probably a good thing as it was a horrible polluting mess, it's a symptom of how much contempt the environment was held in in the Sixties and Seventies that it was allowed to become a sort of scrapyard city. The area is pretty much unique in the Thames estuary and a bit other worldly now like it should always have been, but In the eighties when a lot of it was used as a firing range it was scrapyard heaven- we'd all pile into a car on a Saturday morning, go to Rainham, stop first at the yards near the Tilda Rice dock, then have a burger and tea from the wagon there, and on to the main body of yards a mile or so further on over the marshes. We'd be there all day- some of the yards were specialists breaking only commercials or Japs, but most were just general breakers. Then on the way back there was Maybells yard on the A13 where you'd have to do a crash stop and a quick turn to get in before being rammed by the motorway speed traffic behind. That's gone now as well.

Another Essex scrapyard heaven was Temple Farm out past Chelmsford on the A12, it was basically a gypsy site with scrapyards attached and a no go area for officialdom. There was also a rehersal studio there which we used to use in my rock'n'roll days, run by a chap called Laurie who'd been a bit of a local musical legend in his day. He was right at the end of the scrapyards and as far as I know never had any planning permission or paid any tax or anything remotely legal like that, he would only take cash and was always spraying cars or cutting them up, and he'd occasionally pop into the studio for a beer and a jam, and then back out to whatever shady car stuff he was doing.

I use fleabay now, the postman brings the stuff, a lot cleaner

[megadethmaniac]

Temple Farm (Galleywood) the Stock Road b1007 site (Don`t think its actually temple farm, but backs onto it) is more interesting having parts of aircraft there well until recently?

Temple is still there but I always preferred the Windsor one at Ramsden. A better mix of stuff there, a decent mix of old 60`s metal they had a couple of Gazelle convertables, beetles and old Fords there, all long past saving. However in the last 5-10 years all the smaller firms(that usually had the decent stuff) at Windsor have gone and the main one started selling cars for repair or 1/4 cars? at least so I`m told!

At Temple Farm you do still see some interesting cars only a couple of years ago I saw a 132 and a Fiat Diplomat? Basically a 131 with a few non standard bits so I recall. Last year I saw a really early Lada Riva with wings that you could punch your fist through.

Don`t start me on the yard that used to be just by the A12 at Shenfield.