British Sugar Kidderminster.

British Sugar plc is a subsidiary of Associated British Foods and the sole British producer of sugar from sugar beet.

British sugar processes all sugar beet grown in the UK and produces about half of the UKs quota of sugar, with the remainder covered by Tate & Lyle and imports.

The British Sugar Corporation was a company that was formed in 1936, when the British parliament nationalised the entire sugar beet crop processing industry, under the banner of British Sugar Corporation. At this time there were 13 separate companies with 18 factories across the country.

In 1972 the company started selling its products under the banner of Silver Spoon, which included Golden Syrup amongst other things.

Out of the 18 factories owned by British Sugar 12 of them are now closed although the majority of them still have the giant sugar silos still standing in one piece such as the factory in Kidderminster we visited.

The Kidderminster site was built in 1925 and eventually closed down in 2002 and has stood derelict ever since, in 2006 the site was finally sold but it is only recently that demolition work has begun on the site, the giant silos how ever are still currently standing still in one piece.

With recent reports of demolition under way we realised this might be our only chance of seeing the place before its levelled, so after and excellent tour of the Drakelow Tunnels round the corner in Wolverley we dropped in to see the place.

Pushed for time and already into the early hours it was only going to be a short visit unfortunatley but one that would prove well worth it, our main objective was the giant sugar silos and within minutes of entering we where climbing up these huge sticky concrete beasts!

Even The New Mendoza overcome his fear of heights to clamber the beasts. ;)

The insides of the silos are caked in sugar as expected but the floors are like Golden Syrup the comedy sounds as we wandered through where amusing to say the least.

The only regret I think we all felt was not having the time to explore the site fully and having daylight on our side, with that said though it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and our main objective completed.

It truly is a shame this place is being demolished as its not only one of the last great British companies to vanish forever but a truly spectacular feat of engineering too.