Warped and Pieced - Return to Huncoat (Part 1)

Back in July 2009 I wrote a piece about the graff co-existing with the rubble of the old Huncoat Power Station in Lancashire.

Join me for a couple of return visits and a visual ride into them thar hills….


All photos by shellshock

Quick Link to the July 2009 blog - if you are interested.....


The disused power station at Huncoat (between Accrington and Burnley) is easily the best hidden graff den I’ve ever been to. Rubble and shit are everywhere, right next to stunning pieces from the Trans Pennine Nomads (TPN) crew (and a few others). A visual overload; you don’t know where to look (actually I do know where to look….. look up for graffiti… and look down for that pit full of glass and old shoes that you are about to fall in you spanner….).


On bobbing up there for a return visit in November 2009 I was a bit gutted to see three of the best pieces from July had been partly gone over by, frankly, some really amateurish bits (I can’t call them pieces….). Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I can’t complain. It’s graff. It’s not supposed to last for ever. There are no ’rules’…..

But surely, if you are gonna try in an abandoned power station, where there are walls a plenty, you better bring your end game if you are going to deliberately go over some of the best pieces in the North-West, and not bring the friggin toy zone set-up that you see in these photos….








Ok, rant over. I’ll get off the soap box now (although it’s actually quite handy to take photos from…)

Forgot to include this one when I did the last blog. I presume it’s by Ziel, who’s done quite a lot of stuff in nearby Rochdale.




As I take photos, who do I bump into? Only Mr Pryme himself, up here to take a few photos himself. And we yak for many hours. I think his footballing chances at Turf Moor might be behind him, but if there are two things that Pryme could represent England at, it’s, 1) writing, and 2) talking :-)

And usually it’s talking about ‘the Turf‘! We agree on most things, including the revelation (cough! hardly…) that neither of us gets Nick Walker….. (actually, I think you’ll find no-one in the game really likes it…)

Anyway, he shows me a quickie he did with a friend, Petra, upstairs.






I’d gone up to Huncoat partly coz I saw some internet photos of a side wall I hadn’t noticed before, so we wheeled round to see that. The surface wasn’t the greatest to work with but the low wall suits Pryme and Crie’s style well, with the first two pieces (1 each) cut in half by the top of the wall. I think it might be my Asperger’s gene, but I could lap this stuff up all day. I just find Crie’s fantastical meanderings mesmerising, and I don’t get bored of Pryme’s 3D pieces [technical drawing was my favourite subject at school, and I love his perspectives and those crisp angles and lines]

The longer and artier shots first…… (I like the tyre with intricate silver tags on it….)





Now the 4 pieces, one by one (Pryme, Crie, Pryme, Crie…)










Finally, a quick trip down to the other local spot, where there was one new piece since my last trip; a rampant little collab between Pryme and Era. Again, I could take this all day. Pryme’s angles, and Era’s swirling curves, look so damn sexy together, and the colours look great on the deep black behind.



And a photo of an old wall, coz I liked the comfy looking sofa that had been dumped in front of it. It should be turned around, so you can sit and have a cigar and a glass of Benedictine whilst marvelling at the massive TPN collab, in sci-fi style (Pryme / Era / Sune / Crie). Mmmmm, what a life that would be!