Tales of the Urban Explorer: Arla Foods

It was not my first visit to 'Arla Foods'. Two years ago, @dizzydiscovery, @lpff, and I had walked down the same adjoining street and bottled it.

@lpff was all for balancing on a wall with a drop of fifteen feet to the left. We had thought better. @lpff had gone back and soloed it later, letting us know the highlights were two skeletal dead foxes inside.

So why was it we were back and thinking about going back in there to inhale decaying fox fumes?

This was to be one of several collaborations with @lpff, the Yorkshire Facebook explorer that everyone loves to hate. Regardless of his attitude and supposed swagger I have always gelled with him and found him very knowledgeable.

He doesn’t smash places up, and he doesn’t steal things. Those are important to me.

How things change in just two years. The impenetrable fence was gone, replaced by an ineffective gate with a generous gap at the bottom. I could smell those foxes from here…, Oooh… the aroma.

Arla Foods originated from Scandinavia and have a decent-sized dairy portfolio, including that over-priced Cravendale Milk that @bingbabe is a little partial to.

They have also abandoned at least one of their premises in central Leeds. Fortunately, it was not shit weather which would have meant soggy clothes, and the three of us were on the other side of the gate within seconds. I have crawled under skinnier gates than this.

"There was a hole in the fence over there", @lpff was pointing to what looked like a derelict wasteland, full of loose bricks, used condoms blowing around in the wind, with suspicious-looking white liquid flying out of them at all angles.

…these Leeds ladies must be something else, that or there had recently been a gang-bang made up of recently released convicts filled to the brim…

The hole was indeed still there, and we found ourselves a little closer to ‘Arla Foods’.

…’a highly suspicious @anidiotexplores checks out a possible access point’

It didn’t take long, and after some grunting and climbing through a window, we were in and could start enjoying the sights and amenities of ‘Arla Foods’.

I was not expecting much. If the foxes were still hanging around somewhere it would have stunk. I was seeing dark long corridors with little in sight.

Is it some kind of electronic payment system?

This is the place to visit for all your replacement bulb needs. There was quite a selection, and almost enough to compete with the local supermarkets.

What is all that shit-looking stuff? I can understand letting loose on the radiator in a troublesome moment, but up there…, like how?

The vending machine was a welcome sight for all of us; some coffee with Cravendale Milk topping it up? The bastard didn't work of course, regardless of sticking coins in.

Leeds doesn’t do too badly compared to the rest of them. Seems unfair they closed it down, comparatively speaking.

‘Arla Foods’ comprised of many empty rooms just like this one. One covers them all.

There was to be no ‘Out of Bounds’. We searched high and low for anything of interest.

I am getting quite the collection of these broken glass photographs. Add a little colour and they look even better.

It looks in bad shape but the flooring was solid. As usual, the pigeons had invaded.

Look at the size of that beast; it must have cost a fortune once. Yet, photocopiers are one of the most left behind items I can see.

I tell you, someone had some terrible gastro issues. So much that this poor bloke could have died of Dysentery or some other terrible tropical disease while emptying his bowels all over the insides of ‘Arla Foods’.

A circuit board entwined with the skeletal remains of some poor bird.

I understand… Tanjot.

Jeez, now it's the coffee machine. I was hoping we were not going to encounter the being that did all this. Please… be somewhere else before dying.

Was there something down here? I was hoping for a little more.

It looked like the grand entrance to 'Arla Foods'., except they had tried to cordon it off with police tape.

Another dark corridor, probably with little at the end.

A Cryoscope is an advanced system for milk analysis. That fits, but why leave ‘advanced machinery’ behind? Is the plastic bottle also part of the ‘advanced’ features?

It’s a dye and a weak acid. I always thought that Cravendale Milk looked a little too white. Now I know.

'Arla Foods' was full of corpses, but no fox ones or diarrhea-drenched humans.

Come on now, there are no barriers for Urban Explorers. I might have jumped over it if there was anything worth looking at beyond.

So this was formally the Head Office?

Down there the building took a turn for the worse. The roof had partially collapsed making everything look much derpier. At this point, we had seen all and headed outside.

I have been reliably informed this building has now been demolished. It's getting to be a habit that between my visits and write-up, things disappear. It's not one I will miss.

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