Britannia Metallica

September 2025 | England | Extant

History: the site was founded in 1930 as a precious metals refining plant, with added capacity for lead, zinc and tin refining and smelting. The company and plant is one of the largest suppliers of lead in Europe, with a capacity of 180,000 tonnes of lead per year. There was a proposal in 2003 to close one of the primary lead refining furnaces (No. 2 primary refinery) because of low margin operations and supply issues, specifically cessation of crude lead supply from certain sources. This would impact a quarter of the workforce at that refinery.

The Explore: on a very early morning, I left my place and made the journey to the site. Imagine four cars convening in some random street, five people putting exploring clothing on and then piling into one car. The exploring clown car…! My friends Forbidden3dom, Ruins and Ria, Landie_Man and Sweaty_Brandon and I rocked up here and made our way into the site. It’s not an especially huge place, so it wouldn’t be a particularly long explore. A semi live explore as well, so one had to be very aware of workers and machinery driving around! Despite that, we got into the building and spent a couple of chilled hours exploring and photographing the old lead smelting plant. A brilliant explore full of great laughs. Enjoy the photographs.

Kettle Floor:

Furnace Floor:

Pouring Hall: