Top 3 Abandoned Places In London
2 years ago
There are so many abandoned places in London! This is a list of the top three abandoned places in London. Browse through all abandoned places in London
1. McCormick's Biscuit Factory
Thomas McCormick's sweet dream during the Industrial Revolution
Thomas McCormick emigrated from Ireland about 1849. In 1858, he began manufacturing confectionary in a factory located on Clarence Street in London. McCormick was in direct competition with another confectioner, Daniel Simmons Perrin who had established his own business just four years earlier.
The McCormick company was incorporated as the McCormick Manufacturing Company Limited in July 1879.
Thomas McCormick died in 1906.
In 1914, Thomas P. McCormick, son of the company(a)s founder Thomas McCormick, moved the London business from downtown to the Dundas location. McCormick had spent many years researching the latest manufacturing technology and incorporating it into his new "Sunshine Palace". At the time of its opening, it was the most modern and fireproof biscuit factory in all of North America.
The operational capacity of the McCormick Biscuit and Candy Factory
The building contained 1.5 million bricks, eight hundred tons of steel, one hundred thousand bags of cement, forty-five thousand square feet of glass thus earning the nickname “Sunshine Palace” (making up 68% of the exterior walls), and 150,000 square feet of maple flooring and made from concrete and steel and constructed to be fireproof.
The production at the new factory was impressive. 135,000 pounds of candy and 100,000 pounds of biscuits were produced daily. At the time as many as 1000 workers were employed in the factory.
This is how the factory was utilized:-
Floor level | Use |
| First floor | Storage for flour, sugar, administrative office, and bakery
|
| Second floor | Production of crackers along with lab used to hold chemicals |
| Third floor | Production for chocolate, employee cafeteria
|
| Fourth floor | Production of candy, with vents and skylight, used to cool off the candy |
| Fifth floor | Distributed into 2 parts. One for jelly bean production and meeting area for executives |
Various holders throughout the years
In 1926, McCormick’s Manufacturing was purchased by its competitor, D.S. Perrin and Company Ltd., and became the Canada Biscuit Company. The Canada Biscuit Company was sold during the 1940s to George Weston Ltd. In 1990 the company was acquired by Culinar Foods of Montreal, and in 1997 by Beta Brands Inc.
Mccormick factory shut down in the summer of 2008 while it was still being operated by Beta Brands. At that time approximately 100 employees lost their jobs.
Today, the abandoned Mccormick factory, located at 1156 Dundas Street lies vacant, dark, with a lot to see and explore.
Current status of the McCormick Biscuit Factory
A highly fragile roof, with holes in between that, has a constant risk of falling pieces, and a basement could be fully flooded depending on the time of the year.
Currently under the private ownership of Sierra Construction of Woodstock, with restoration costs of around 9 million. The back of the factory was mostly destroyed to construct a new housing complex.
2. London Ontario Party Mansion
Here we have a nice estate home built in 1984 sitting on 1.88 acres. When it was on the market it had an asking price of $1.5 million which seems pretty low for me considering it beats several mansions I have visited lately valued at $4 million or more. I want to thank crazycarclub aka The Secret Lens for sharing this gem with me.
One major highlight here is the indoor toxic green pool which got a complete makeover in 2011 and features a 26ft high wood ceiling (It does have a great wood smell in there.) On top of the roof, there is a $50,000 solar panel system which helped pay for most of the electricity bills.
The home itself has seven bathrooms, five bedrooms, oak wood flooring, a double staircase, oversized eat-in kitchen with granite counters and much more. The other cool highlight is the kids room in the basement which features a couple hidden rooms, stadium seating for movies and a slide. I honestly wanted to go down the slide but I feared I would get stuck so I refrained.
I made two visits here, five days apart, both with TalkingWallsPhotography. The first time, many back doors were open and on our last visit, all the doors had been secured except one. Also inside, cabinets had been taken out, stuff moved around and somebody had tried to steal the wood burning stove.
This is a much desired location and as word gets out, I fear this place may be subject to vandalism. As a precaution I’m sharing this with a very small number of trusted people for now.
An interesting tidbit I found out afterwards was that many student parties were held here on the weekends a couple years back, usually resulting in the police visiting. At times 500-1000 tickets were sold and based on the event ranged from $20-$100. One night for $100 got you unlimited drinks and there was also a drug bar featuring weed, cocaine and mushrooms. Apparently a club owner had owned the place at the time.
Notes added by crazycarclub aka The Secret Lens
Here's a few links, one to a real estate video and another to the virtual tour of this house when it was on the market in 2017.
http://tour.phelanphoto.com/public/vtour/display/801041?a=1#!/
3. Cemetery house
Abandoned house on the property of a new cemetery.
