Ardeer: Take a look inside the former ICI explosive factory

Photographer Kevin Lundy recently explored the site, and has shared with us jarring images of what remains of the once thriving business.

At it's height, 'the factory' in Ardeer employed around 13,000 people, and was known throughout the world for the manufacture of high explosives before its ultimate demise in the 1990s.

The site at the head of the Ardeer peninsula was a dominant global supplier of explosives to the mining and quarrying industries, and a major player in the design and development of products for the chemical and defence industries during the 20th century.

The ICI plant was built by Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-1896), the inventor of dynamite and the founder of the Nobel Prize.

Having scoured the country for a remote location to establish his explosives factory, Nobel finally acquired 100 acres (40 hectares) of land from the Earl of Eglinton, and established the British Dynamite Factory in 1871.

He then went on to create what was described then as the largest explosives factory in the world.

In 1918, the merger of a number of companies lead to the formation of a new company - Nobel Industries Ltd.

The new combined firm produced blasting gelatine, gelignite, ballistite, guncotton, cordite, and 'safety fuse' as well as several spin-offs from the original companies.

In 1926, Nobel Explosives became a founding member of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) - hence the factory being known as the ICI Nobel plant - or, to many locals and workers, simply "the factory".

Over the years, there were a number of serious explosions at the plant, most notably in 1884, 1901, 1913, 1914 and 1937.

But by the 1990s Ardeer's fortunes had declined, accelerated by the demise of the British deep coal mining industry.

Changing patterns in international trade in high explosives and competition from alternative products led to the rationalisation of the factory and, eventually, to its closure.

The site, covering around 2,000 acres, was sold off to Troon Investments Ltd.

In 2006, 1,671 acres of the original site was sold by ICI Chemicals and Polymers to NPL Group, making it one of Scotland's largest brownfield regeneration sites.

On the night of September 8, 2007, a huge explosion rocked the site and shook the homes of many people living nearby, with reports of flames up to 200 feet high, while there were accounts of the blast being heard up to 20 miles away.

Up to 1,700 tons of nitrocellulose - used in ink and coating manufacture - stored on the site were set alight, with 20 fire appliances and 75 firefighters attending to tackle the blaze.

Strathclyde Police later stated that three boys, two aged 14 and one aged 10, had been made the subject of a report to the Children's Panel in connection with the incident.

Today, the site has been more or less cleared of the historic structures connected with the original 1871 factory, and the subsequent expansion and rebuilding of the ICI site until the 1990s, though the power plant and several other buildings of a more recent vintage remain, albeit in a derelict state.