The site known as Greatham Saltworks was founded in the late 1800s before becoming Cerebos around the turn of the century. In 1968 Cerebos became part of Ranks Hovis McDougall and products such as Bisto Gravy and Atora Suet were manufactured.
From 1997 to closure in 2002 some Sharwoods products were made here, on the day I visited it was in the final stages of demolition.
The internals of site were photographed extensively on urbex sites such as 28 Days Later
Greatham Salt Works (Cerebos) , Greatham
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Lived over the tracks for about 10 years when I was a kid,used to play there. Many memories.
I went to this station as a kid a few times and into the signalbox with my ‘pop’, a railwayman who was almost certainly “Relief” Stationmaster here in the late 1950s. Someone at the station once made me a kite from brown paper, paste, and a crude wooden ‘cross’. We flew this in the afternoon above a small reservoir on the other side of the tracks from the saltworks. When (later – 1977) working for BR here for further “civils” experience, the site team encountered a very low (buried) viaduct in which the fill used here had caught fire (occasionally visible below the “cess” (path) and took ages to quench with copious quantities of water. There was a initially a risk of someone falling through the cess into the inferno below… Perhaps longterm salt extraction had eventually affected the footings of said viaduct???