Old goodswarehouse at the railroad station (25-11-01)

All railroadtracks have been removed, but it still looks nice. As far as I can tell it is no longer used. All windows boarded up, all doors locked, no way in, so I just made some pictures of the outside. This was in the late afternoon of 25 November, so pictures came out a bit dark.

Tracks have been removed, nature is taking over.

It's all pretty well boarded up.

Pic of the roadside.

March 23 2002. Too late, victim of the "Landesgarten Gronau"

M. Van Delden & Co. textile factory (25-11-01)

Next I had a look at the last remnants of the 'Van Delden'-factory. This was once (one of the) largest textilefactories of Germany. It was also special because the complete production process of textile was done here. Bales of cotton went in, tablecloth went out. Most buildings have been demolished now, to be replaced by 'inselpark Gronau'. One part (the turbine hall or 'turbinenhalle') is rebuild to become a pop/rock museum (http://www.gronau-online.de/rock.html) . Another part, with an interesting walking bridge across the river Dinkel, is still standing. I don't know what they plan to do with that.

Building with the once very polluted river Dinkel

Standing on the west side, I saw 2 ways of entering; across this walking bridge, meaning wringing through a small hole left in the fence in plain view of a busy parking lot, or across a railroad bridge in plain view of the signal box at the station. Being a coward I cycled to the other side of the former factory ground were they had made a huge mound of (probably polluted) soil. Climbing a high point is always fun and maybe it would give me an idea of how to get to the building. This it surely did, because the road to the mound continued unhindered by any fence to the backside of the old factory buildings. Some people followed me down the road. After taking some shots of the outside of the buildings and waiting for those people to leave I entered the old building. This was very easy, it was wide open.

The other side of the building