Weisse Dame (White Lady) - Gronau

According to local newspaper the most delipidated factory building of Gronau (Germany).
The history of this building is still under investigation.

Saturday 23-03-02
I had cycled around this factory a few times allready, but was still in doubt if it was in use for something or not. On the north side a lot of houses have been build right next to the factory, but they didn't seem to have any connection with it. On the south is an empty field between the factory and a busy road. There is a fence around it, or rather, around the road or something they're constructing in front of the building.
I waited a little while for the traffic to thin out (waiting for a traffic light just out of sight), and went to have look inside. Getting around the fence was easy at the edge of river Dinkel. Getting into the building was even easier, the doors were wide open.

The white lady

The factory can be roughly divided into two parts, an eastern and western part, with technical rooms, rooms for workers to hang there jackets and storage rooms in the middle. There's a staircase with elevator on the front (southern) side, you can clearly see in the picture above. There is an other elevator and toilets at the rear (northern) side of the building. A seperate building, most left in the picture, houses electric transformer equipment and maybe in sometime housed a steam engine (?).

First view inside, eastern side

A lot of broken glass and the occasional hole in the floor made sure I had to walk careful. Stilll now and then a piece of fluorescent tube (tl-buis) shattered under my feet with loud bang, echoing through the whole building, or so it seemed.

Ehm, deep-frying fat? Don't know why it's on the floor in an abandoned factory

Not deep enough to fall dead, but an unexpected step into it will probably not be healthy. Luckily there's a broken piece of ladder to get you out again.

There were more, smaller but nastier, holes around the ground floor.

Junk again, now including a teddybear

Western side

I thought it strange the place wasn't used for anything like storage. It seemed still pretty dry inside.
The toilets were smashed to tiny bits, not completely surprising..

Mens toilets. Somehow I doubt workers wore ties.