It was a dreary Saturday morning here. We had a couple of errands to run and went to visit Bettine as usual before making our way home in the rain. As we turned a corner, I spotted a small sign at the bottom of the hill for an exhibition nearby.

There’s often a sign there, for exhibitions are held regularly in this location but for some reason, we’ve never visited the gallery. I have no idea why. Neither do I have any idea why, on this occasion, my Hero asked “shall we go?”, turned the car around and no more than five minutes later, we were making our way through into unknown territory.

Hmm. We jumped out of the car, looked around and couldn’t see a clear entrance or any sign of life for that matter. But then a chap in a hi-vis jacket came over and asked what we might be looking for. He received a rather vague reply; something about an exhibition around here and pointed down the access road behind the building. “There’s a door down there”.

Well, those with a good eye might have spotted the two small signs on the wall …

We were clearly on the right track but were amazed at this huge site. Even though we pass by almost daily, knew of the company here and the work they do, we’ve never done anything more than drive by.

Until now.

We turned the corner and continued into another yard, this time spotting the sign with pointers to the gallery and to the foundry.

A closer look revealed the first confirmation that we were in the right place.

There was another clue or two along by the river. We carried on, hoping to find the entrance before too long and finally spotting a glass porch in the corner of a modern building which looked promising. We opened the door, stepped into a small lift (I was glad I wasn’t alone!) and pressed the up button.

When the door opened, we were relieved to see we’d made it to the right place! Not only that, but the security man had called ahead and we were expected.

That’s how, on this Saturday morning, we found ourselves enjoying an hour looking at Michael Cooper’s amazing work here in his exhibition “Out of the Block”, meeting a near neighbour Sally and wondering why on earth it’s taken us more than thirty years to come here.

We will be back, probably pretty soon too !

Some of my friends may be interested in one of the foundry’s recent projects perhaps.