Smells

[AnythingButVanilla]

I used to live in Drumchapel for a while and the only good thing was the Mortons bakery based there. The whole scheme would smell of freshly baked bread and it was wonderful on a cold morning if the wind caught it the right way. I always find Edinburgh and the east end of Glasgow has a mushy pea smell and I believe it comes from the breweries. Greenock had a weird smell when I was a child and my mum always told me that it came from horse bones being boiled up but I'm not quite sure whether or not this was entirely true.

 

[wormo]

The trans penine trail goes by Granox. Hideous smell.

 

[Melonfish]

my missus and her family are from widnes, i know and loathe the granox *shudder*
fave smells would be peat burning on a fire.
woodsmoke.
coal fired steam engines! all that grease/steam etc just smells great
kellogs factory, used to go past that along the canal and it smelled great!
haystacks in summer (Mmmm Toffee)

 

[Hugh Jampton]

[QUOTE 2023431, member: 259"]I quite miss the smell of coal. Apart from the coal fires that everyone had on, even in the summer there was a strong pervasive whiff of raw coal that came from the pits as you passed them, usually mixed with the smell of tar from the piles of sleepers they often had in the yards.[/quote]
I'm with Mort. As a youngster in the 70s, every other house in the small town I lived in had a coal fire. Smelling coal burning instantly sends me back to my childhood. Recently holidayed in Whitby and travelled on the North Yorkshire Steam railway. Wonderful mixture of coal and hot oil smell from the engine

 

[penguinking9]

Granox:

Though either it's not as bad as it used to be or I'm losing my sense of smell.

I used to pass the gelatine works by the Frodsham swing bridge on the bus to school. It was 'lovely' to start the day with the smell of boiling cows feet.

On the other hand, we used to go to a Cash and Carry near the Jacob's Cream Cracker factory in Liverpool. If they were baking it meant shopping quickly and getting home for supper

 

[guitarpete247]

I ....... Steam locomotives smell lovely when they are hot. ........

Several smells I can remember from my youth.
The first was sitting on this railway bridge waiting for steam trains coming from the pit. When I got home I copped it from my mum for the smell on my clothes.
Then there was the rotten smell that came from De Mulders in Bentley. It covered the whole of Doncaster town centre. The smell of rendering animal carcasses I think.
Then the smell of the mashing malt from Darley's Brewery in Thorne. I loved the beer and the smell when I worked in the town in the late 70's. http://www.breweryhistory.com/Breweries/YorksThorneDarley.htm

 

[Fnaar]

There's a Strava segment near me called "smells like chips". Not sure why, cos it doesn't. I used to live in Spain, and just down the coast, there was a paper factory, which smelled horrible. I love the smell of roasting coffee. That is all I have to say.

 

[Headgardener]

Hot steam oil and burnt coal luverrly.

 

[Hitchington]

A guy I work with has bought a coffee grinder into the office, and duly used it to make an expresso this morning in a rather nifty expresso gadget

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Handpress...pt=Coffee_Machines_Makers&hash=item3f1b692996

Anyway, the smell of freshly ground coffee took me back to my youth when there was a whittards shop in the high st of my town, which had a coffee roaster which vented out onto the pavement.

You could smell this thing when it was running from about 100 yards away, and similar when the Whitbread-Flowers brewery was running behind the shop, would vent strong smells of the hops being boiled up.

I doubt that the HSE would allow anythign like this to happen any more, but it occured to me that we in the UK live in such a smell free and sterile environment with filters for this, and traps for that.

I'm amazed that the likes of Pizza Hut and Subway are able to get away with doing this still. The greatest shame is that they don't taste as nice as they smell

Any recollections of industrial smells you miss (residents of Neath need not comment )

There was a coffee shop in Watford High Street circa 1975 that used to waft the smell of freshly roasted coffee out onto the street. One of my earliest memories and is always awakened when I smell coffee being roasted today

 

[GordonB]

Whilst I know it's the done thing to blame the HSE for everything, they don't have any control over smells unless the emission is actually potentially dangerous. Odour complaints are dealt with by either your local EHO as a statutory nuisance or possibly the Environment Agency for some licenced processes.

Personally, I love the smell of roasting coffee but the stink of hot grease from burger vans turns my stomach, as does the stench of tobacco smoke.

Gordon

 

[Globalti]

I work in the perfume industry so I have some favourites - any vetivert perfume is gorgeous and there are some raw materials like amber and coumarin (fresh hay) that I love. The Arabic oudh perfumes are superb too. There's a Muslim perfume from Dubai called Bakhour (Arabic for incense) which is descended from Quelques Fleurs by Houbigant, that I love.

Amazing how many people love the smell of coal or steam engines - whenever we burn coal or peat on our stove I nip outside to sniff the air, peat smells especially good on a freezing winter night.

I once write an article for Singletrack magazine about all the smells you experience when riding through the seasons- a bit pretentious really but it seemed to go down OK.

 

[vernon]

Favourite smells:

• Graphite grease
• The odour emanating from an old valve radio when powered up
• The smell inside a one acre greenhouse full of tomato plants in the hot summer sun
• Provence in the hot summer sun
• Castrol R in the exhaust fumes of a speedway bike
• Seabrooke's Crisp Factory, Bradford
• The looms in Leeds Industrial Museum

Bad smells:

• Chicken sheds in the hot summer sun - my eyes were streaming from the ammonia fumes a quarter of a mile down wind of some
• Jenning's Dripping Factory, Darlington, it was just over the road from my school and my enjoyment of outdoor sport was ruined by most of my games lessons coinciding with deliveries of carcases and abbatoir waste.
• Pig slurry

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I do this ''ride every road'' thing and, not usually being a breakfast eater, I found the smells of cooking around parts of Tower Hamlets when hunger started kicking in and families were getting their curries going to be absolute torture. Pure, delicious, mouth-watering torture!

 

[Arch]

I used to commute past the Terrys factory, and sometimes the smell would carry me along for a mile. I swear the very air had calories.

I once rode on the the bike path past the big Rowntrees factory, and I think each vent came from a different production line, so the smell changed from chocolate and orange to chocolate and mint and then to chocolate and coffee.....

Terrys is no longer there, alas, but Rowntrees (well, Nestles) still wafts chocolate across the city when the wind is right. In York it's either chocolate, or drains....

 

[penguinking9]

Given those 2 options Arch, I'll take chocolate