Terry's chocolate factory is a famous York landmark. But what is it like inside? Chief Reporter Mike Laycock and photographer Paul Baker toured the huge - and often empty - complex.

The vast and cavernous room stretched for hundreds of yards, perhaps the length of two football pitches - and it was completely empty.

We climbed the stairs to the next floor, and then the one above that, and we were greeted by the same scene.

In total, 100,000 square feet of nothing. And on the stair landings, the doors leading into "Ladies' Cloaks" and "Mens' Cloaks" were padlocked.

There were times as I walked round Terry's that it felt as if the factory had already closed down. There was an eerie sense that a long and proud chocolate-making tradition dating back to the 18th century had been in decline for far longer than many of us had suspected.

The Evening Press and unions accept that the site is no longer suitable for a modern factory, but argue that production should be switched to another modern, purpose-built site in the York area.

The three empty floors - inside the large brick 1920s building which you see as you drive down Bishopthorpe Road - were a hive of activity until as recently as the mid-1990s.

Then, as chocolate-manufacturing was rationalised, all the equipment was moved out.

Only the ground floor is still in use, as a packaging store and moulding plant.

From the rooftop, as well as smashing views of the Minster and York Racecourse (the workers apparently once used to come up here on racedays to watch the horses pass the finishing line), we could see other parts of the site which are no longer in use, such as a gravelled area where the former sugar processing plant was demolished some years ago.

Many of the old Terry's offices are also lying empty, including one large area where rows of clerks used to file invoices.

As we toured the areas where work is still going on, for example where famous products such as All Gold and York Fruits are packed, I was struck by the rather old-fashioned aspects of the packaging process.

As a conveyor belt moved plastic trays along, lines of workers were placing chocolates and Fruits into them by hand. Almost a million chocolates are packed on every shift.

Packers such as Marie Boyes said they had worked at Terry's for years and enjoyed it.

They were saddened by the closure proposals but seemed resigned. "It's just one of those things," said Marie.

Factory boss John Pollock said it had never proved economic to replace the hand-packers by robots, but if All Gold production moved to Sweden, it would be a different story.

The technology was already in place there for them to be packed by a machine without ever being touched by the human hand.

Updated: 09:37 Saturday, May 08, 2004