ABSTRACT This article presents a historical survey of aesthetic attitudes towards industrial landscapes and industrial sites, such as factories and mines, from the late seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. It further seeks to show that the ambivalent attitude, widespread since the 1960s to the present day, partly rejecting these landscapes and sites as aesthetically third-rate, partly appreciating them (as did many members of the Avant-garde in the early twentieth century), was in fact already becoming established in varied attitudes at the beginning of the industrial age. The paper argues for a more diversified approach to the period, one that is influenced by Classicism, the Picturesque, and Romantic aesthetics, reflecting the full range of attitudes towards industrial landscapes, from dislike and disgust to positive aesthetic appreciation. Surprisingly, the range of reactions commonly included indifference. The article analyses and compares travel writing, fiction, and works of visual art, mainly those originating in Britain and Central Europe in the period under consideration.