The Buzludzha Monument aka The House of the Bulgarian Communist Party

Urbex: Buzludzha Communist Party Monument, Bulgaria – March 2015

The Buzludzha Monument aka The House of the Bulgarian Communist Party is a huge concrete circular structure that many say resembles an abandoned UFO. It sits derelict on top of the Buzludzha mountain slowly crumbling away as it deals with lack of maintenance and fierce winter conditions…

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High Royds Insane Asylum - Adminstration Building Exterior

Urbex: High Royds Insane Asylum aka High Royds Hospital aka West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Menston, Leeds, West Yorkshire – March 2015 (Revisit)

Briefly the abandoned High Royds Asylum opened in 1888 and closed in 2003 since then the site has been undergoing development into luxury apartments most of which are now complete. The main admin building still remains empty boasting some of its original features…

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Mount St Marys Church aka Church of the Immaculate Virgin Mary

Urbex: Mount St Marys Church aka Church of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Leeds – February 2015

The now abandoned Mount St Mary’s Church or the Church of the Immaculate Virgin Mary is a Grade II* listed building and a redundant Roman Catholic church in Leeds. It was founded in 1851 and designed by Joseph Hansom, with extensions by Edward Pugin. It is located next to Mount St Mary’s Catholic High School, Leeds…

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High Royds Insane Asylum aka West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum

Urbex: High Royds Insane Asylum aka High Royds Hospital aka West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Menston, Leeds, West Yorkshire – February 2015

High Royds Lunatic Asylum or the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum as it was originally called, is a former psychiatric hospital near the village of Menston in West Yorkshire. The broad arrow plan asylum features a large array of stone built wards and interconnecting corridors most of which have been demolished leaving the majority of the old wards as independent buildings most now repurposed as modern apartments…

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Bangour Village Hospital - Building 15 The Recreation Hall

Urbex: Bangour Village Hospital aka Edinburgh District Asylum, Scotland – February 2015

The now derelict Bangour Village Hospital is a large Psychiatric Hospital complex which first opened in 1906 as The Edinburgh District Asylum. The Asylum which was modelled on a German village-plan design similar to that of the Alt-Scherbitz asylum of the 1870s. In 1918 when the Asylum has around 3000 patients it was renamed as Bangour Village Hospital and operated under this name until its closure in 2004…

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Sir John-Maxwell School aka The Skylight School Glasgow

Urbex: Sir John-Maxwell School aka The Skylight School, Scotland – February 2015

Built in 1907 by Architect John Hamilton for the Eastwood Schoolboard the now abandoned Sir John-Maxwell School originally was built to accommodate 550 pupils of school age as well as opening in the evening for night classes. Between 1908 to 1915 a political activist John Maclean taught classes in Marxism there…

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The Grand Hotel Birmingham - The Ballroom

Urbex: The Grand Hotel, Birmingham – January 2015

The Grand Hotel is a Grade II Listed Victorian Hotel located in the City of Birmingham. The building was designed by architect Thomson Plevins in a French Renaissance architectural style. Construction began in 1875 and the Hotel opened 4 years later in 1879. The Hotel finally closed in 2002 and has been covered with scaffolding to protect the exterior stonework from falling onto pedestrians since 2012…

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Leeds Girls High School - Rose Court Infants School

Urbex: Leeds Girls High School (Rose Court Nursery), Leeds – January 2015

This second report from the Leeds Girls High School features the Rose Court building which is situated on the same site and the main senior school building. Rose Court was purchase by the High School in 1912 and I believe before this functioned as a private residence. Built of stone construction in a Georgian design the building functioned as the Infants School catering to the 3 to 7 year old age bracket…

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Leeds Girls High School aka St Matthew's Hospital

Urbex: Leeds Girls High School aka St Matthew’s Hospital, Leeds – January 2015

Founded in 1876 The now abandoned Leeds Girls High School is situated in Headingley Leeds and was originally built to cater for girls aged between 3-18 years old. Established at a time when female education was on the rise, the school was an independent, selective fee-based school aiming to offer a similar all-round education of the boys tradition, academic grammar schools. Split into three sections based upon age groups this report features the Senior School which housed the 11 to 18 year old pupils. In 2004 only four years before closure of the site, Leeds Girls High School or LGHS was he highest performing school in the Leeds area in terms of GCSE’s and A Levels.

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Robert Fletchers & Sons Ltd Paper Mill - Paper rolling machine

Robert Fletchers & Sons Ltd Paper Mill, Greenfield, Oldham – January 2015 (Part 2 of 2)

As you progress through the factory you can see the process lin taking shape from the wood pulp coming in through the processing stages, bleaching and pressing and then eventually making it was to the more modern looking machinery for precision rolling, cutting and packaging before the huge roles of cigarette papers would leave the warehouse

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Robert Fletchers & Sons Ltd Paper Mill - Pipes!

Robert Fletchers & Sons Ltd Paper Mill, Greenfield, Oldham – January 2015 (Part 1 of 2)

Robert Fletchers & Sons Ltd was a paper mill which specialised in the production of cigarette papers which were exported worldwide. The old factory and most of the contents now lay abandoned most of the equipment looks as if the workers just vanished with huge rolls of cigarette papers still hanging on rolls in the production process machines!

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Ford Transit Van Factory

Urbex: Ford Transit Van Factory, Southampton – January 2015

The now abandoned Ford Transit Van Factory near Southampton has some real history to it. The Factory was initially built as a shadow factory in 1939 near to Southampton Airport and was originally used to produce aircraft parts. In particular the factory, during World War II made components for the Supermarine Spitfire and later was used to assemble the aircraft. As a result it was bombed on several occasions by the Nazi Luftwaffe…

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A German Psychiatric Hospital - Wheelchair

Urbex: A German Psychiatric Hospital aka Psychiatrie V, Germany – November 2014

Very little information about this place. After more than a couple of fails and bails Bram thankfully saved our asses and pulled through with this location. A building within a large complex of other buildings some of which were live forming a big psychiatric hospital. The Building we explored was quite a modern addition to the site and this was both clear internally and externally…

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Stairporn Courthouse

Urbex: Stairporn Courthouse aka The Maze of Stairs, Germany – November 2014

The place is a bit of a concrete maze inside but fortunately it didn’t take too much figuring out before we managed to locate the main attraction, the dominating staircases just inside the main entrance.. The building is clearly being worked on by contractors and having arrived at the spot pretty early before daylight, we had assumed we might struggle for lighting…

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Villa Beethoven

Urbex: Villa Beethoven, Germany – November 2014

Very little information about the abandoned Villa Beethoven on the internet. All I could find out ws that it was originally owned by a wealthy family and when the mother passed away the inheritance was fought over by the children which resulted in the house being sold to a developer. Plans to renovate the property stalled and the house sits empty…

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Villa Woodstock - The wooden clad dining room

Urbex: Health Resort aka Villa Woodstock, Germany – November 2014

This abandoned grand neo-renaissance styled Mansion was originally a residential dwelling but from the mid 1980’s became a care facility and later a retirement home for the elderly and was linked to the nearby church organisations. Villa Woodstock as this place is most commonly known, was apparently set for demolition before a private investor stepped in to repurpose the old building…

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Moseley Road Baths - The abandoned Gala Pool

Permission: Moseley Road Baths, Birmingham – November 2014

Moseley Road Baths, located in Birmingham, opened in 1907 and still operates to this day. Very little has been done to alter the layout of the building which means that almost all the original features remain including the private wash baths or ‘slipper’ baths which date to the pre-war era. The building now benefits from Grade II* listed status and is one of only 3 remaining operational baths of its kind in the UK…

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Selly Oak Hospital Morgue

Urbex: Selly Oak Hospital Morgue – November 2014

The first building on the site of Selly Oak Hospital was the old King’s Norton Union Workhouse which was built in around 1872 to consolidate existing services for 5 separate parishes. Originally the Hospital was built to accommodate 200 pauper inmates. In 1897 a separate infirmary opened at the site at a cost of £52,000 and was designed by Mr. Daniel Arkell. This infirmary was made to accommodate a further 250 patients and had basic facilities to cater for maternity care but there were no operating theatres or a mortuary at this point…

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Broadoaks Manor

Urbex: Broadoaks Manor, Surrey – November 2014

The abandoned Broadoaks Manor was built in 1876 by Ernest Seth-Smith for his elder brother Charles. In 1898 the house was then sold to elderly rich industrialist and between 1911-1946 the house was owned by the brewery owners the Charrington family. The Ministry of Defence have confirmed that the property was originally acquired by the Ministry of Supply in 1946 and later used by the Army Operational Research Group (1948-1996). After closure in 1996 the site was sold by them in 1998 and since then has stood abandoned…

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