Urbex: Hawks Morgue, Durham – January 2015 (2 Visits)
A nice little morgue in a small outbuilding of a large abandoned hospital complex, complete with a stunning porcelain slab!
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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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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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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, 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, 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Urbex: London Rooftops, Tower Bridge, London – November 2014
Not content with the two initial rooftops we continued on to a third construction site, this time with a bit more of a central location within London City. Once up high we had an amazing view over Tower Bridge and the illuminated London skyline…
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Urbex: London Rooftops, Random Building Site, London – November 2014
Another late night high rise mission! Yet another rooftop in London, this time a random construction site with a rather impressive view. Fortunately much taller than the first spot of the evening this one provided much more appealing wide views of the capital city…
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Urbex: London Rooftops, Battersea Park, November 2014 Bonfire Night!
Bonfire Night! We had plans to get up high somewhere overlooking Battersea Park where we knew there was due to be a decent fireworks displace. Sadly our original planned spot was a complete fail, with access being sealed and lots of activity on the site we had to change our plans. sheer chance and a random unplanned backup and we found ourselves several stories up overlooking both Battersea Powerstation and the park where the display was due to take place…
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Urbex: Greenbank Synagogue aka The Ark, Liverpool, United Kingdom – November 2014 Revisit 1
My second trip to Greenbank Synagogue aka The Ark in Liverpool. The now abandoned building was constructed in 1936 and was used by an active congregation until 2007 when the synagogue finally closed its doors…
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Urbex: The Atlantic Ghost Fleet, France – October 2014
The Atlantic Ghost Fleet aka The Ghost Ships, I’ve wanted to explore this mothballed collection of ships for ages! I won’t be going too much into the history of these ships for now but from what I understand the fleet is still Military owned and is ultimately set to be scrapped…
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Urbex: Château P12, France – October 2014
Another old crumbling Château, Château P12 was a place we had on the map to visit based upon seeing a few older reports and photos. The place looked to have some decent contents left and some cool features…
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