Urbex
Model shoot in an asylum
Nov 8th
For a bit of a change, rather than just shooting empty derelict buildings, a fellow and I headed up to an asylum today with on of his friends to do a bit of a model shoot in a local asylum. A fun day, and got quite a few pics I was happy with:
A few of the pics (click to enlarge):
You can view the rest of the album in my gallery by clicking here.
As ever, comments etc welcome :)
~Shepy
Urbex: Hellingly Hospital
Oct 20th
Hellingly Asylum, or East Sussex County Mental asylum was opened in 1903, another of the asylums to be attributed to the great G.T. Hine, which is evident as soon as you look at the facade of the buildings or the brown tiling in corridors etc. Built in woodlands nearby to Hellingly in the very south of England, the asylum offered retreat and escapism from the world outside, removed entirely from its surroundings by distance, trees and its own rail and supply links to maintain independence.
Built in a compact arrow design and to the fashion of the time the hospital is a sprawling collection of buildings most of which boast stunning exteriors, rooms impressively lit through massive windows which offer stunning vista’s beyond the grounds and what would have been quite the impressive main hall.
1994 saw the closure of the site, like many other asylums in the UK closed in the 1990′s amid sweeping change in the mental care industry, then changed to favour the ‘Care In The Community’ approach to treatment and support.
Sadly the years have not been kind to it and the site is a battered and broken shell of its former self, suffering several arson attacks in the 15 years since its closure and recently a spate of graffiti sadly there isn’t a huge lot left to see at the site, even the great hall has gaping holes in the floor offering to deposit anyone not being careful swiftly into the cellar below.
On with the pictures:
Discarded vacuum in the corridor at Hellingly Hospital
Treatment chair at Hellingly Hospital
Rotting bathroom at Hellingly Hospital
The rest of the album can be seen in my gallery by clicking here
~Shepy
Urbex: Wallsend Borough Theatre
May 5th
The Wallsend Borough Theatre opened in 1910, designed and built by J Fleming Davidson & C D James and became Wallsend’s main theatre following the Corned Beef Tin theatre being burned down some 4 years previous. An operating box at the rear of the circle was installed in 1911 making this capable of being both a theatre for live shows, but also a cinema.
Initially operating as a true theatre, enjoying many performances from the local boy Stan Laurel prior to his eventual fame in Hollywood, the building later moved over to primarily film based shows rather than live events.
The Gaumont chain of cinemas acquired the site in 1946 and operated it as a cinema for 14 years before it closed in 1960. Although rumours were afoot that the building would be converted into a bingo, as is often the case with old cinemas after closure, this was never to happen. The lower level of the front of the theatre was converted to an amusement arcade, and still sits with many machines in the foyer from this period of its life. Some of the upper rooms were converted to a recording studio which operated under the name Impulse Studios.
Impulse saw some passing flashes of fame, being known to be partially used by Lindisfarne for recording some of their work, as well as being the primary location for recording of the Geordie Aid album, Newcastle’s answer to Band Aid. Geordie Aid had such well known performers as John Miles, Olga (Toy Dolls), Brian Johnson (AC/DC), actor Tim Healy of Aufedersein Pet fame. Other notable recordings made at the studios were Bare Faced Cheek album by the Toy Dolls, Wiped Out album by Raven and Venom’s debut single In League With Satan.
In 2005 the amusement arcade went bust, and the building was closed entirely, laying rotting ever since. Much of the interior exists in its original state, though sadly a suspended ceiling has meant many holes have been drilled into the original plaster for suspension wires which could possibly cause problems with having it listed in the future.
The main staircase customers would have used
An abandoned safe in Wallsend Borough Theatre
Looking down from the upper circle at Wallsend Borough Theatre
The rest of the album can be seen in my gallery by clicking here.
~Shepy
Urbex: Inverkip Power Station
May 3rd
Inverkip Power Station is located on the east coast of Scotland at the Firth of Clyde, near to the town of Inverkip with which it shares a name. Construction of the site began in 1970 and ran to an estimated cost of £200 million, aiming for production of 1,900 MW of electricity. Destined to be Scotland’s first oil powered station, it was sadly fated to failure when the oil market crashed in 1973 and the price of oil per barrel quadrupled in 12 months.
The site occupies some 50 acres on the shore line, a location chosen for the ability to use the sea water for cooling rather than building massive cooling towers. The site does boast an impressive chimney however, standing at 778ft is the third tallest in the UK and Scotland’s tallest freestanding structure.
The station spend its life operating only as a reserve station, running at 700MW output as support for peak demand, with the remaining 1,200 being mothballed, with the sole exception of the 1984 miner’s strikes creating the need for non-coal powered stations to be used more extensively. The site was mothballed entirely in January 1988, though it was still maintained with regular inspections and work to keep it in a state whereby it could be brought online if the need arose. Dehumidifiers have been in operation at the plant since its closure ensuring that equipment is kept dry and serviceable, though monitoring the various pictures from urban explorers visiting the power station; some pieces of equipment have been removed likely leaving the plant in a non-serviceable state.
Talks have begun as to what should happen to the site in more recent years, and it had been suggested that the site would be entirely cleared by spring 2009 to make way for housing, though this has not gone ahead thus far as the power station is still standing at the time of writing.
Adjustment dials at Inverkip Power Station
One of the turbines at Inverkip Power Station
Oil tanker discarded at Inverkip Power Station
The rest of the album can be seen in my gallery by clicking here.
~Shepy
Urbex: North Wales Hospital (Denbigh Asylum)
Apr 25th
Being the first lunatic asylum in Wales, the North Wales Hospital (Denbigh Asylum) was built between 1844 and its opening in 1848. The need for the asylum had been of pressing importance, as with no formal mental facilities in Wales there was a severe lacking in sufficient care for mental patients of welsh origin and more importantly, welsh only speakers. The location of the site was decided by the donation of some 20 acres by an anonymous benefactor, who later was revealed to be Joseph Ablett, and further donations from royals and others helped to fund the project throughout the building phase.
Initially the hospital could only house 200 patients, though through pressure of over crowding and numerous expansions the final capacity was 1,500 all of whom would be supported by 1,000 staff, many of whom were from the nearby Denbigh itself.
Denbigh has the unfortunate fame of being one of the main hospitals visited by Enoch Powell in 1960 prior to his notorious Water Tower speech the following year, which marked the beginning of the end for the asylum as mental health moved away from lunatic asylums and more towards care in the community.
Due to the size and population of the hospital a 10 year plan was put in place in 1987 for the closure, and various parts of the hospital were closed in stages up until 2002, though the main building was closed in 1995.
The buildings are Grade II listed and were further placed under the protection of the Phoenix Trust by Prince Charles in 2004 to prevent their demolition. Although there are plans to convert the site into housing, parts of this development have been brought into question after suspicious fires were started in the great ballroom of the asylum in November 2008.
Corridor in Denbigh Asylum
Looking down through a broken window
Scales at the abandoned Denbigh Asylum
The rest of the album can be seen in my gallery by clicking here.
~Shepy
Interview with Photographer magazine
Mar 12th
I was recently contacted by Photographer magazine of Ukraine (not a lot of point in clicking as it is in cyrillic) magainze and asked if i would do an article on Urbex and HDR, which i agreed to do.
As the magazine wont be in english print, unless the article gets syndicated to one of their sister magazines, I thought I would share the questions and answers here, and the pics that were requested for print.
Urbex: Kenton War Bunker
Mar 9th
The official name for this location being the “Kenton Bar, 13 Group Fighter Command Headquarters”, the location of which first chosen in September 1939 due to its near central location in the 13 Group coverage area. It took approximately 3 months to construct the underground complex below the existing above ground installation, and a further 3 months to fully kit and supply it. With the influx of radar and other field information most command rooms had a secondary filter room that would collate and filter down all of the information to provide an accurate and concise picture of the current situation to the group headquarters. Unlike some other group command headquarters, Group 13, Kenton did this by building an entirely separate installation about a half mile from the main site known as the Blakelaw Filter Room, so the site at Kenton is purely a command headquarters.
Instrumental in defending Newcastle during the war, this bunker situated 20 feet underground on the outskirts of Newcastle was commanded by Air Vice Marshall Richard Saul and managed to stave off a massive attack by the Luftwaffe, so successfully that such an attack was never mounted again, securing its place in the history books as vital in the Battle Of Britain.
During the Battle Of Britain, Germans wrongly thought that 13 Group (North of Humber, Northern Ireland and All Scotland, commanded from Kenton) had little to no fighters in operation as they had sent too many backup resources to assist 11 Group (South East England). Working on this assumption they thought any attack on Scotland would go largely unscathed and duly dispatched a bombing fleet, on Thursday, 15th August 1940.
At noon on the 15th in inbound squadron of Heinkel bombers of Kampfgeschwader 26 and the Messerschmitt 110 fighters of Zerstorergeschwader 76 were detected over the north sea, and Air Vice Marshal Saul found himself with immediate use of three squadrons of Spitfires, one squadron of Hurricanes and one squadron of Blenheims in his two Northern England sectors. Normally he would have had a further 8 squadrons at his disposal, but at the time he had four and a half squadrons in Northern Ireland, the Shetlands and the extreme north of Scotland, too far away to be put into use. All he had left to rely on were 2 and a half squadrons of Hurricanes near the Firth of Forth, and a squadron of Defiants which were currently near Glasgow on the Clyde. The Blenheims being no match for long range fighters, and the Defiants having suffered great losses in their last encounter with the Luftwaffe and had at least 100 miles to go to reach any of the likely targets of the incoming wave of attack left Air Vice Marshall Saul at a great disadvantage.
Sending out one local squadron to intercept the incoming attack, and bringing down a squadron of Hurricanes from the Firth of Forth to patrol Tyneside, a previously almost unprecedented manoeuvre, he put his plans into motion. As the threat became closer he launched a further three immediately available squadrons, leaving only the Defiants at the Clyde, the other squadron and a half of Hurricanes at the Firth of Forth and his local squadron of Belnheims as backup. The first squadron sighted the enemy aircraft approximately 30 miles off shore, the Germans outnumbering them 10 to 1, flying in three formations formed by bombers in the first formation and fighters in the second two.
Bewildered by the sheer number of aircraft he and his small squadron was facing, Flight Lieutenant Graham had to be asked if he had spotted the aircraft due to him not reacting to the sighting, to which he replied “Of course I’ve seen the b-b-b-bastards; I’m trying to w-w-w-work out what to do.” After this brief hesitation taking advantage of his 3,000 ft elevation above the incoming attack he commanded each pilot to pick a target and to attack in a diving attack from their up-sun position. This resulted in 2/3 of the pilots attacking the bombers directly, while the others came at the following fighters.
This counter attack initially had the effect of causing the bombers to form into the usual defensive circle whilst jettisoning their secondary fuel tank, before splitting into two formations both of which flanked by their own fighter support. One of these formations headed for Tyneside, the second heading to the aerodromes at Linton on Ouse and Dishforth.
The first formation headed for Tyneside where they were intercepted by the second of the North East squadrons, with support from the Hurricanes from the Firth of Forth and the ground to air Tyneside gun till the Germans ended up dropping most of their bombs in the sea long before landfall.
The second formation, engaged by the other two North East squadrons and the Tees guns dropped theirs closer to shore near Sunderland and Seham Harbour but still failed to cause any significant damage, and almost ineffective to military targets they would have been aiming for.
These squadrons were so successful in holding back the attack that Air Vice Marshall Saul was even able to loan his final local squadron of Blenheims to the 12 Group on his southern flank! By the end of the encounter eight Heinkel bombers and seven Messerschmitt 110s had been destroyed, the rest of the fleet had turned back and not a single casualty of the fighters under Air Vice Marshall Saul had been suffered.
As well as the command centre for this impressive battle, 13 Group was also used as a handy rest and training site, as its far north position meant that pilots could serve time here with much less chance of getting shot down in duty.
13 Group was disbanded on the 20th May 1946, and the the Kenton Bar war bunker was marked as surplus to requirements in 1947, and at this time a lot of the above ground installation was levelled.
The underground installation was however pressed into further use as a regional war room for the growing fears of the Cold War, unusual in its use by the fact that it was a re-used previous installation, where as other regional war rooms were purpose built. The main reason for this re-use was the layout of the bunker at Kenton already complied very nicely with the requirements for a two tiered map room with observation gallery, which can be seen in this painting of the room in use.
Kenton War Bunker Painting
The increasing threat of nuclear war meant that central government with regional war rooms were feared to be ineffective due to break down in communications in the event of a nuclear strike, so the replacement of this system with autonomous regional seats of government led to the closure of the bunker sometime around 1960 as it could not provide for the expansion needed to hold the new staff required by this new decentralised structure of defence.
Kenton War Bunker - Viewing Gallery
Kenton War Bunker - Backup Batteries
Kenton War Bunker - Switch Gear
The rest of the album can be seen in my gallery by clicking here.
~Shepy
Urbex: Huddersfield Fine Worsted
Mar 1st
In 1909 Broadhead & Graves purchased the Mill at Kirkheaton and rapidly developed a successful business establishing a reputation for manufacturing superfine worsteds and especially for milled and semi-milled qualities
H.R.H. The Duke of York visited the mill in 1932 at which time he was presented with some lengths of cloth and six years later, as King of England, he ordered a further three suit lengths from the mill.
King George and Queen Mary visited the mill in 1919 and in 1949 the mill was again honoured by a royal visit, this time by Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh. By this time the mill had established a superlative reputation for their fine worsteds and their products were sought after by buyers throughout the world.
Disaster struck the mill when there was a serious fire at the site in 1964. Over fifty firemen were needed to tackle the blaze but they could not prevent the collapse of the roof of the building or the destruction of pattern and design records from the mill’s early days.
Production recovered after the fire and continued at the site until a very questionable closing of the site in February 2005, despite ample profit margins, stock levels and orders on the books. The site was once again hit by fire in April of 2008 after arsonists piled up cloth and materials and set fire to them.
Huddersfield Fine Worsted - Pipework
Huddersfield Fine Worsted - Radio and racks
Huddersfield Fine Worsted - Back through the racks
The complete album can be viewed in my gallery by clicking here.
~Shepy
Urbex: Tyne Marshalling Yard
Feb 28th
There isn’t a whole lot I can tell you about this place, other than the fact that it opened in 1963. I can’t even seem to find any information about when it closed, though I have sent mails to a few local rail enthusiast clubs so if I get anything back I will update this post later.
Basically though the explore is for the workshop and control tower for the Tyne Marshalling Yard. A marshalling yard is a section of a railway with many separate lines spread out over a small area, controlled from one main point (the marshalling tower) in which they can be sorted, re-arranged and basically worked into the correct order to go back out onto the line to be sent to their destination.
Tyne Marshalling Yard - Close up of lathe
Tyne Marshalling Yard - Looking down the workshop
Tyne Marshalling Yard - Control desk two
The complete album can be viewed in my gallery by clicking here.
~Shepy
Urbex: Cerebos Salt
Feb 27th
Started in 1894 as a salt works, after an accidental discovery of a 100m thick salt seam at 1300m depth while nearby Bolckow Vaughan & Co were drilling for water to supply their Vulcan works, the site at Greatham produced salt for just over 75 years.
Initially starting life as the Greatham Salt and Brine Company, it was soon bought out in 1903 by Cerebos, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rank-Hovis McDougall. Primarily the site was used to produce salt for consumption rather than chemical or industrial use.
This however didn’t prevent the site being a target for bombing missions during the Second World War, often causing the people of nearby Greatham to be herded into Greatham Hall bomb shelters. The site was hit by two or three high explosive devices on the night of the 7th of July 1942, causing extensive damage to the south end of the site.
In 1966 the Sharwood brand, also part of Rank-Hovis McDougall, started taking over parts of the site for curry and chutney production as the salt production output decreased. Ramping up to include soups and paste spreads a year later, increasingly the production of the site moved more to other foodstuffs apart from salt, until in 1971 the last remaining brine pump at the site was decommissioned and the site ceased salt output. By 1968 RHM had taken over the site entirely and had many of their brands such as Bisto, Atora, Capri-Sun and others rolling off the production lines at the site. At its peak the site was employing up to 1,000 people on site at any one time.
By 2002 production of some of the brands had slumped due to lack of consumer demand, and the already dwindling staff of 176 people by that point was finally laid off and the site closed so that the company could focus production at their plant near Manchester.
Initially there was some interest in renovating the site into a modern office complex, but its remote location and the fact that the adjacent Greatham rail station had closed in the 1980′s meant that interest was not fruitful, and the site has remained derelict ever since. The site has seen some use for police training and is adjacent to an active signal box so there is still regular activity around the site.
Cerebos Salt - Conveyor track
Cerebos Salt - Boiler room
Cerebos Salt - Array of boiling pots
The complete album can be viewed in my gallery by clicking here
~Shepy