Follow My Tracks

So Fridays – the day of the week that during term time is taken up with study and class and time spent in dark rooms with my hand immersed in chemicals. But now term is over and there are many long Fridays that lay ahead. A few of them are already behind and have been spend doing some constructive things (like sleeping) and slightly less constructive things (they’re too rude to type). But today I got up and felt that I had to achieve something greater. I don’t usually explore on my own but Leybourne Grange by all accounts was a low key place and doable on a day on ones own.

A foot path leads you to the site and after looking left, the right, then left again, I was over the fence and into the woods. The impressive thing about the grange it its scale, not in style or interest but the site’s vast size. It is a series of villas connected by a long looping drive all around the site. It is situated so close to the motorway that I am surprised that you cannot hear the traffic roaring past. There is only silence broken by birds in these woods… Or so I thought.

I made my way through a few of the outter buildings, taking my time yet aware of the fact that I was on my own, more or less in the middle of nowhere, and then breaking the silence was a crack. A gun shot? I couldn’t place the sound. I ignored it and went back to poking my nose into dark rooms. There it was again… I had finished in the building I was in and took a wonder in the direction I believed the manor house to be in. It should be noted that there is a girls school on site, on the other side of the site even, but when parents collect their children the drive out takes them right past the manor house. I crept round the outter drive to the long avenued pathway, lined with tall pine trees that I know would lead me up to the manor. I kept behind a line of trees but about half way up one has to dart across the path to keep the cover. As I did, I looked up and there was a person in hi-vis with a white hard hat and others walking around the site.I had been told that the building had been covered in scaff and yet I saw none – maybe this explained the cracks… Maybe not.

As I drew closer, still in cover, I could see that the manor was a hive of activity and the cars full of children had started to drive past. Damn. This would not be happening today. I packed up as quietly as I could and made my way back to where I had come in, leapt the fence and went back to the car. I had wanted to see the manor but there would be other, quieter days. As I walked I thought more on something that had occurred to me as I had crept along the tree lined avenue. It had reminded me of the stately homes my parents had dragged me to as a child on our holidays to Kent. Overgrown yes, but still holding something of its former grandness.

The manor house is a grand place and the grounds are vast and then it occurred to me, if history had been a little different, if this had remained the grand house full of treasure and not a hospital for those that society considered unsightly, then it may well have become somewhere that the National Trust might have taken on. What do organizations like the NT and English Heritage do but take the things we love, history, preservation, dusty objects, and the love of being able to have a nose in whats left of how others have lived, and present it to the masses? What makes urbex different? When asked we take the moral high ground on our activities, we go to document, experience and aid in preservation through our photos and yet most shudder at the idea of going to a stately home. Are they not the same?

What’s the difference? There are two main ones that I can see. One is that visitng museums, stately homes, castles is  socially acceptable, and whether we like to admit it or not, we like to separate ourselves from that mainstream of society through our activities, to be given odd looks and know that other people don’t quite know what to think of us or where to place us. We can get permission to walk round the stately homes, you pay a fee and walk freely. There is no rush. So we are adrenaline junkies, hooked on a ‘sport’ just like every climber, caver or other person that dares to think beyond the end of their road. Many explorers shun organizations like Sub Brit who cross those interesting lines of taking people places that few people would ever think to go to or know exist and yet they do so with permission… Why? Because we feel it’s conformist, stifled and again removes the thrill of making your way into a site where you know you might get caught.

The other difference is urbex is dirty. We like the filth, the mud, dust and cobwebs that slowly cover the sites we see. A museum, whilst it’s aims in part may be similar to our own and we use them to justify what we do, is a clean, near sterile place that separates us from our past and objects from history. We like to touch, to feel and experience the tactile like a child with its fingers covered in paint. There is something child like in coming home covered in dirt and scratches, knowing you have been somewhere naughty and got away with it.

An empty house tucked away in the forest promised a good day out. It is commonly known as Potters Mansion and relativly little seems to be known about the people that once lived in such a grand setting in the Sussex Countryside.

My dear Rikke has done a bit of a search and come up with the following:

“The history
Potters Manor House was built in 1904 by the classical architect Hugh Jokin. It nestles well hidden near the village of Nevertell just off the A40999 in Hampnex. The last inhabitants were a family of artisans and potters and for some reason, that we will probably never know, left the house with all its contents including many paintings and full wardrobes of clothes.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Orchid-…/dp/0903554003

Possibly more history
I’ve done a bit of googling, and think I might have found out more about the people living in this magnificent house. Spread around the house are sketches, layouts and even early prints of the book “A book of Orchid Paintings” by James F. Walford. That name seems to be appearing several places, so I googled him and wow, looks like he actually had his book printed:

Furthermore I found some family history. James Francis Walford y de Borbón was born in 1913 at Paris, France. He is the son of Leopold Walford and Cristina de Borbón y de Muguiro, Duquesa de Marchena. He married Muriel Whitley (born 1906) in 1957 at London, England. I think this might be the right James F. Walford, as there are loads of French books spread around the house – matching the fact he is born in Paris and of a French family.”

A mere 90 minutes from the front door, but suprisingly hard to pin point. I overshot the first attempt to find it by about two miles, but a short trip up the road, skirt the edge of one field and we stood there infront of the house.

It at first doesn’t look that big but once you clamber over the pile of rubble and are through the front door the size of the place hits you. It is a warren of old, overgrown rooms, filled with paintings with eyes that follow you through the house.

Pieces of pottery and china lay scattered along side empty drinks bottles. Holes have started to appear in the floor and the damp and mould is well set in. A great many books lay in piles around the house and hint at the lives of the former residents. I can find hundreds of art post cards but not a single photogragph. Are these portraits of the people that used to live here that lay around the room? The lay in odd places and their eyes follow you as you walk around, unable to do anything to prevent the decay, you feel as if they should scream and tear themselves from the canvas in an attempt to save their home and see us off.

A broken record player stands crooked in the sitting room, a leg is broken, the arm extends, feeling for the music that isn’t there – equally banished to a silent existence. Exploration is about the silence, the quietness that is only broken by footsteps. We arrive and leave in silence and this is maintained through our stay less we are caught and here even in such deep countryside, we are cautious about breaking the peace that has fallen over the house.

In a bedroom we find objects that hint at the woman who may have left here, loosing her hair, clining to the past and now unable to see her favourite artworks in person, has nothing but the post cards that hint of neither texture or brushstroke. Her house would have started to crumble around her. The luxurey in which she and her family had once lived had turned to ruin and imprisoned her.

We photograph the remains of lives and of times that are more than forgotten. Not all exploration is a look at epic buildings. The Potters Mansion is an intimate look at scraps. It is more detailed and colourful than a great turbine hall and tells a more personal story. It is more voyeristic. The owners are long since dead and we now rifle through their home.

I photographed, always aware that this was a very personal trespass and yet I could not stop myself. The grey clouds rolled in across the blue sky and darkness drew in. It was time to leave.

It is good to know that behind the bitching of forums, the close-to-chest kept secret locations and access of sites, the elitist bullshit, attention seeking, press whoring front of the Urbex community, there are a solid group of ordinary people who live ordinary lives and do not allow themselves to be defined by a single aspect of the short time we spend on this sun warmed rock.

Rikke and her partner, Pete have my utmost gratitude and thanks for putting me up for the night, a complete stranger but for a name on a forum, cooking me a fab dinner (ZOOOMYYYGOD Home Made Burgers!!!!) and providing me somewhere warm to sleep that was not a floor. They make doubly great hosts in the sense that their beautiful home is in a converted shoe factory and as one walks up the steps to the front door, the stair well is lined with these awesome images of the factory prior to closing. Men and women at work, carefully crafting pieces of leather and cloth.

I lived in Milton Keynes for 13 years before I had really found photography and Urban Exploration so whilst I know the area around MK and Northampton in the sense of a long left resident, I was not aware of the wealth of things to climb over, into and through. Today we planned to just scratch the surface.

Brigstock POW Camp

Picking up Wee Chris, we made our way to Brigstock POW camp. A potted history (painstakingly researched by my host):

“Brigstock Camp built 1925 and over the years was used for an Emigration Camp, an Army Camp, ATS and Land Army Camp, US Army Training School, and in 1960 Stewarts & Lloyds Steelworks purchased Brigstock Camp for £23,000 at an auction. One hundred people moved from Scotland to work at the Steelworks and used Brigstock Camp for their living quarters and paid between £2.00 to £4.00 a week in rent and were allowed to stay up to nine months to allow them to find suitable accommodation. Many did so in the new expanding Corby.”

Today it is a dramatic shell of what is described about, hidden away behind tall hedges in a farmers field, rooms lay overgrown with knot weed, and shot gun cartridges are strewn everywhere. It has a lot of faded signs and peeling paint and we spend a few hours wondering across the entire site, poking heads through every door and testing out the sagging, rotten floor boards with our weight. Once certain we had done every building but for the pill box tucked away across a farmers field we popped back to the car.

We stopped into McDonalds for a swift filthy lunch and to collect a new explorer. Enter Michelle Stage Right

St. Crispin’s Asylum

This place is totally stripped and yet it still holds the feel of an asylum. We walked through the last few remaining blocks that were fenced within the large redevelopment of the site, in all sides new houses and flats and a select few converted blocks. I’m assured that the site has stood like this for some time and the more I look at whats left, it’s evident that they had started to convert the blocks that were left, installing new sash windows and taking the insides back to the brick and then suddenly stopped. Ran out of money? Probably.

We bumped into a small group of kids, we quizzed them as much as they did us and yet one of them (the only one who didn’t have a smouldering cancer stick in his hand) was desperately trying to convince us that he didn’t want to damage anything, he just liked the history (his favourite subject at school) and the feel of the place. They didn’t look much older than 12, too young to be smoking, but in a place where none of us should have been it was not time to be picky about or preachy about the poorly made choices of youth.

As we continued round the site, I spied adults and hid. How I suddenly felt as naughty as the child smoking a cheeky fag on the wrong side of the fence, and yet wasn’t this partly the reason I was here? They must have heard us as soon their heads popped round a door frame. The usual questions.

Why are you here?

Taking Pictures…

Who were they? We got an answer we hadn’t expected. Plain clothes pigs. A flash of a warrant card confirms it. As ever with the fuzz there seems to be an attitude imbalance but after brief and open discussion we agreed to continue to take our pictures and be swiftly on our way without taking ‘the piss’.

You do know you’re technically trespassing?

A pause on my part… how to best answer this one. Eventually, honestly, “Yes”.

Oh, fine then, just be careful incase the locals call Uniform.

We walked our way through the next block around a pit that had been dig for underground parking and then slowly filled with water. The kitchen was identifiable only by it’s tiled walls and the main hall had been gutted by fire. It’s inside scaffolded from floor to the rafters but the lower boards had been removed and recently been stacked outside, probably due to recent arson attempts on the place.

I danced across the lower poles to look through the projector holes. Inside the small room there were two full projectors but also light behind them. You must be able to get in? Surely? You could. We walked out round the hall to the front and there, the two tall blue doors that had kept the room sealed for long enough that the projectors were still there, were ajar. We quickly worked in the room and closed the doors firmly behind us. To see two old projectors sat there… i almost wanted to carry them away else they be destroyed by the chavs, but I didn’t. The past has to crumble and fade. Even the photos we take become lost and damaged over time. They are a vain attempt to preserve fleeting moments of dying worlds.

Exit Michelle Stage Left

Pianoforte Factory – Roade

Hisotry (lifted from www.contaminationzone.com):

“The sprawling industrial site of Pianoforte lies on the edge of the small rural village of Roade in the heartland of Northamptonshire.

In 1910 a London floor polishing paste firm known as J. Masters&Co began the manufacture of polishing paste on a site nearby the railway tracks along the small village train station.

J. Masters&Co closed after only 12 years in business and was purchased by a former employee, C.T Cripps. In 1923 Cripps founded ‘Pianoforte supplies Ltd’ which was dedicated to the production of castings and fixtures for Piano manufacturers and also successfully produced large quantities of fixture parts for automobiles.

In 1933 the factory suffered from severe fire damage and was rebuilt later that year.

During WWII the factory went into full time production creating spare vehicle and aircraft parts as part of a contribution to the war effort in Britain.

Later during the 1960’s employment peaked with the factory employing just over 1,800 workers, this success was however short lived and when the railway station of Roade was closed in 1964 Pianoforte began a slow journey into gradual decline.

In 1980 the factory ceased to production of piano parts altogether.

Areas of the site to date still remain active, employing an average of 400 workers on car-parts production lines which produce plastic and metal components for car brands such as Vauxhall.

Piles of ferrous metal adorn the walls in the old piano workshops and old workers aprons hang from the production walls in the long abandoned factory as if still waiting in hope for work here to resume.

A company that was once reputed for its excellent care of staff and spacious canteen now bears witness every day at noon to a single file of grim looking workers piled out before the factory’s seat-less front gated area, all huddled together savouring one last cigarette drag before returning to their shifts.”

This place was a gem and I am very grateful for Rikke for showing me the way in and out. Entire rooms lay scattered with the remnants of a huge industry. We crept about and photographed a little but Urbex fatigue was starting to set in and I had the long drive home ahead. We made it a short trip and headed back the Shoe Factory. Sweaty, dirty and tired I collected my things and said goodbye to  my hosts.

It rained all day. Not a summer shower or a dramatic thunderstorm, but grey sheet rain that soaked everything and was cold on the skin. I sat at my desk in the hope that it would brighten up by the time six o’clock came around. And then it did. Jonboy met me after work and we bombed it down to Kent in the warm glow of the evening. Richborough power station stood there, unmoving and uncaring about the two small, fleshy beings that wanted to have a poke around.

Access was easy once we had avoided a rather deep, scummy, trench. I could not keep my feet dry. We had been told that there was sec on site and had seen hi-vis in the hut by the gate as we drove past, but after a few moments, it became apparent that we were the only ones there. We were undisturbed through our visit, apart from a few large birds that appeared to be nesting in the chimney, kestrels maybe? A reason that might prevent further demolition of the site.

In contrast to Thorpe Marsh, a power station of similar style and design, the flood gates to the cooling towers remained closed and water sat several feet deep in their bottom. What lived beneath its dark surface? Did I fancy a swim to find out? No. Several of the shed were firmly secured as were the buildings that lay at one end of the skeletal turbine room. On a casual trip like tonight, climbing and crawling were off. This was a relaxed summers night out where I sought nothing but the sheer enjoyment of a place and not the usual adrenaline rush.

Too often I feel that unless the site is somewhere you have visited several times, we rush to explore as much of it as possible and do not take the time to simply sit in a place. The high octane fuelled explores such as Battersea or The Underground provide a very different type of experience, one which is altogether more wired and passes in something of a blur that even on contemplative reflection, is hard to slow down and digest, it simply happened. Explores like Thorpe Marsh, Steetly or Richborough do not try and rush you through like some cheap attraction, rather they allow you the time and the space to potter about, sit for a while and soak up a place. On this warm summer night that’s what we did. Small details, an empty cable drum, gain much greater attention with a little more time.

We looped the site, avoiding the live substation and cameras the other side of a sharp looking palisade fence, taking time to speak and to photograph and then we left the way we had come, both feeling like summer had finally fully bloomed and that these were a taste of the fruits of long evenings to come. We sat on a kerb to de-kit and pack away, watched the last of the deep red sun fall below the horizon and left the way we had come

Richborough like all places of industry that have been brought to their knees, partially demolished and forgotten in this country, still has that atmosphere of power, and a refusal to be completely erased, but a sadness too. It is tucked away into a corner of Kent, and careful tree planting means that close passing motorists probably do not realised it is there until its several miles away, eyes distracted more with the harsh lights of the subway attached to the petrol station than the giant structures that by the time we left lay in near darkness but for the red lights that marked their location for passing aircraft.

I stood under the shelter of the entrance to Epsom station waiting for Winchester to arrive. It was grey, cold and the drizzle added to the gloom of the place. Epsom felt like the end of the world. I had trudged to Mac Donalds and had a double cheese burger to pass the time and get into the warm but found myself back in the grey, waiting.

Winchester arrived and saved my from the locals and we headed towards the hospital. We parked up in the usual spot and wondered over the road. I was a bit jumpy – this would turn out to be my first successful trip in and the last time i had been in particular, the security guard had swooped down on me in mere moments.

Anyway we walked around looking for some mythical propped shut door near a staircase without success. Padded around the grounds a bit and then found a broken window into the corridors. Do we go in? We had nothing to loose but the corridors are the place where you are most likely to get caught. Now it was a case of trying doors into blocks to find one that was open… Eventually we did – and we were in.

There were some amazingly rotten floors, but following the beams and being a bit daring paid off. We had stumbled into the block with the padded cell (Dartford and Denton) and the store room in which the clothes of patients still hung.

On with the pics…

There are more pics in the gallery.