Follow My Tracks

This weekend had been odd. I had found myself looking for things to do up North and stumbled across a report for a place that I hadn’t been to near Leeds. I had the urge to expand out and venture further afield. Plans are coming together for another trip to Urbex.EU but I cant afford to be there every weekend as I might like, there is so much there and yet I feel I haven’t properly tapped what this country has to offer. The UK doesn’t stop at the borders to the South East.

So I loaded the car and headed to Adel. The route seemed familiar. As I approached the site I realized why. I had been there before. The recent reports had made the site seem so different and open that I hadn’t spotted it. Last time I had been seen off by a resident on the other side of the site and walked off by a security gaurd who had appeared out of nowhere. The site had a lot of media exposure and so was periodically secured. A glance at the heavy metal shutters told me that I wasnt going to get in. It was odd to retrace old steps.

The next day would be no better. I had arranged to meet Jon’s parents. A friend who’s been dead for some years now and I was hit with the sudden realisation of how time had rushed past left me feeling odd. I was meeting David later in the afternoon and headed to Steetly. There’s no way to fail here and yet I remembered this as one of my early explores where I eagerly scrambled over the crumbled concrete. I walked now around the site, knowing what was where in the ruins and looking at what had changed, more of the site collapsing in on itself, more rubbish stacking in piles or filling the giant basins that had been sunk into the earth.

More can be learnt of our values from what we discard than what we hoard in our homes and Steetly now stands as a monument to our idea of the disposable and the dispensable. Everything from toys, mattresses and soiled nappies litter the dirt. The site itself half demolished and plans for its redevelopment forever stalling. A show of a clean up was made before I had ever stepped foot in the place and had not progressed further since. I took the few photos that I wanted to. No need now to snap a thousand images away. A select five or six and I was done. I walked back to the car, the sun beating down on the broken stone and the dust whipped up by the odd gust of wind. I had no need to come back here again. I drove away…

Taking advantage of a warm summers night I went to the local playground that La Porte was becoming. I picked my way across a different section of the waste grounds that surrond the tin structure, gazing in through some tumble-down, slate roof buildings, but I had come out to do some macro work and so didn’t want to wander too far in.

I enetered down the creaking, dusty steps of the refinery, the dust falling to the floor sounding like whispers from under the stairs. The inside was bathed in a golden afternoon light that gave the place a surreal dreamy feel, but one that could quickly turn to nightmare as the darkness flooded out from the corners as the sun retreated over the horizon.

I crept into a new part of the site that I had missed last time and side by side in two wire cages stood great metal beasts. Their small black eyes narrowed on me and they stood perfectly still though holes in the wire made it look as if they had grown arms and tried to force themselves free. I wanted to photograph them quick before they moved but my macro would not do them justice. I tip-toed away.

There are a lot of tiny details that are deserving of attention and tonight was just the tip of the iceberg.

TTFN

Another weekend and another house full of guests. Mark and Spadge had arrived last night and we had um-ed and ah-ed about what to do with a day that was set to be pretty nice all told. Kent was high on the agenda. Not only did it have a lot to offer in terms of its variety but from South London, we could get to most of the sites that we wanted to hit up in very little time. Hawkhurst had two sites nearby that we decided to look at.

Babies Castle

Built in 1886 this was the largest children’s home built by Dr Bernado. Nicknamed ‘Babies Castle’ for its turreted appearance, it had 9 key principles:

1. No destitute child refused

2. No Race Barrier

3. No Creed Clause

4. No Physical Disability

5. No Age Limit

6. No Money Promise

7. No Voting

8. No Waiting

9. No Red Tape

A more detailed history of the site and its eventually closure can be found HERE

We slipped through the leaning herras and looked around the site. It was tumble down. Slipping in through an empty window frame we walked our way through the ground floor of the site. The building had been trashed, in total contrast to some of the earlier reports I had seen on the site. We moved quickly through the damp and moldy place that was slowly filling with furniture and a double garage door of all things. There was little here to photograph and the most interesting photos were to be found in the items that lay scattered around the grounds. The upstairs was equally in a state of ruin with swathes of the floorboards missing and gaping wholes in the floor. We walked as far as we could and then made our way back to the car.

Lillesden Girls School

This gorgeous red brick building stands at the other end of Hawkhurst. It stands in what is left of an old country estate. We avoided the obvious way in through the front garden of what would have been a grounds keepers cottage and went in round the back. Entering the building was not a hard thing to do, the house stands open to the elements and to the passing explorers. The house has had a large amount of its slate roof removed and the elements had started to take their toll on the place before the developers erected a tin roof over the building. It still stands in a series of stunning terraced lawns with well cultured trees and wild roses that clamber up the brick walls.

The main sections of the house are held up by temporary poles where great load bearing pillars had been knocked away. They lay in pieces across the floor. These combined with a great mirror set below a huge dome gave the place the feeling of some great temple that had fallen into ruin. Some great magical place that still commanded the demons below or the gods above.

We toured the building from the basement to the roof and the outer wooden buildings that had been built to house the school as it had expanded. Spiders had set in and great webs were strung from corner to corner and a broken fume cabinet made an excellent breeding ground.

Finally we made a stop by the outside swimming pool that had become a huge pond for skaters and water fleas. The feeling set in where we felt that we had seen what we had come to see and and were starting to outstay our welcome. We were sure we had seen someone walking amongst the trees on the lower lawn and a rose bush had drawn blood across the back of my leg. The gods were appeased for our trespass. Packing away we left.

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.