Follow My Tracks

Last night, after a day in Kent, I went into town to catch up with Brad, an Urbexer and an academic that I greatly respect. We had plans to go and do something high but having both had a long week, fell into a bar in Covent Garden that one would walk past if you hadn’t fallen down the stairs and up to the bar. We drank some rather heavy cocktails and chewed the fat. Love, sex, sex, sex and then urbex were the topics of conversation. We sat with Mike, another guy from the department and eventually we experienced that horrible moment when the lights come up, you realize how drunk you and your friends are and have to decide what to do next…

Food! What does for one do for food in Central London at about 1am? Mike knew the answer – it could only be the Golden Arches. Off we headed to Tottenham Court Road and stuffed ourselves with greasy mechanically retrieved meat and chips.

We took a slightly windy route towards the food, checking to see if one or two other bars were open alas they weren’t. A crazy idea, Centre Point. No way to scale the outside but what about just walking in and going up the stairs? It was worth a go. Up the stairs and through the glass doors, to the desk at reception and mak the turn right towards the next set of doors. We were cornered by reception. Polite conversation followed. It was closed for the night but we could take the number and get on a guest list… We left.

We crossed the road towards Mc Donalds. This whole area has been torn to pieces through the building of Cross Rail and there in front of the restaurant stood a mini JCB style crane, roughly fenced off with herras. It didn’t take much suggest for the Drunken Brad to tackle the fence and scale to the roof of the cab, then shimmy up the shaft and dangle from the wire cables and then he fell, to re-appear moments later and scale back to this side of the fence. As he did so, the sirens and flashing lights appeared.

They were fast, we suspected the bouncer in Maccy Ds and  Brad found himself in the corner surrounded by three of the Mets finest, questioned and sent on his way. As we walked to the car we discussed the fact that we can climb some of the tallest buildings in the city without being noticed and even if noticed, no one cares. Yet as soon as you enter the West End there is an attempt make a public show over any offence yet the police seem not to realize that no amount of policing will stop an attack on the city we all love and it wont come from a slightly inebriated man who’s decided to climb a onto the roof of a vehicle to entertain the passers by. We will not see it coming and to criminalize the city’s inhabitants and visitors does nothing but inspire an innate distrust of the police. This experience was simply part of the circus that is the West End.

I drove Brad back to his flat in Clapham where we sat and drank tea and talked about his upcoming show. Eventually I looked at the clock – 3AM. Time to head for home. Urbex is sometimes about the small things, the people, the good times, the brutal truth, the attempts to just walk in and maybe be walked out but on the odd occasion it all comes together and just works. Some times though it is just about making an obvious stand, knowing that there will be an obvious back lash. Sometimes it’s time to make a spectacle, if only to remind people that we are there, and we’re not going away.

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.