RxQueen74 Urbex Adventures

 Springfield Hospital was an asylum in Tooting in London. Most of the site had been converted to apartments, using the original buildings, but the geriatric wing had stood empty for years.  I had tried here a couple of times previously with no luck when we heard on the grapevine that there was access now work had started so one sunday morning we gave it a shot. The first thing we had to tackle was an 8ft high wall, we managed to squeeze through a gap and then we had to get across what was essentially a building site.  Avoiding alarms on the scaffolding on one side of the building we scaled some ladders that the builders were kind enough to leave out and we were in.  Usually I wouldn’t speak about access but this place has now been converted. We came in via areas that had already had the conversions started and had to make our way through the maze of rooms to where we wanted to be and we weren’t disappointed.  There was three floors for us to explore that were be...

  West Park Hospital was a large Asylum in Epsom, part of the Epsom Cluster of 5 psychiatric hospitals. Located in extensive grounds full of deer that would leap out of bushes and scare the absolute shit out of you.  I used to explore here with my cousin, i took  my husband once before he was ill but he didn’t understand the attraction to urbex. This hospital was really popular within the urbex community and as you read you can probably see why. It was amazing, you could walk around the whole perimeter and there was always access to outer buildings around the back but finding a way into the main buildings was difficult.  The difficulty came from a security guard on site known to everyone in the urbex community as MC Hammer.  MC Hammer spent his days wandering around the site patching up any entry points he found with random bits of wood, whenever you came onto the site you could hear him somewhere hammering away.  He was also incredibly rude. One day when w...

If you have had a sense of humour failure or are prone to rage then it’s probably best you don’t read this. So the world of urbex is a strange one.    Not the hobby, the people in the community. Yes there’s good and bad people in every walk of life but this community is so toxic sometimes… There are many types of Urbexer - The Lone Ranger - goes about their journey on their own in their own little world, keeps themselves to themselves and don’t draw any attention. The Elite - I’m not actually sure who is elite but some think they are because they believe they find the best locations    and fly all over the world or think they do the best photography.     Ideas of grandeur. The Serious - takes the hobby very seriously, doesn’t have time for “the little people” The Brave - tackle some seriously dangerous locations with ease while the rest of us would run a mile. The Twat - believes they are the best ever, has an army of people who blow smoke up their ars...

 It’s my birthday soon, I’ll be 50 which is very old 😂.  My sister didn’t know what to buy me as a gift then she came up with the idea to get me a ticket for one of the TFL Hidden London tours and I chose Aldwych Station. Just for a bit of confusion, it was once known as Strand Station. So one Saturday me and Ella went off to London and alongside 18 others we went for a tour around the station.  We had 3 tour guides, all really nice and knowledgeable guys.   There are approximately 163 steps down to the platforms, which is fine until you have to come back up as the lift doesn’t work and neither do my elderly legs when it comes to climbing.   The old, out of service lifts are original features and the only ones on the network that still have the wood flooring.  I remember when this kind of flooring was everywhere on the underground, on the trains and escalators.  It wasn’t until the fire at Kings Cross that wood flooring was removed and replaced with ...

 Many years ago I lived in Purley, from the flat I lived in you could see the water tower and I was always curious about it not knowing that there was an old abandoned Asylum up there on the hill.  I didn’t know anyone in the area to ask and it wasn’t until I lived elsewhere and had access to the internet that I discovered the beauty that was Cane Hill. I spent many hours reading Simon Cornwell’s blog of his explores at Cane Hill and this is what really peaked my interest in Urbex.   Myself and my cousin decided to take a trip up there with her dog hoping to get in but unfortunately we were a little too late and the site was in the process of being demolished to make way for a large housing estate which is actually horrible in my opinion. So off we set, armed with my silly little point and click Canon PowerShot camera hoping we would have free run of Cane Hill. We didn’t.  There were builders everywhere and parts of the hospital were being demolished that day. Had we...

 I’ve visited here twice now, once with Ella and also with Tom.  I thought I would start the blog with this explore as it is one of my favourites.   For a bit of background information and history the house was built in the 17th Century and was formerly part of a dairy.  In the grounds of the house stands a Grade II Listed Lime Kiln.  The name given in the urbex community is The Book House because of the vast amount of books in one room in particular.  Speaking online to local residents it seems that the previous owner had many books of which there were a lot of first editions which have been saved and are in the hands of a local historian. When me and Ella visited it was a walk on, but when I went with Tom we had to slide under a heras fence which is always fun.  To get in you have to go through the basement of the house which was full of old books and magazines that were sopping wet due to the river bursting its banks during bad weather.  The sm...