How it all started - Cane Hill Hospital

 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 been brave enough we could have probably taken a chance over the little fence and slipped in some of the buildings but it was our first ever urbex and we had no idea what we were doing, no idea how to play cat and mouse with security guards.

We were able to walk the perimeter though, only once encountering a security guard who asked what we were up to.  Being on a public right of way there was no issues with us being there.  On our perimeter walk we found a smaller open building set away from the main ones, the pool changing rooms.  So technically we did explore Cane Hill albeit just the changing rooms 😂



I sadly once knew all the names of the wards but couldn’t tell you them now, some of the roads on the housing estate are named after the wards and some after the doctors.  

The buildings were magnificent and creepy looking especially when you knew the horrors that used to happen with the treatment of patients in these places.  People would sometimes escape and a siren would sound in the area.  I would still give my right arm to go back in time and explore this place properly.  We returned once but again we could only get in the changing rooms.  We didn’t even know about the tunnels under the hospital I would only discover those years later.

Some brief history- Cane Hill Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in Coulsdon in the London Borough of Croydon. The hospital motto was "Aversos compono animos". The hospital was built in the 1880s, but from the 1960s its use was starting to decline and it eventually closed completely in the 2000s





All that remains now is the Chapel, the Admin building and the water tower.  The Chapel has been renovated and is meant to be opening as a community centre but it never has, the water tower has been converted into flats.  The Admin building is now flats.  The whole estate has no character, it looks awful.



All photos are my own, thankfully saved and tidied up by AI enhancement.   The last photo is not mine, I borrowed it from Google.

Thanks for reading.  You can find all my explores on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/RXQueen74




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