Springfield Hospital explore

 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 beautiful in their decay.  I had been in here once when it was in use visiting somebody so it was interesting to see it like this in comparison to my memories of this place.  I remember the hallways being lined with chairs and the patients sat in them in varying states of distress or a world of their own.  I don’t remember ever seeing the person I was visiting in their ward. Was it a place a child should have been taken to visit someone? Probably not.

Even though there was only three floors they were really large with lots of rooms off of very long corridors. As you can see in the picture there were areas marked off for the conversions, looking at them set out they seemed really small for a huge price tag.  

Imagine our surprise when we found some dismantled beds in a corridor, so we did what any self respecting explorer would do and we set the beds up, found some mattresses (some had restraints on them) , a few chairs and a privacy screen.  I would have loved to have seen the builders faces when they returned to find the room setup again.

I have a EMF meter and it was in my pocket.  Somehow I got separated from the people I was with and ended up walking the second floor on my own, as I was walking along the EMF was going wild.  However, I like to find a reasonable explanation so I’m thinking there was probably still an electric current running through the building. Yes it was eerie in there especially on my own but the feeling was probably heightened by the adrenaline of being in there and the fact I had lost the people I was with.

One of the rooms was completely burned out, when I was researching the history of the hospital I came across an article about a patient having shut themselves in a bathroom and setting fire to it.

The hall was still intact and there was a few remnants around in other rooms like an old record player, some patient documents in a folder, old newspapers etc.  when I was in what was possibly the old chapel that was undergoing renovation i looked up and saw a cat looking through the window at me. Not sure how he had got up there but he ran off when I said hello.

I eventually found the others and we spent around four hours exploring here, almost stumbling into the area where security were sat.  We made our way out the same way we entered and went off to explore elsewhere.  Months later we tried it again but it seemed security had grown wise to people exploring here and they were quick to appear as we entered the grounds so we couldn’t even attempt it.

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