Sunday 27 December 2015

BuckLand Hospital Dover!

Firstly the site is huge even though much has been demolished the buildings that remain cover a fair old amount of land!

History ever so blatantly stolen from a local newspaper website..

What became the hospital building was first a union workhouse, called Buckland Bottom in Union Road (now renamed Coombe Valley Road).
It opened in September 1836, and offered up to 500 people in poverty accommodation and employment opportunities.
An entrance block on the north side contained a boardroom and the master’s quarters.
There were narrow structures around the central courtyard which contained the inmates’ rooms.
A children’s block was later created to the west of the workhouse and is believed to be the first part of what is now the hospital.
The first medical building was added and joined by a new infirmary block in 1884.
By 1901, more extensions were built, including residential homes for nurses.
The main workhouse building was refurbished after the First World War, but no longer exists 
Throughout the Second World War the newer buildings were used as casualty wards, which it is believed had about 110 beds with access to underground bunkers.
It officially became a hospital in 1948 after the introduction of the National Health Service (NHS) in July that year.
A few pictures of the buildings explored,there are dozens of very similar large emtpy rooms ,a chapel and many treatment rooms with receptions .The morgue is long gone but much of the original equipment lays dotted around the place.

Visited with Obscurity....












 

Saturday 29 August 2015

HMS Fervent

This is one of those locations that i had read about even before i got into this exploring lark and this was around 2008  and news was it was open for a while and obviously then sealed and covered over like it was never there.
So after many years  the site this was sat on which was the former Merrie England/Pleasurama site,was under redevelopment which came to a standstill over local politics and failed plans,the sites laid empty and lacking in any work for years ,then a new firm took over and during their groundworks this place popped open,kindly advertised on facebook by some local fervent group who insisted on plastering pics of it open then allegedly sealed and lost,all to gain public interest in "saving it" ,total clusterfuck as all it did was highlight it to the many local facebook groups and explorer types ,in short every man and his dog with a torch and a mobile phone was on the case.
This place was hit by the many tourbuses and it was hit harder than a brothel on a friday night.Suffice to say we managed to get in and out shortly after the place popped open and then revisted a few days later as the local lads had started to filter in,by the end of the week this place had been well and truly trampled underfoot as well the contractors knew so not surprising it got sealed up ,not like a facebook group trying to save it helped it's cause one little bit..But hey ho such is facebook..Anyhoo i digress,my point is this may not be epic but it's local and as like everyother place local as soon as the tourbus starts rolling it isnt long before stupidly large groups of people visit and in the end it becomes a joke..!!

Some history:
“HMS Fervent was commissioned as a shore base on 10 October 1939, with, according to naval custom, a small motor boat as its ‘name ship’. The large amusement building, Merrie England, was recquisitioned for the accommodation of ratings and stores. Army-type huts were erected in the grounds for office and administrative accommodation. It was not long before the tunnels under the cliffs had been utilised as protection from the air raids and for the base ammunition magazine...”

It is fairly obvious that this network pre existed WW2 and at some point modified for use as a shelter and then for Naval use.The passage leading up the old chalk steps was only about 5 foot high and not very wide so i can't see how this would have been easy to use transporting shells up to the promenade where two very large guns where situated,but the specifics im just not sure on...

Thanks to a Mate for the early Tip off about this



















Friday 5 June 2015

The Guildford Shaft

The 214 step spiral staircase was cut to connect it with the castle.

It was used again during both world wars; four-hundred-years after it was first built.


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Thursday 28 May 2015

Flo Selecta!!

History blatantly robbed from a quote form Paul powers post on this from a few years back !


Last explore of Full day 1 this was i think and we met up with a couple of Friends from forum and facebook alike to say hi..then off we squeezed and climbed into the In-fall which apart from the nice junction really is all to be seen,didnt fancy the 2km walk to the outfall so was just a flying visit,and you will be glad to hear my last report from this trip







Megatron Sheffield May 2015

Megatron is a massive storm drain ( if its nto a storm drain my bad but it's been reported on as such) and a culverted section of the river sheaf just before it joins the river Don in the city centre.This was top of my list and first location visited after a nights kip at pauls.

Upon entering after a quip hop of a fence and down into the main drag i was i have to admit not disappointed by what greeted me.quick wlk upstreak for a few shots which may have come out better if it was dark but hey ho..then off we went downstream past varying sections of different construction types,there are many deeper holes to navigate around so as much as staring up and around at my surroundings i paid attention to where i put my feet as we trundled down sloped past arches and into some pretty cool massive spaces..

Thanks again to paul for his guidance as i managed to stay up right and not go over once in here which he took great pleasure in telling me that others has done :thumb

Pics...In some form of order i think..














T10 2019

 A location once very sought after, only a few had used their5 brains rather than force to get in here, it used to be very secure.. Then alo...