That morning I got some rather good information through various phone calls that I wont post here just incase, though i'm sure security have better things to do than read my blog, let's just say I know how to get permission to be there providing its external only.
So using this information we head off and bear this in mind should security be an arse. No need for worries, absolutely no sign of him so I drive into the grounds and park up right down the back and approach the little villas where I found the piano the last time. A brief look around but concentrating more on the main hospital we head off round the back further, Peg rolls in deer poo, and soon find a trampled chainlink fence. Not very secure I think you'll agree...what else could we do but go over.
Did find this great mug outside one of the villas
We are now in 'no mans land', I immediately go into panic mode thinking we are being watched, about to be sprung, but my companion has no fear and assured me that we were ok if we are trespassing as it is a civil offence and therefore not arrestable. And anyway 'Urbex Peg' will alert to anyone approching. My heart is absolutely racing, i'm convinced MC Hammer can hear it from wherever he was.
How wonderful, to be where we shouldn't really be and get the opportunity to have a poke around.
Most pics are taken through holes in windows as the place is securely boarded up/inaccesible (I would love to know how people do get in here without the use of tools) but what an absolute treasure trove of decay and abandonment.
'Shit your pants' #1 moment involved my companion getting a text message. Her ringtone for texts is the ruddy Tardis. When you are sneaking about, being quiet as you can you don't expect to hear the ruddy Tardis noise.
I could post all the pics as it was such a fab visit but as always there's a link at the bottom of this for the full days pics.
My fave photo though is this one, taken through a hole in a window of what would have been some single cells off of a dayroom. I love how nature has totally overtaken the place.
We come accross a building, called Nightingale House, I haven't a clue what it was used for but i'm guessing some kind of staff quarters by the fact there were many bedrooms and communal shower (still intact and not smashed to fuck which is unusual). The door was open so it would have been rude not to go in. Then I start panicing about spongey floors. Help i'm tuning into my mother, panicing about every silly little thing.
A concrete, therefore safe, staircase took us to the 1st floor where all the little bedrooms and shower room were
All was going well until 'shit your pants' #2 occurs, in the middle of the 1st floor was a door, as my companion approached it she heard a voice. You have never in your life seen 2 people leg it so quickly, followed by a small dog who never made a sound the whole time we were there. If I had taken my dog he would have alerted the whole of Epsom that we were there because he is an arse with an incessant bark.
We recover from the underwear browning moment and carry on with our explore. All the time wondering when MC Hammer will make an appearance and put and end to our escapade. Afterall he pounced me previously when I had only been there about half an hour if that.
What I would give to tread this corridor, it takes you places that explorers dream on. Sadly the only way in we can find is through a large broken pane of jagged glass. Having had an argument in the past with glass and the possibility of losing me leg if it wasn't for sheer luck, we decline, which is a shame. Any other way in there and I would have been off like a rat up a drainpipe. Which confuses me somewhat as rats tend to go underground and not up.
We forrage around through the undergrowth, poking our noses in anywhere we can, such an extensive hospital and here we are alone without the keys to the loony bin. There is a padded cell somewhere (I now know of the location of sorts) but the pikeys have had it away on their toes with the door. As you do. Theiving twats.
'Shit your pants' #3 came in the way of a deer poking it's head out from a bush. If you've never been there and do go please note there are wild deer all over the place. Security deer?
We then come accross the main hall, close but still no cigar, the closest I have ever been to it and still cant actually find and stand in what remains of it.
I am wondering where the fuck MC Hammer must be. We were being very quiet but he had urbex radar when I went on my own yet this time we just waltz striaght on in, poke around, enter one building because it was easy and absolutelty no sign or noise to give him away.
The wonderment of the buildings, how huge the place was and imaging how big it must have been when in use. And the decay of the place is absolutely stunning.
We sort of get lost and keep ending up in the same place so choose to take the pathway of overgrown trees and bushes and stop for a spot of lunch at an airing court, probably how the inmates did in their time, though I doubt they ate Tesco sausage rolls and cheese and onion sarnies. Wonder if the food was as shit as when I had a recent stay in St Helier Hospital.
We near the road that runs round where Admin is located and I fully expect, as we are the wrong side of the fence, that we will have to find a fence to climb and cut ourselves to ribbons on or have to go back the way we came but we find a very small gate, like a garden gate, fully open and through we go to the perimeter road. What is going on here? They want to keep you out yet it seems the place has been left accessible for some kind of open day.
A brisk walk around the part where Admin is
as this is where I got bust the last time. I put me camera away so we just look like dog walkers and not urbexers, just incase we are pounced upon by the happy hammer weilding security guard.
Abolsutely no sign, very strange. His hut was open as we came in so he must have been there. Maybe we were just lucky or he was busying himself with hammer porn. Take the route down past the Chapel (not the original, the original was destroyed at some point), I took this pic of the inside via the lovely iron gate and the blacked out windows, had to play with the contrast etc just to show what was in there
The Chapel door
and then took the walk I took in my 1st visit. Discover a few more open doors to somewhere...one to the courtyard by the water tower but was put off entering by a brand new motor parked in there although no signs of life and one open door that just has a sheer drop
but this will be remembered for next time as may well be a way in somewhere. Rely heavy on windows and their boards offering gaps for photos to be taken.
A workshop through a knothole
We nip into the bit just off to the right of where we were, I believe this may have been the female epileptic building. Pics are on my 1st visit. And we encounter 'shit your pants' #4, a strange ross between a wail and a scream. I think its her, she thinks it's me. There is no wind so it can't be that through the roof of the building. It sounded sort of like some disabled owl. The only explanation I can come up with is possibly the squirrels nesting in the roof space but at the other end of where the noise came from. We decide to leave because it's freaking us out and don't wanna go home with crusty cacks.
Back at the villas no change of getting to see the piano as the door wont open and the curtains are closed. Bugger, I wanted to see if it still worked. We did find an abundance of white goods though and commodes and them trolley things they bring your hospital shit on a plate, sorry food, round on. And a drinks machine.
HOORAH!!!! I 'did' West Park, albiet external, but I did it without being once approached by MC Hammer. Even when we left he was no where to be seen. Maybe some kind urbexer had tied him to his chair in his hut or something? His car was there.
Who cares, he wasn't around to annoy us and for that I am thankful. We had a couple of hours left before I had to go pick the kids up so headed to Atkinson Morleys as my companions mum worked there but we didn't find anything different to my previous visit (see below), very tight security fencing, no way in and the way in the have a nose at the old files and brain slides ruined by a collapsing roof when we gave the door a shove.
(pics of the day - possibly repeated once or twice as photobucket was being an arse - http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v89/AnthillMob/West%20Park%20180609/ )
