A saucerful of secrets and more await you every time you step out your front door.

From abandoned buildings to ghost adverts, we are surrounded by the past. A some of us enjoy seeking out and exploring that past.

Trying to explain why you are obsessed with urbex to someone who doesn't quite get it can be difficult. Some urbexers do it for the thrill, some of their thrills are extreme. Cranes for example. Some do it for the beauty of the place of interest. Whatever our reasons for loving it 'outsiders' to the hobby think we are all crazy and they don't quite get it and it's quite hard sometimes to get them to accept it's what we do, just like they might enjoy cross-stitch or gardening.

Why do I do it?...let me try and explain.....

Many years ago I lived in a town called Purley and down the road on a hilltop in Coulsdon stands what looks like a castle. I always wondered what this was but never investigated further and in the days before the internet and not knowing any of the locals I never found out until years later that this was the water tower of an abandoned lunatic asylum called Cane Hill.

There are many websites dedicated to Cane Hill and reading them became almost an obsession and I was determined to one day go there and tread where other explores had before me. I then started reading about other abandoned hospitals around the country and worldwide. I was hooked.

Some people think that i'm a 'bit odd' or others think it's the creepy aspect of the places that does it for me as I do love a good ghost story or horror film. It's not, for me it's the atmosphere, the architecture, the history (finding out what went on in these places, why people were admitted there), the feeling of abandonnment (most of these places look like someone decided one day that everyone must leave and they did just that without packing and moving items like you would if you moved house. Patient records and belongings still on site, hospital equipment still on site). The wondering of what went on in these places, imagining yourself there and how busy the place must have been, the dereliction and how nature has taken over. And then they move the bulldozers in and make way for new housing estates or shops and then its all but gone. A piece of history obliterated in a matter of months.

And when you're a nosy bugger like myself, then its right up your street.

But I don't do just hospitals, I am very interested in history (believe it or not as I couldn't give a shit when I was at school) and I will poke my nose into anything (heritage sites, churches, graveyards, you name it and i'll poke my nose in), I even involve my two kids where i can, a walk in a park among some ruins is great for fresh air and exercise and as they grow older they may appreciate history a lot more than I did when I was at school.

And since joining an urbex web forum i've discovered a lot more places of interest.

So that is why I love it.