St. georges asylum, Morpeth. feb 09

went here on the same day as St. Marys in stannington as its in the area, originally called Northumberland County Asylum, it was built in 1859 to house 200 patients costing £58,000 to build. it closed down in 1995. and getting in was proving to be a problem as its well boarded up! and i mean almost every window! but persistence paid off! when you first get in you notice the damp smell straight away, for those who have been its the same as st. joes in preston, and in places on the bottom corridor the wood floor has buckled up to 1 foot up! not the best explore ever but glad i got in, here some of the pics:-

found this pic of the plane in a museum in newcastle before i went, took the pic for reference.

lecture room

corridor pic, showing some of the floor buckling

this was the only place i found drawings on the walls, they were nuts, all the way to the top of the stairs!

the main hall, this was in a lot better condition then St. Marys! you could walk on the floor!

roof shot, you can see the water tower in the back ground

finding this made me smile, done by explorers who had visited before, ive been told its something for the security guards back when the place had them that is!

St. marys asylum, stannington. feb 09

well it was about time i updated the blog! so here we go, went to St. Marys asylum in stannington near newcastle. Originally named Gateshead Borough Asylum, it opened in 1914 and closed in 1995. there was dog walkers about but they was friendly enough, they know what i was going to be doing as i was carrying my tripod and had no dog! its bare inside but not really damaged as its miles from anything this place there was only a few house's near by. it was very much like whittingham asylum in preston but it was ALL natural decay, no vandals! here's the pics



first place i stumbled across was the morgue, found totally by accident! not often you find slabs undamaged!

this one is of the laundry so im told! just looks like a big store!

the main hall was very grand, but the floor was rotten as ive ever seen, there was a few places that looked like people had found this out for themselves! i decided to give this one a miss!

i like this pic as for some reason the chair only has 3 legs left on it!

yes its a HDR, was trying to show the state of the place with the building outside!

finally found the chapel was stripped to nowt, but there was the remains of an organ in there as you can see below!

and finally these two pics had to be done! :)

arla foods, bamber bridge. jan 09

forgot to post this when i did it, only remembered the other day! so here we go! firstly the externals where done last september when i didnt get in but went back at start of january and got inside! arla foods shut in bamber bridge 4 years ago, as far as i know im the first explorer in there, its got security on site and cameras in and out! so had to take it slow! did most of it but ran out of time! as i expected it was almost bare inside but glad i did it in the end as i did live around the corner from it for a while! and its somewhere i wanted to see!

abit about the company:-Arla Foods is a cooperative based in Århus, Denmark, and the largest producer of dairy products in Scandinavia. Arla was formed as the result of a merger between the Swedish dairy cooperative Arla and the Danish dairy company MD Foods. Arla Foods is owned by approximately 10,600 milk producers in Denmark and Sweden. The name Arla derives from the same word as the English word "early" and is an archaic Swedish term for "early (in the morning). Arla was the name of a local Swedish dairy industry in the end of the 19th century which was one of the founders of modern Arla Foods.


these outside shots where done around the back as security are around the front!

thi one of the switch room was in total darkness, had to reflect the light of a pannel cover on the otherside of the room and it took about 6 go's before i was happy with it!

this is my first pic of the inside that i took, very empty but worth getting in.

this was the only machine left inside the lab!

one of the docking bays

the only spare part left inside the maintenance workshop, a plastic fan.

this door way is great! it leads from one chiller to another, dont have a clue why its that shape but i like it!

there was plenty of holes in walls with cameras on the other side of them so it took some time getting around them but overall i think it was worth it.

Weston POW camp, jan 09

had a bit of a mini meet here some time in january, its only a small site,but worth the time to have a look around. In WW2, Weston POW camp was a camp for ‘trusted’ prisoners of war. It was later used to house Polish refugees. It is currently scheduled for demolition for the building of a road.

first pic is in one of the blocks if you could call them that! it stil got all original fetures intact.

of one of the buildings, this one was a bit different in the chimney it had a water tank at the top

one of the overgrown buildings done in black and white.

a few arty ones looking through the windows from inside one of the overgrown buildings.

st joes, wigan 31st december

went along on the hope of meeting the caretaker, but after a while we decided he had more sense and stayed at hope! lol it was a cold morning and very foggy, but here are a couple of pics from outside!


looking from the lake to the main entrance, the next 2 are of a fency next to the lake!

Bunker drain, Warrington

Went along with Over with a few other sites in mind in the area, but i was glad we did this one first as it was alot warmer in here then it was on the surface! was my first time seeing the Bunker and its massive, you also don't get a feel of how deep you are till half way through when you are 40ft below a manhole in one chamber! its also full of frogs and eel's at the start! here some of my shots anyway!

this was the first part you see, through them windows as they could be called is the river.

Over and that hat!

one of the many seamingly endless pipes!

this was the chamber when you find out how deep you are! this chamber has 3 levels before you get to the manhole

and finaly one of the residents in bunker!